You’re standing at the checkout line, watching the register tally up your groceries, when something catches your eye. That cereal you grabbed because it was on sale just rang up at full price. You mention it to the cashier, who calls for a price check, and sure enough—the sale ended three days ago. The tag is still on the shelf, though. Turns out, this isn’t just happening to you. A massive investigation found that grocery stores across the country are charging customers full price for hundreds of items that still have sale tags on the shelves.
Sale tags that never got taken down
The biggest problem isn’t that sales end—that’s normal. The issue is that stores aren’t removing the old sale tags from their shelves. When Consumer Reports sent shoppers to 26 Kroger-owned stores across 14 states, they found expired sale labels on more than 150 different products. We’re talking about everything from Cheerios and Nescafé instant coffee to beef, salmon, and even dog food. One shopper in Bothell, Washington, was overcharged for 11 items in a single trip because the sale tags were still up even though the promotions had ended days or weeks earlier.
Some of these tags had been sitting there way longer than you’d think. About one-third of the expired sales tags were out of date by at least 10 days, and five products had tags that were expired by more than 90 days—that’s three full months! The average overcharge was $1.70 per item, which might not sound like much until you realize that’s an 18.4 percent markup over what the sale price should have been. If you’re buying multiple items with expired tags, those extra dollars add up fast, especially when grocery prices have already jumped nearly 30 percent over the past five years.
The stores say they’re understaffed
So why is this happening? Store managers and employees keep pointing to the same issue: they don’t have enough workers to keep up with all the price changes. A Seattle-area grocery store manager told investigators that pricing errors at her store happened because staffing shortages made it nearly impossible to keep thousands of constantly changing shelf tags accurate and up to date. When you think about how many products a typical grocery store carries and how often prices change, it starts to make sense why things slip through the cracks—but that doesn’t make it okay.
Joy Alexander, who works at a Kroger-owned King Soopers store, explained how frustrating this is for customers. She mentioned that many shoppers are older folks on fixed incomes who aren’t going to double-check every price at checkout. They see an item marked at $2.50, put it in their cart, and don’t realize they actually paid $3.75 for it until they get home and look at the receipt—if they look at all. The union representing Fred Meyer workers noted that after the investigation went public, Kroger finally added staff and pulled workers from other departments specifically to check the accuracy of sales price tags.
Meat, medicine and everyday essentials
The types of products affected by these pricing errors aren’t just random items—they’re things you buy regularly. Shoppers found expired sale tags on boneless beef, salmon, chicken, and other meats. Cold and flu medications like Mucinex were ringing up higher than their shelf tags indicated. Breakfast staples like Cheerios cereal, juice, rice, and instant coffee all showed up on the list. Even pet supplies like dog food had outdated sale prices displayed. These are the basics that most families need every week, not luxury items you can easily skip.
What makes this particularly tough is that people often choose specific brands or products precisely because they’re on sale. You might pick up that particular brand of coffee instead of your usual one because it’s two dollars cheaper this week. Or you decide to stock up on cough medicine because it’s marked down. When you get home and check your receipt, you realize you didn’t get the deal you thought you were getting. At a time when families are already stretching their grocery budgets as far as they can, paying extra for items you thought were discounted feels like getting cheated.
You’re legally entitled to the shelf price
Here’s something most people don’t know: in many states, including Washington, customers are legally entitled to the price that’s marked on the shelf, even if that sale has expired. State law says that retailers have to charge you the posted price, period. If there’s a difference between what the tag says and what you’re charged at checkout, the store is violating the law—even if they claim it was an accident or blame it on being short-staffed. This isn’t just a suggestion or good customer service; it’s actually required by law.
Tad O’Neill, who works as an assistant Attorney General in Washington’s Consumer Protection Division, confirmed that retailers who don’t charge the posted prices are breaking state law. His office has an informal complaint resolution service that helps customers who’ve been overcharged get their money back. If you’ve been charged more than the shelf price showed, you can file a complaint through email, scanned documents, or by visiting their office in downtown Seattle. Consumer advocate Edgar Dworsky, who helped create the first grocery pricing protection law in Massachusetts nearly 40 years ago, put it simply: people should pay the price that’s being advertised, and shoppers shouldn’t have to question whether the shelf price is actually accurate.
City inspectors are finding more violations
It’s not just customers noticing the problem—city and state inspectors have been catching stores with pricing errors at higher rates than ever before. John Megow, who manages a team of Consumer Protection Inspectors for the city of Seattle, said his crew checked price accuracy at nearly 100 grocery stores in 2024. They found a troubling trend: stores are failing inspections at much higher rates than they used to. The failure rate used to be around 4 to 5 percent, but in 2024, that jumped all the way up to 12 percent. A store fails the inspection when more than 2 percent of the items they scan ring up as overcharges.
Some of these overcharges were really significant. Megow mentioned one bottle of alcohol that rang up at $30 when the shelf price was only $10—a $20 difference on a single item. When inspectors find these violations, they warn the store and come back for more unannounced visits. If a store fails a second inspection, they’re told that a third failure could result in a citation and a $2,000 fine. Megow believes that prices are changing so fast now that workers simply can’t keep up with updating all the tags. But whether it’s intentional or just due to poor management, customers are the ones paying extra.
Other major chains have been caught too
Kroger isn’t the only grocery chain with this problem. In 2024, Albertsons paid almost $400 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it of overcharging customers at hundreds of Albertsons, Safeway, and Vons supermarkets across California. The lawsuit claimed these stores were guilty of false advertising and unfair competition because they charged more than the lowest advertised price. Even worse, some items sold by weight—like produce, meats, and baked goods—had less product in the package than what the label said, meaning customers were literally paying for food they didn’t receive.
As part of the settlement, Albertsons was required to start a price accuracy program that reimburses customers up to five dollars if they’re overcharged. Roundy’s, which is actually a subsidiary of Kroger, also got caught in its own scandal and agreed to pay $1 million over product weight and labeling violations. Investigators found over 1,200 products at Wisconsin Roundy’s stores where the actual weight was less than what customers paid for, with an average overcharge of $1.44 per item. One product was overpriced by more than seven dollars. When you’re already dealing with rising grocery costs, finding out that stores are charging extra on top of that feels like adding insult to injury.
Some stores are finally fixing the problem
After the Consumer Reports investigation went public in May 2025, some stores started making real changes. Betti Johnson, a longtime Bothell Fred Meyer customer who participated in the investigation, said she returned to several different Fred Meyer stores after the news broke and couldn’t find a single expired sales tag. She checked multiple locations and found that all the tags appeared to be completely accurate. Reporters from KIRO 7 went back to stores in Bothell, Bellevue, and Issaquah and confirmed the same thing—the pricing problems seemed to have been cleaned up almost overnight.
Kroger announced the day after the investigation was published that it would be hiring an additional 15,000 employees across the country to improve the customer experience. Several Kroger employees reported that managers directed them to systematically correct all the wrong price tags on store shelves within just a few days. Shoppers also noticed more store workers throughout the aisles, manually checking prices. The union representing grocery workers said that the investigation made a real difference in staffing levels, and their newly ratified contract includes language to fill more shifts and give workers options to pick up extra hours. When stores actually have enough people working, they can keep the price tags accurate.
What you can do to protect yourself
Until all grocery stores get their pricing problems under control, you need to watch out for yourself at checkout. The easiest thing to do is pay attention to the screen as your items are being scanned. If you grabbed something because it was on sale, watch for that specific item and make sure the sale price shows up. If it rings up higher than expected, speak up right away before you pay. It’s much easier to fix the problem on the spot than to come back later with your receipt. Take a photo of the shelf tag with your phone if you want proof of what price was displayed.
Check your receipt before you leave the store or as soon as you get to your car. Look specifically at items you bought because they were on sale and verify that you got the discount. If you find an error, go straight to customer service with your receipt and explain what happened. Most stores will refund the difference without much hassle, especially if you can show them the shelf tag is still displaying the wrong price. If the store won’t fix it, file a complaint with your state’s consumer protection office. You paid attention to those sale tags for a reason—to save money—and you deserve to actually get the savings that were advertised.
Why this matters more now than ever
Grocery prices have jumped almost 30 percent in the last five years, which means the average family is already spending significantly more on food than they used to. Every dollar matters when you’re trying to feed your family, and sale prices are one of the main ways people try to save money. When stores advertise discounts but then charge full price at the register, they’re taking advantage of people who are already struggling with high costs. Senator Ruben Gallego from Arizona sent a letter to Kroger after the investigation came out, pointing out that unexpected food price increases cause serious strain on family budgets.
This isn’t just about a dollar here or there—it’s about trust. When you can’t trust that the price on the shelf is the price you’ll actually pay, grocery shopping becomes stressful instead of straightforward. You shouldn’t have to double-check every single item or worry that you’re being overcharged. Former Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, who worked on the Albertsons case in California, said that false advertising preys on consumers who are already facing rising costs, and it unfairly disadvantages companies that follow the rules. The stores that are keeping their prices accurate shouldn’t have to compete with ones that are accidentally—or purposely—overcharging customers.
The good news is that when customers, reporters, and inspectors shine a light on these pricing problems, stores do respond. Many locations have already cleaned up their act and are keeping their price tags accurate now. Keep checking your receipts, speak up when something doesn’t look right, and remember that you’re legally entitled to the price that’s posted on the shelf. Your time and money are valuable, and you shouldn’t have to play detective every time you buy groceries.
