Kroger overcharging customers for sale items? Investigation finds how Americans are being ‘duped'
A new investigation says you and millions of others may be charged more than the price you see on the shelf at any Kroger store in the United States.
A report by Consumer Reports, in collaboration with The Guardian and the Food and Environment Reporting Network, exposed widespread pricing errors at Kroger and its affiliated stores. The investigation revealed that sale prices posted on shelves frequently don't match what's charged at the counter, and it's not a small difference.
On average, shoppers were overcharged $1.70 per sale item, which added up to about 18.4% more than the expected total. From fresh foods like beef, salmon, and vegetables, to everyday essentials like coffee, juice, cough medicine, and even dog food, price mismatches were reported across the board.
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Kroger workers in Colorado, currently in contract negotiations with the company, claimed that price tag mistakes have been a known and ongoing problem, per The Guardian report.
To dig deeper, Consumer Reports sent volunteers to check pricing at 26 Kroger-owned stores across 14 states and Washington, D.C., over the course of several months. 'Some stores have as many as 15,000 discount tags hanging at any one time,' the report noted.
Kroger has acknowledged the pricing concerns, pointing to new solutions like digital price tags that are being tested in some locations. 'The Consumer Reports allegations boil down to misinformation, reviewing a handful of discrete issues from billions of daily transactions. It in no way reflects the seriousness with which we take our transparent and affordable pricing,' a company spokesperson said.
Despite those claims, Consumer Reports said internal audits at one Kroger store found that nearly 6% of items had pricing errors, well above the company's own threshold of a 1% error rate.
Investigative reporter Derek Kravitz explained in The Gurdian piece, 'The report stems from authors checking grocery prices for errors after '… learning that Kroger workers in Colorado who are currently in labor union negotiations with the company were alleging widespread errors on price labels — a problem they say has been going on for years and that Kroger is well aware of.''
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'Our findings suggest the typical Kroger shopper ends up paying far more for what they think are discounted items — all during a time of inflation and economic uncertainty.'
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