Dollar General stores in Butler County overcharging shoppers

If you've recently shopped at a Dollar General store in Ohio's Butler County, you may have been overcharged.

An audit inspection by the Butler County Auditor’s Office found pricing errors at all 20 stores in the county, causing shoppers to be overcharged for some items. The office received a customer complaint and began conducting price verification checks at stores on Oct. 14.

The auditor’s weights and measures department makes sure an item's shelf price matches the amount customers are charged at checkout. Stores are only allowed a 2% margin of error to meet standards. Inspectors tested items at Dollar Generals within a two-week period and said between 16.7% and 88.2% were the wrong price at checkout.

Some of the overcharges included a six-pack of Diet Coke, which, at one Oxford store, was priced on the shelf at $4, but scanned for $5.25. At a Fairfield store, Nestle Coffee Mate was $4.35 at checkout, despite having a $2 shelf price. Pricing errors were actually in customers' favor at the other Dollar General in Oxford.

Items that were discounted when a shopper buys two or more were also affected. At most stores, the discount on subsequent items was not honored at checkout, a press release stated.

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“This is a serious problem,” Butler County Auditor Roger Reynolds said in a statement. “A customer could be charged substantially more than the listed shelf price and that amounts to a form of consumer fraud. During these inflationary times, people turn to stores like these to get some bargains. Instead, in too many instances they are being overcharged.”

Tom Woods, chief of weights and measures for Hamilton County, said price errors typically happen when employees are unable to keep shelf prices updated, either due to understaffing, sales or increasing prices.