Suit that cites 2025 Guardian investigation alleges ‘pattern of inaccurate pricing’ that ‘affects millions of purchases’
The Federal Trade Commission and 20 states have sued Dollar General, the nation’s largest dollar-store chain, for persistently overcharging customers at its more than 20,000 stores across the United States.
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Nashville, cites a Guardian investigation published last December.
“Dollar General has for years engaged in deceptive conduct that harms the very consumers it claims to serve,” said the 95-page legal complaint.
In at least one case I noticed that the prices on their app were lower than the ones in the store itself.
In any case, dollar stores do not save consumers money in most cases. They just sell smaller-sized products at higher markups per serving.
Also, notably, Dollar General and Family Dollar are not dollar stores, which are in many ways even worse. Dollar General is a supposed “discount grocery” store, if you will, although it’s more like just shittier products and per-unit prices.
Although I suppose the term is probably soon meaningless, as actual “dollar stores” are disappearing as the dollar gets you so little that they just can’t anymore. But even if they become like “five dollar stores”, the difference is that nothing in the store exceeds a certain price, whereas Dollar General has items costing many dollars. heh
Not making a big deal, mind. (just like those stores are not a good deal! tee hee hee)
they haven’t been that for years… decades even. being the only and overpriced grocery option in a town or neighborhood is why they exist. and why they haven’t had even a single unprofitable quarter in over a decade (the site i used goes back ~14 years, there were none. zero quarters of negative net income)
Five dollar stores don’t even stick to five dollars anyone.
Soon we’ll be calling them the ‘five and ten’, which is what they used to be called. Except back then they were talking about cents.
It’s sadly the only store a lot of communities have.
shrinkflation, alot of big box stores are doing it too.