Yost announced lawsuits against Tennessee-based Dollar General and Virginia-based Family Dollar over the pricing discrepancies in November 2022. The Dollar General lawsuit was filed after the Butler County auditor’s office investigated 20 Dollar General stores countywide and found prices on store shelves were lower than at the registers. It is an $800,000-plus lawsuit.
The attorney general’s office reported from March 2021 to August 2022, it received 12 complaints detailing similar “unfair and deceptive practices” by Dollar General stores in Cuyahoga, Franklin, Highland, Lucas, Madison, Richland, Summit and Trumbull counties.
In Butler County, the auditor’s price verification checks at Dollar General stores showed double-digit error rates up to 88%. A store is allowed only a plus or minus 2% error rate.
Audits in Montgomery County found that 26 of 32 Dollar General stores and 15 of 23 Family Dollar stores charged a different price at the register to that advertised on shelves.
Overall, the county auditor’s office said that Dollar General failed tests 69% of the time, and Family Dollar stores failed 43% of the time. The Ohio Department of Agriculture, which regulates pricing statewide, allows stores to have an error rate of up to 2% on overcharges.
“We’re looking not just for reimbursement, but we want a court order to make them stop doing this and to put adequate controls in place so that the price you see on the shelf is the price that they charge at the register,” Yost said. “I’m optimistic that we’ve got a good case and we’re going to get justice.”
Montgomery County Auditor Karl Keith pointed to understaffed stores and undertrained workers as possible contributing factors for the pricing problems, but added that it wasn’t an excuse.
“These stores are required to do right by their customers and if they advertise one price on the shelf that’s the price they should charge at the checkout,” he said.
Staff Writer Denise Callahan contributed to this report.
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