Dollar General is Ripping People Off

[sunny225]

[joebill]

Who would not just go back and remove the price tag? Seems like some folks are too timid to live if they keep going back for more.....Joe

[wildhorseluvr]

I’ve bought very little at Dollar General as I think their prices suck to begin with. Cards are one of the only things that are a halfway decent price. When I have shopped there I haven’t paid much attention to the total, but the last time I went in, I’d kept a running total in my head and when I checked out the price was definitely higher than what I’d come up with. I was in a hurry so didn’t check it out at the time but now I wonder. 

Next time I shop there, I’ll use my phone to photograph the price tag of every item I buy, then it’ll be easy to compare to the receipt later…and the pictures will be dated. 

Lately I’ve been trying to make a price book on frequently purchased grocery items, mostly so I can see how fast prices are increasing. Instead of writing down prices or trying to decipher tiny print on faded receipts, I now just snap pictures of items with their price. Later on I write the item, price and date down and delete the photos. Works great.

[rybach]

Even the correct prices are a ripoff in those stores.

[joebill]

Also, the package sizes are often smaller than standard to make the prices look better, but, again, the customers could put an end to that overpricing on items in about a week.

Walk in, puick out a few items, making note of the prices. If the register rings them in at a higher price, slide them off of the counter onto the floor, tell them why and walk out.

Next person up, same story. Generally only one person works there, so pretty soon stuff is piled around the register. The customers are not stealing, so no problem....next day, same as the first, a little more chaos and a little bit worse.

Begin a campaign on social media asking others to do the same......Joe

[Txsteader]

I would only buy a few items when I did go there so I was able to watch the prices a little closer as they're rung. And I'd say over half the time, I'd have to challenge the price on the register. It was usually the sale items but I've had to argue about things on the $1 aisle too. Those items will ring at regular price and the excuse would be that it was put there by mistake. But it's an entire display so I know it wasn't a mistake.

DH used to buy their sodas when they were on sale but it got to where they never had any in stock. Same with their chips. It's because of those almost constant hassles that we don't shop there very often anymore.

[Ozarks Tom]

There's a Dollar General in the little one-stoplight town North of us a ways that I don't know how it stays in business. I can't count the times I've driven past on the way to town and only seen one car in the parking lot. Maybe they're busier at times I don't go by, but doggone, just one lonely employee in the whole store?

[wildhorseluvr]

I needed a card today so stopped by Dollar General after PT. Found a card…50 cents, and on the way to the register grabbed another 50 cent item. Cashier scans the items and tells me its $3 something. What? How can a couple of 50 cents items total over $3? She said that wasn’t a 50 cent item. I told her I took it off the other side of the shelf behind me…there was a whole line of those items on the shelf with 50 cent price tags in front of each row. She just shrugged and said that wasn’t the price. I told her to put it back as I wasn’t paying 5x what the price was supposed to be. There’s no way they accidentally put all those items in the wrong place on the shelf.
Now I wonder how many times I’ve been ripped off there. ☹️

[laurazone5]

The 'dollar stores' have always preyed on the poor.
Their business model relies on 'poor, under / uneducated folks"
99% of their stock is cheap Chinese BS that quickly breaks, so folks can say "meh it was a dollar, I will just get another one"
Meanwhile all that ends up in a landfill........poisoning our soil and water.

[wildhorseluvr]

Apr 18, 2024 13:53:48 GMT laurazone5 said:

The 'dollar stores' have always preyed on the poor.
Their business model relies on 'poor, under / uneducated folks"
99% of their stock is cheap Chinese BS that quickly breaks, so folks can say "meh it was a dollar, I will just get another one"
Meanwhile all that ends up in a landfill........poisoning our soil and water.

I agree for the most part. So often it is mothers pacifying their kids with a cheap toy that breaks before they get home.

My favorite purchase at dollar stores is cards. I regularly send cards to family but cannot bring myself to purchase a card for $5 to $8. 😱 But .50-$1 I will do. Once in awhile I need a small amount of a cleaner or something, or perhaps some drawer dividers. I’ll pay $1 but not $5 or more. I also have numerous notebooks for various uses and can buy office supplies cheaply there. That applies mostly to the Dollar Tree as the other dollar stores prices are as high or higher than regular stores.

I did look at prices on a few other items yesterday…storage containers, various baskets (for storage), flower pots, etc. All cheap quality China junk, and prices ran from $3-$5 for the smallest items up to $12-16 for the various baskets or planters. Coffee cups from China were at least $4. While I do occasionally buy specific items at Dollar Tree, I can’t understand the attraction for the other stores. The quality may be cheap but the prices sure aren’t. Jut feeding a shopping addiction.

[joebill]

I like the idea of going back and changing the price tag to reflect the price actually charged ....Joe

[wildhorseluvr]

I was kinda in a hurry the other day but should have taken a photo of the whole shelf of items with the 50 cent price tags and showed it to the cashier. I really don’t blame her as they are worked to death but an email to the company with the item and price tag and receipt would be appropriate. Maybe a copy to the attorney general, especially if a person could get proof of numerous instances of price switching, would be interesting.

One time when my kids were very young, Sears ran some ads which included a set of Winnie the Pooh Christmas ornaments. Since I happen to be a Winnie the Pooh fan 😁 I purchased the set. It rang up at about 3x the sale price. I objected but got nowhere with the cashier. Finally went to the store manager who told me the items weren’t for sale at that price, it was some other cheap set…not even Winnie the Pooh. I whipped out the sales flyer which showed photos of that particular set in the ads…and also mentioned the regional manager was a close family friend and I would take it up with her if I didn’t get the set at the advertised price. I got them at the sale price but the store manager was really nasty about it.

[joebill]

Sears in Tucson was a nasty pile of crap and misleading ads all through the 70's. On the week that Asarco was hiring mechanics they ran an ad for a small roll around tool box for a couple of hundred or so, but all of the guys who rushed in to buy that required piece of equipment were told they were sold out. I was the only guy who demanded to know how many they had when the ad ran, and finally i started to get loud. They finally admitted they only had one, but had about 20 of the higher priced ones to sell the guys who had a sears card and little choice but to buy the radically overpriced one.

Later, I built a metal cutting band saw for cutting out knife profiles, and sears had a blade that worked well, so I built it to accept those blades....cost around $10 per eachum. Next time I needed blades, went in and picked one up, but overnight it had gone to $20. I had orders to fill and no choice in the matter so I flopped it down on the counter and the gal told me she could give me half off on the blade if I filled out a sears credit card application.

At that point, I began buying blade in rolls and brazing it myself. BIG companies seem to get the idea after a while that they OWN their customers and can do anything to them that they want without risk of losing them, and sears was no exception. Back in the day there was NO REASON for a man opening his own shop to buy his equipment anyplace but that sears and roebuck catalog, but in a single generation they pissed away 100 years of reputation.

Last thing we ever bought from their store was a bathroom scale, just because we were nearby and needed a new one. Took it out of the box at home and it did not work, and we noticed the box had been opened. Somebody had written in tiny pencil letters on the box "used...does not work" and then put it on the display for sale.

RIP sears and roebuck.......Joe