The Federal Trade Commission and 20 states have sued Dollar General, the nation’s largest dollar store chain, for consistently overcharging customers at its more than 20,000 stores across the United States.
The suit, filed in federal court in Nashville, cites a Guardian investigation published last December.
“Dollar General has for years engaged in deceptive conduct that harms the very consumers it claims to serve,” the 95-page legal complaint alleges.
“Although Dollar General promises convenience, low prices and value, the company routinely charges customers higher prices at checkout than the prices displayed on shelves, price tags and advertisements. This pattern of inaccurate pricing has persisted for years and affects millions of purchases across the country.”
The lawsuit says the extent of the retail chain’s “pricing misconduct” is “staggering.”
The FTC is the federal agency charged with protecting consumers from deceptive, unfair, and anticompetitive business practices. State authorities from Mississippi to Ohio, Nebraska to Utah have joined the case as plaintiffs.
Dollar General did not respond to questions for this story, but previously said it is “committed to providing customers with accurate pricing on items purchased in our stores.”
The FTC’s allegations are consistent with the December 2025 Guardian investigation, which found that Dollar General stores failed more than 4,300 government price accuracy inspections in 23 states over a three-year period. This article “was the subject of significant internal deliberations and discussions” within the company, the lawsuit states.
The agency noted in the lawsuit that Dollar General had policies in place that were supposed to align recorded prices with shelf prices. For example, he asks employees to remove and replace outdated labels on certain days of the week. Workers told the Guardian that due to staff shortages, they are often too busy to change these labels.
“Dollar General’s paper policies to update prices do little in practice,” the lawsuit says, because “they make it unclear whether the printed labels are actually affixed to the shelves.”
The FTC cited a Guardian interview with a senior salesman in Louisiana who said, “I would sometimes throw away labels, to keep myself or a co-worker out of trouble.” »
Dollar General told the Guardian in 2025 that it was “disappointed” each time it failed to meet its commitment to accurate selling prices. In Ohio court papers, Dollar General’s lawyers argued that “it is virtually impossible for a retailer to match shelf prices and scanned prices 100 percent of the time for all items. Perfection in this regard is neither plausible nor expected under the law.”
In a statement accompanying the FTC lawsuit, the federal agency noted that Dollar General presented itself as a low-cost alternative to other retailers and that low- and fixed-income customers relied on the accuracy of its price tags.
“Dollar General betrayed the trust of millions of American consumers and imposed significant financial harm on communities and consumers already struggling to make paychecks last,” said Christopher Mufarrige, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
In a separate case, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced earlier this month that Dollar General had agreed to a $1.875 million settlement to settle allegations that it repeatedly overcharged customers across the state.
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