29,265 Complaints Filed Over Dollar General Register Prices

Shoppers at Dollar General may pay more at the register than the price displayed on the shelf tag, according to a federal complaint filed Monday. The Federal Trade Commission and 20 states allege the chain has repeatedly charged more than the posted price on shelves, tags and advertisements. The case was brought in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.

A timeline of the allegations follows. Between Jan. 1, 2023 and March 31, 2026, Dollar General received at least 29,265 customer complaints categorized as "Did Not Honor Marked Price" from the 48 states where it operates. The company has settled seven state cases with six attorneys general and consumer protection agencies over pricing errors since 2019, paying more than $6 million. FTC investigators made undercover purchases at Dollar General stores in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri and Maryland between Jan. 16 and April 1, 2026. The complaint states that every undercover purchase resulted in a charge higher than the advertised price for multiple products. Dollar General changes prices weekly, and employees are assigned a five-hour "Compliance Tuesday" shift to swap shelf labels. The complaint alleges stores are often "too thinly staffed" to print and post new labels, and that most price changes are increases, so a shopper usually pays more when the register updates before the shelf tag does.

Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, 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." The complaint alleges the company has known about the problem for years, failed to fix it and cost customers millions of dollars. Most states treat a pricing inspection as failed when more than 2 percent of items checked are priced incorrectly, and the complaint states Dollar General routinely fails such inspections across the United States.

Dollar General responded to the lawsuit with a statement. "Our goal is 100% accuracy between shelf and register prices in every store," the company said. "As with other retailers and despite our policies and procedures, occasional price discrepancies can occur. When that happens, our store teams are instructed, empowered, and expected to make things right for the customer." The company also said the FTC had, in talks before the filing, "demanded a monetary amount that was untethered to, and orders of magnitude larger than, any realistic assessment of amounts attributable to pricing discrepancies."

The other states named in the lawsuit are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Utah and Wisconsin. The complaint cites a news article sent to Dollar General's CEO in which a former assistant manager in Illinois said: "You're lucky if you get to work two to four hours of your eight-to 13-hour shift with another human being." Dollar General operates in 48 states.