Dollar General Corporation will seek to resolve 662 alleged violations of Wisconsin's price accuracy laws. To this end, it entered into an agreement with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP).
There are also 53 alleged violations of the retailer's refund policy disclosure requirements.
The truth is that Dollar General does not admit to violating Wisconsin law. However, you will have to pay $850,006.11 in civil impounds, surcharges and fees.
The DATCP, in turn, conducted price reviews between January 30 and February 10, 2023. This occurred at 238 Dollar General stores in Wisconsin.
It examined 7,344 products sold by Dollar General to ensure that prices charged at checkout matched those on shelves.
This research found that 9% of the products tested were sold to customers at a markup. That is, according to DATCP, 662 of the total products reviewed had a higher price than the published one.
Therefore, the cost of these scanned products was, on average, 17% higher than the advertised price.
Likewise, DATCP Secretary Randy Romanski spoke about such a sensitive topic. “Accuracy of prices on store shelves is one of the most basic and important protections for consumers,” he noted.
It emerged that a settlement was reached in 2018 in which Dollar General paid $10,586.50 for similar alleged violations. But between that agreement and the state inspection in 2023, 89 price accuracy audits were conducted at Dollar General stores in Wisconsin.
What conclusion was reached after these inspections?
Here, DATCP concluded that 76 of those inspections did not meet the national standard for accuracy of 98% or greater. This means that 11 warning letters were sent to Dollar General during this period highlighting these issues.
Meanwhile, it was reported that Dollar General Corporation paid $850,006.11 to resolve alleged price refund signage violations. However, price precision data for 2023 is also included here.
This overall situation has led the company to make some changes to avoid future violations. For example, we may mention internal price accuracy checks at every store in Wisconsin at least every 45 days.