‘Secret shoppers’ at King Soopers, other Kroger stores say overcharging is common

Shopping trips to King Soopers and City Domain stores in Colorado and other Kroger-owned supermarkets in other states turned up what the shoppers say were widespread discrepancies between the price on the shelves and what got rung up As a aftermath the customers spent more for groceries than they expected at a time when prices for the majority items remain high and tariff increases have stoked fears of inflation heating up again Walmart the nation s largest grocer warned Thursday that higher tariffs on imports will raise prices Members of the union negotiating a new contract with King Soopers shopped at stores across Colorado over four days in March The total tab paid for by the United Food and Commercial Workers Local was Based on the price tags on the shelves the bill should have been or nearly less revealed Kristi Bush the union s associate general counsel and one of the shoppers The UFCW s secret shopper excursions coincided with ones made by The Guardian newspaper Consumer Reports and the Food Habitat Reporting Infrastructure in Kroger-owned stores in states and the District of Columbia March April and May The media outlets commented there was a pattern of overcharging by listing expired sale prices on the shelves and scanning the regular prices at the checkout The tests by the media partners detected more than items with expired tags leading to average overcharges of about per item over the discount price listed on the shelves Our findings suggest the typical Kroger shopper ends up paying far more for what they think are discounted items all during a time of inflation and economic uncertainty Consumer Reports commented The union that represents King Soopers and City Sphere employees in Colorado has made the discrepancies an issue in contract negotiations that started late last year The union noted the stores are understaffed and changing out tags on the shelves is one of the duties that has suffered as a upshot The tags are out of date and the reason they re out of date is they don t have the staff to pull the tags declared Jim Hammons UFCW retail director and a former King Soopers store manager King Soopers has cut the hours so bad that they don t have enough time to do that step in the process which is to pull the old tags The question of staffing levels is one of the issues that King Soopers and UFCW Local have tangled over during contract talks which were interrupted temporarily in February by a strike The union raised the issue while King Soopers and Albertsons which owns Safeway stores in Colorado were pursuing a merger The deal collapsed in December after judges in two separate cases rejected the merger King Soopers has disputed that its stores are understaffed The company also played down the reports of price discrepancies saying in an email Wednesday that the insists based on a limited number of isolated issues do not reflect the seriousness with which we approach transparent and affordable pricing Kim Cordova UFCW Local president declared the union has shared the information from its shopping trips with Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser in hopes that he will investigate The attorney general s office can t confirm or otherwise comment on investigations spokesman Lawrence Pacheco reported In Weiser and the Nevada attorney general reached a settlement with Walmart over the company s failure to make sure the price customers paid matched the price listed on the shelf The settlement called for Walmart to pay million to Colorado to help fund local food pantries and other food assistance programs Bush who went to King Soopers stores to check prices declared shoppers took timestamped pictures of the items on the shelves and later compared the tags on the shelves to the receipts She mentioned the point was to buy items people normally would rather than try to ferret out specific problems Related Articles King Soopers contract talks continue amid leadership changes union lawsuit Kroger blames Albertsons for merger s demise in new court filings A -day truce ends King Soopers strike renews bargaining Strike against King Soopers ends as company and union resume talks The bill for a trip to an Englewood store was Based on the prices listed on the shelves it should have cost Bush In one event she got two bottles of soap that were advertised at a special price of per bottle if she bought two But the receipt presented she paid the full price of per bottle In another episode Bush picked up a bag of chicken strips the kind that you would feed your kids The regular price was per bag or with a King Soopers loyalty card The tag listed an additional discount of per bag if the shopper bought three of the items I bought three and they charged me for each bag of chicken Bush disclosed The total should have been I paid Cordova noted the union s goal is to ensure that shoppers are not overcharged and that pricing is fair and transparent She explained one of the union s contract proposals is the formation of a pricing-integrity department We re not trying to take Kroger down We re trying to make better stores for our members to work at and for our communities to shop at Cordova revealed