WASHINGTON — The Federal Trade Commission and 20 states sued Dollar General on Monday, alleging the discount chain routinely charged customers more at the register than the prices shown on shelves, price tags and advertisements, costing consumers millions of dollars.
The complaint alleges that for years Dollar General repeatedly mislabeled prices, overcharged consumers and failed to correct the problem despite extensive corporate knowledge of it, the FTC said. “Dollar General has betrayed the trust of millions of American consumers and imposed significant financial harm on communities and consumers who are already struggling to make their paychecks last,” said Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
According to the complaint, thousands of Dollar General stores extracted millions of dollars in unlawful overcharges with insufficient safeguards, and the company received tens of thousands of consumer complaints from across the country saying it did not honor advertised prices. Dollar General operates more than 21,000 stores nationwide.
The states in the suit are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin. Virginia is not among them.
The allegations are not court findings. Reuters reported that Dollar General’s representatives could not immediately be reached for comment on the complaint.
