I-Team: Walgreens Shoppers 'Paying The Price'
NORTH TEXAS (CBS 11 NEWS) - You'll probably start scrutinizing your shopping receipts a little more closely after you hear what happened to the CBS 11 I-Team.
A popular retail store repeatedly overcharged us on typical household items we thought we were buying on sale. And, this is not the first time this store has been accused of misleading customers.
If you look closely at Walgreens' store shelves, you'll notice they are littered in sales signs. There are all types of signs and tags advertising marked down prices.
They are signs of savings to shoppers like Walgreens' customer Mary Rangel. "I am very conscious about it. I do have a family of five and so we have to watch every penny (we) spend," she said.
But the I-Team has learned you need to look a little closer at some of the luring labels. "That's ridiculous they are just stealing our money," says Rangel angry at our findings.
We grabbed four bottles of waters off a shelf marked with a tag that read "4 for $5.00." However, we paid $6.76 at the register.
NyQuil Severe Cold and Flu had a regular price of $10.49. But, the tag below it advertised "2 for $14.00 or $7.99 each." Our receipt showed we paid the regular price, $2.50 more than we expected.
And this happened over and over and over again! The I-Team visited seven North Texas Walgreens locations. Altogether, our receipts show we were charged more than $32 more than we expected on 25 items like cleaning supplies, dishwashing soap, pizzas, and office supplies.
Gayle Evan also shops at Walgreens. "It's going to make me look at my receipts more closely," said Evan after hearing what happened to us.
But, this is not the first time Walgreens has been accused of this. Earlier this year, a California court fined Walgreens nearly $1.5 million for not ensuring the prices on the shelf matched the prices at the register. And just last month, the Missouri Attorney General filed a lawsuit against the company for "failing to ensure the price charged is the same as the price advertised." It is also accusing the stores of failing "to remove expired sales tags" from shelves. This is the problem we continuously encountered.
One Walgreens store we shopped had more than 24 expired sales tags on one aisle. At all seven stores, we counted more than 120 expired advertised prices still hanging on the shelves days after the sale had apparently ended.
In each store, we bought products with the expired tags, and we never received the advertised price on those items…except the one time we pointed it out.
An Oil of Olay facial product appeared to be $40 but we noticed the tag expired last month. When the cashier rang it up at the regular price, we questioned the amount. The sales clerk politely walked over to the shelf, removed the "expired tag," gave us the discounted price, and then admitted this happens often. The clerk said, "Every Saturday they switch out the tags. Sometimes they miss the old tags because they think it's a recent tag they just put out. So it happens."
The Bottom line…look at your receipt.
James Graham is with Walgreens Corporate Media Relations. He sent CBS 11 the following statement:
"We have a 112-year history of acting in our customers' best interests and earning their trust. That will continue to be our focus in all areas. We always seek to continuously improve, and we welcome feedback on areas where we are not meeting customer expectations. If a customer believes they were charged incorrectly, we are happy to resolve it."
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