Kroger 890 Charge: Overcharges, Class Actions, and Cash-Back Fees

Kroger overcharging at checkout is a documented pattern, not an isolated glitch: a 2025 Consumer Reports investigation found expired sale tags on shelves at more than half of the 26 Kroger-owned stores its shoppers visited across 14 states and Washington, D.C., with customers charged an average of $1.70 more per item than the advertised price.¹ If it has happened to you, you can ask the store to correct the price at the register, file a complaint with your state attorney general, or, in several states, join an active class-action lawsuit.

What the Investigation Found

Between March and May 2025, Consumer Reports, The Guardian, and the Food & Environment Reporting Network sent shoppers into 26 Kroger, Harris Teeter, Fred Meyer, Fry’s, and Ralphs stores. They documented more than 150 instances of expired sale labels still hanging on shelves, causing shoppers to be charged full price for items they believed were on sale.¹

The average overcharge came out to $1.70 per item, or 18.4 percent above the sale price. One-third of the expired tags had been outdated for at least 10 days, and five had been up for at least 90 days.¹ The affected products ranged widely: beef, salmon, coffee, juice, vegetables, cough medicine, and dog food.² In one case at a Harris Teeter in Alexandria, Virginia, Mission Flour Tortillas were tagged at $2.99 but rang up at $4.99.³

An internal audit of one Kroger-owned store found nearly 6 percent of items had incorrect price tags. Kroger’s own policy allows no more than 1 percent.¹

A separate secret-shopper test by The Guardian in May 2026, at a Kroger in Belpre, Ohio, still found expired sale tags and overcharges more than a year after the store had promised state regulators it would fix the problem.⁴

Getting Your Money Back at the Register

Kroger has a policy called “Make It Right” that allows employees to correct a price discrepancy at checkout if a customer points it out.¹ In practice that means the fix depends on you catching the error yourself. A few habits help:

Photograph the shelf tag, including any expiration date printed on the sale label, before you put the item in your cart.
Watch the screen as items are scanned, especially at self-checkout, where the pressure to keep moving makes overcharges easier to miss.
Check your receipt before you leave the store. If you spot a difference, take the receipt and the shelf photo to customer service.

Critics, including the UFCW, have argued that the Make It Right policy is inadequate precisely because it puts the burden entirely on the shopper, and because long lines and self-checkout make it harder to catch errors in real time.⁵

Where to File a Complaint

Several state attorneys general have taken complaints about Kroger overcharging seriously, and in some cases have recovered money for shoppers.

Michigan’s attorney general received 229 consumer complaints about Kroger between 2020 and mid-2026. In 25 of those cases the office found violations of state law tied to price errors, overcharging, and bait-and-switch tactics, and returned nearly $1,600 to shoppers.⁴
Ohio’s attorney general has received more than 55 complaints since 2021 about Kroger charging higher prices at checkout than advertised, and has forwarded complaints to the company for review.⁴
Colorado state regulators failed Kroger stores twice in price-check tests since January 2025.¹
Shoppers can also complain to the Federal Trade Commission. A Texas shopper reported to the FTC in March 2025 that a local Kroger had been leaving out-of-date discount tags on shelves for roughly five years.⁴

On June 18, 2025, Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona wrote to interim CEO Ronald Sargent describing what “appears to be a deceptive pricing practice under the Federal Trade Commission Act” and demanding that Kroger identify and compensate overcharged customers.⁶ Fry’s Food Stores, a Kroger subsidiary, publicly dismissed the allegations as “misinformation.”⁷

Active Class-Action Lawsuits

Kroger currently faces class-action lawsuits alleging systematic pricing errors in California, Illinois, Ohio, and Utah.¹ Kroger has denied wrongdoing in those cases, calling the discrepancies “random mistakes” where “perfection cannot possibly be achieved.” The company has settled at least one prior case: in 2019 it paid $2,500 to a Utah shopper who alleged Kroger had “falsely and deceptively” charged full prices instead of the advertised promotional prices.⁴

Why It Keeps Happening

Investigators traced the problem largely to staffing. Kroger employees are responsible for swapping out thousands of sale tags each week, sometimes as many as 15,000 per store, and workers told reporters they cannot keep up.²¹⁸

Kroger’s total workforce fell from about 465,000 employees in January 2021 to just over 409,000 in February 2025.⁴ Joy Alexander, a scan coordinator at a King Soopers store, said the tag work is “almost never” finished before the next week’s batch arrives.⁵ UFCW Local 7, which surveyed dozens of Kroger-owned Colorado stores, said it found misleading prices in every location it checked.

Kroger’s Position

The company disputes the characterization of the problem. A Kroger spokesperson called the description of “widespread pricing concerns” as “patently false,” saying the identified errors amount to “a few dozen examples across several years out of billions of customer transactions annually.” Kroger says it runs millions of price checks weekly and that its staffing decisions are “data-driven to balance workload and schedules.”³

Digital Price Tags May Change What You See on the Shelf

Kroger is rolling out electronic shelf labels as a fix. The technology is already active at a Kroger Marketplace in Powell, Ohio, and is being installed across all 115 Kroger stores in the Columbus division, with completion planned by the end of 2027. The labels connect to the store’s inventory system and can mark down items nearing expiration automatically. Kroger spokesperson Mark Bruce said prices change only on Wednesdays, or occasionally Mondays, aligned with the weekly ad.⁹

Some lawmakers, including Senator Gallego, have raised concerns that the same technology could enable real-time “surge pricing” on groceries.¹⁰ Kroger says it does not use surge or personalized pricing, and a 2025 study of transaction data from a major U.S. grocery chain found no evidence of price surging after electronic shelf labels were installed.⁹ The rollout is being watched by federal lawmakers and several state attorneys general.

A Separate Charge to Know About: Cash-Back Fees

If the extra amount on your Kroger receipt is not from a mispriced grocery item, check whether you asked for cash back. Since 2019, Kroger has charged 50 cents for cash-back withdrawals of $100 or less and $3.50 for amounts between $100 and $300. Harris Teeter added its own fees in January 2024: 75 cents for withdrawals under $100 and $3 for amounts up to $200. EBT card users are exempt, and Kroger Plus cardholders are not charged for amounts under $100.¹¹

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau reported in August 2024 that Kroger, Dollar General, and Dollar Tree together collect more than $90 million a year in cash-back fees, and noted that Albertsons, Walmart, Target, Walgreens, and CVS do not charge for the same service.¹²¹³ The CFPB did not take formal enforcement action but said it would continue monitoring the practice.

1
Consumer Reports. Kroger Stores Overcharging Shoppers on Sale Items
2
Fox 5 Vegas. Consumer Reports Errors Kroger Sale Tags
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CBS News. Kroger Price Tags Overcharges
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The Guardian. Kroger Supermarket Sales Tactics
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UFCW Local 7. Investigation Confirms Kroger-Owned King Soopers Chronic Understaffing Has Led to Deceptive Pricing
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U.S. Senate – Gallego. Letter to Kroger CEO Regarding Overcharging
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AZ Family. Arizona Senator Demands Answers Grocery Overcharging Investigation
8
Food & Wine. Kroger Overcharging Shoppers Consumer Reports Investigation
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The Columbus Dispatch. Kroger Digital Price Tags Columbus Shoppers
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U.S. Senate – Gallego. Gallego Demands Answers Accountability Following Kroger Overcharging Investigation
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CFPB. Issue Spotlight – Cash Back Fees
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CNBC. Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Kroger Charge Cash Back Fees
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Fox Business. Kroger Other Retailers Charging Fees Cash Back Registers