FTC, 20 states sue Dollar General over alleged register price overcharges

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) - The Federal Trade Commission and 20 states, including Illinois, have filed suit against discount chain Dollar General after tens of thousands of shoppers said they were charged more at checkout than the prices shown in stores.

The action comes as the Missouri attorney general is finalizing a settlement with Dollar General over the same accusations.

Many customers turn to Dollar General for inexpensive food and household goods.

“I like to coupon a lot, and they always have coupons I can use to save money,” said shopper Asia Smith.

Federal regulators and the states accuse Dollar General of using “long-running deceptive pricing practices by routinely charging customers more at the register than the prices displayed on shelves, price tags and advertisements, costing consumers millions of dollars.”

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said her office is working out a settlement after suing Dollar General in 2023. That lawsuit followed a state investigation of 147 Missouri stores, where officials checked prices on more than 50 items ranging from toilet paper to lemonade and lip balm.

“The price on the shelf was different from what they were getting charged at the register. And we did lots of undercover buys and found about a $7 difference between the total of prices marked on the shelf and the average shopper’s ticket,” Hanaway said in an interview with First Alert 4.

We also checked a Dollar General store in Granite City, Illinois, and asked customers whether they had ever been overcharged.

“They never overcharge that I know of,” said John.

“I’ve never been overcharged, and if I do notice something, I say something,” said Asia Smith.

“I ain’t never been got like that,” said Elaine Lumpford.

Inside the store, we bought Bounty paper towels, which were marked at $6 and rang up at $6. Pedigree dog food was labeled at $1.80 and also scanned at $1.80. But a bottle of Tilex cleaner was marked at $5.95 and rang up at $6.

We contacted Dollar General about the FTC lawsuit and our findings. The company responded with the following statement:

“For over 85 years, guided by our mission of Serving Others, Dollar General has worked to improve the lives of millions of Americans by helping them save time and money on everyday essentials. We take seriously our responsibility to deliver on that commitment through affordable prices, convenient locations and easy-to-shop stores – many of which are in areas that other retailers have chosen not to serve. With locations within five miles of approximately 75% of the U.S. population, Dollar General is part of the fabric of thousands of American communities.

The lawsuit filed today by the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC” or “Commission”) and several States suggests that we have abandoned our mission and willfully disregarded the affordability needs of our customers. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Our goal is 100% accuracy between shelf and register prices in every store. 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. In recent years, we have enhanced our price-accuracy processes and remain committed to continuous improvement.

Dollar General was made aware of the FTC’s investigation in early February 2026, through the receipt of a civil investigative demand dated January 30, 2026. Despite an unusually accelerated timeline and request for voluminous information, we have engaged cooperatively with the Commission, producing more than 200,000 documents and over 350 gigabytes of data and making several Company representatives available to provide sworn testimony on relatively short notice.

On September 23, 2026, a mere three days following the conclusion of sworn testimony, Dollar General received from the FTC staff a draft complaint alleging violations of the Federal Trade Commission Act, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (the “GLB Act”) and the laws of unidentified States, as well as a draft order of settlement. The FTC staff also demanded a monetary amount that was untethered to – and orders of magnitude larger than – any realistic assessment of amounts attributable to pricing discrepancies.

Prior to that communication, no settlement demand or investigative findings had been communicated to Dollar General, and no settlement discussions had taken place.

Over the four weeks that followed, the company worked tirelessly and in good faith to resolve this matter without litigation, even in the absence of information regarding which States planned to participate. We met each of the FTC’s brief and unexplained deadlines and agreed to many of the FTC’s numerous, non-monetary undertakings. We also explained in detail our position regarding the many methodological flaws in the FTC’s consumer-redress calculation, and offered an alternative, and in our view, more reasonable, manner of calculating potential settlement ranges. Finally, we communicated our belief that the FTC’s theory of monetary recovery is premised on an incorrect interpretation of the GLB Act that will not survive a challenge in court.

We were surprised when, rather than responding to our monetary counteroffer and allowing the negotiating process to continue, the FTC filed this lawsuit and for the first time made the Company aware that 20 States had chosen to join.

Although we respect the FTC’s role in protecting American consumers and the State representatives’ role in protecting the citizens of their respective states, we will defend this litigation vigorously.

We remain ready and willing to engage in reasonable, meaningful discussions to resolve this matter while keeping our focus on what has always been at the heart of Dollar General – serving our customers and the communities we call home. That commitment has not changed and will not change as we navigate this matter."