cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/53855582
NEW YORK – The Federal Trade Commission has sued the bargain chain Dollar General for what it characterized as “long-running deceptive pricing practices” by charging customers more once they reach the register than the prices that are displayed on shelves and in advertisements.
Twenty states joined in the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. It said that Dollar General failed to correct the issue despite what it said was “extensive corporate knowledge of the problem.”
“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,” wrote Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
Dollar General, based in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, just outside of Nashville, did not immediately return a request for comment from The Associated Press.
Every Dollar General store I’ve ever been in has been awful. They’re chronically under staffed by design. The stores are in constant disarray. Even the new ones. If you walk into a store 6 months after it was built you’d swear it was 50 years old based on how it looks.
I have two close ones and one is as you describe but the other is somehow nice. All the shelves have been “fronted” the food, even the produce, looks good. Prices are good too and some OTC medicine I take is cheaper and more reliably in stock than the grocery store.
They sell produce at these places? 😳
In many places they are the only option in an otherwise food desert.
A food desert with a Dollar General in it is still a food desert.
Dollar General threads are where it’s clear who’s from the city and who’s not.
What’s wrong hon? You’ve barely touched your Pringles
Some do. You can tell by the sign.
Some regular dollar generals also offer very limited produce. Way less than the market stores. Seems to be the most rural ones in my experience
Didn’t know that! I’ve only seen Markets with produce and there’s only 1 I can think of around here. In any case it’s overpriced, but fair enough I guess for a small store without a dedicated produce section and staff. I something feel they added fresh produce to answer all the bitching about food desserts.
https://www.fna.usda.gov/snap/retailer/eligible
If they want to accept EBT cards, they need to be a SNAP vendor, which requires they stock some kind of produce. Gas station convenience stores in my area stock apples and bananas (among other things) to qualify.
Sometimes. The one in my hometown does.
They have some that sell very limited produce and they also have an offshoot called Dollar General Market that’s a bit bigger and has a larger selection of produce.
They have a rodent problem also, not limited to one area
https://www.google.com/search?q=dollar+general+rodent+problem&udm=14
Was just commenting that the new DG down the street is extraordinarily well run with happy employees. I’d like to take DG leadership by the neck and say, “You’re working for this manager for two months and you’re going to fucking learn whatever the hell she’s doing.”
Likely they are properly staffed.
Thought so to! But that’s a higher-level corporate decision, not down to the local manager, at least in my experience. Maybe DG incentivises local managers to be cheap on labor hours? My boss at Lowe’s had zero control over allocated hours.
I would guess so.
I’ve worked for franchise places. Number of workers was determined by higher ups. Much higher up.
Ours vary a lot but one is pretty decent. Their prices are generally better than grocery or drug stores for name-brand things like ice cream, deodorant, and shampoo.
I believe they call that innovation.
Yes, and the self-checkout was wasted money as they all sit closed for some reason, they should have known it wasn’t practical, but I still go sometimes and wait in line since only one employee.
Plus Dollar Generals may be the only option in food deserts.
They are anti-competitive and actively work to make sure they’re the only option in those areas. It’s part of their business plan.
If anything they’re filling in the gaps walmart made for them.
Walmart opens and closes all the small mom and pop grocery stores for miles, we’re talking up to an hour drive away. Everyone that can drive an hour does because it’s cheaper. So stores close in a wide radius around a new Walmart.
Now you have these poorly connected rural areas that no longer have stores. The few people that can’t drive the hour to the Walmart are pretty throughly fucked.
Usually the only thing left are gas stations. They sell a few essentials, but they are prohibitively expensive. That’s where Dollar General steps in. They still out-compete any small buisness on prices, but they are usually more than Walmart. However they are priced close enough to make the drive to a walmart less practical for those that can. For those that can’t drive that distance they become their only source of groceries
Oh for sure, and then those areas get devastated even more when the Walmarts close because they decided they don’t do enough business.
There was enough there to run everyone else out but once that’s done Walmart might just shutdown and move on leaving people in those areas in the lurch.
Don’t get out in the country much? There are DGs in places that no mom and pop could survive. Of course they’ve stomped thousands of such stores out of business, but there are plenty of DGs down here where there was nothing before.
Don’t get out in the country much?
I do. That’s how I’m familiar with Dollar General since they target a lot more rural, whereas Dollar Tree seems to go after low income irban more often.
Of course they’ve stomped thousands of such stores out of business, but there are plenty of DGs down here where there was nothing before.
And there won’t be, because they are anti-competitive and actively work to make sure that won’t happen.
Thanks for replying though, I remember your username and that I opted not to block you the last time you commented some nonsense in reply to me. Fixing that now.
Jeeze dude, they were middling rude but you really love the “I’m blocking you” line. Blocking people to ensure you get the last word doesn’t actually work, y’know? It’s the last word for you but they can still… respond, and everyone else can still see that they’re getting the last word in. It’s pretty self-defeating.
edit: lmao oh right you blocked me at one point too, nvm.
Creating an agreeable echo chamber huh? I refuse to do so as I’m not afraid of disagreement, even if I find it ridiculous.
Court-martialed. In the Dollar Military you get court-martialed.
Dollar General is probably going to get busted back to down to Dollar Colonel, or Dollar Major.
This seems serious enough to warrant a Dishonorable Dollar Discharge.
oh i got an ointment it cleared that right up
Does the cream work for dishonest, deceitful, dimwitted Presidents?
theoretically anything with large enough mass or velocity should
I guess dollar general didn’t even spend the money on necessary bribes.
This seems on brand.
Im surprised Trump hasn’t pardoned them yet.
I don’t go there because nothing costs a dollar
Aren’t all stores deceptive in the US? Cos I’ve heard they don’t add the tax to the price tag. So you don’t know the real cost straight away.
No, because it’s known that’s sales tax will be added. It’s not like it’s hard to look up what the sales tax rate is in any given locality, and if you don’t care to look it up, just assume it’ll be 10% or less. We may not like it, but it’s not deceptive. It’s deceptive when the base price is altered from the displayed price on the shelf or in published ads.
Same goes in Canada, just a different way of doing things
Yes, because that’s what’s important right now. Not like this hasn’t been a thing for 20+ years or anything… but let’s tackle this bullshit now
Nothing better to do I guess; at least nothing better to report without risking frivolous lawsuits. LAWSUITS, LAWSUITS, LAWSUITS, FOR EVERYONE
“Delay, deny, defend”. A weaponized justice system in-action
These sort of suits are how the ftc upholds rules that are already established, though? I wish they were more heavy handed but what else are you expecting them to do? This how they built legal precedent to both deter others from doing it and to bring more lawsuits forwards against other offenders.
Saw this story a few months ago and have been checking my receipts. My wife always has. We have yet to find an issue across the 3 or 4 DGs we go to. Maybe they tightened up since this story is getting traction in the public’s mind?
It’s probably an issue with certain district managers or store managers who are juicing their numbers. Retailers like that often offer bonuses based on hitting specific benchmarks for profits and such, so some managers may be padding their stats by overcharging customers.
Damn it Dollar General you were suppost to be the good guys
Oh no they aren’t. They’ve been horrible to their employees for decades now.
There’s a DG right outside my hood. You can tell how the employees are treated, but they try to be nice.
Down the street is a new DG and it’s like a different store. They never have openings and the couple of times I told employees they must have a good manager, they RAVED about her.
Managers can definitely make a lot of difference to the employees under them. Good ones will protect the employees as best they can from the larger organizational bullshit. Often at their own expense, whether mentally, career-wise, or in other ways. It’s not an easy task nor a light burden, so it’s nice to hear when there are examples out there.
Huh? Who the fuck told you that whopper?
