Twenty States Join FTC in Dollar General Suit

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a motion on Monday to join nineteen other states in a federal lawsuit against Dollar General. The legal action, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, alleges the discount chain routinely charges customers more at the register than the prices displayed on shelves and in advertisements.

The 95-page complaint asserts that Dollar General has known about these pricing errors for years but failed to correct them. The states claim this practice has cost shoppers millions of dollars. Kaul stated in a release that the prices seen on the shelf should match the prices charged at checkout. He added that if register prices are higher, the company must face accountability.

The lawsuit lists specific data collected from customer feedback and secret shopper missions. According to the filing, Dollar General received at least 29,265 complaints categorized as “Did Not Honor Marked Price” between January 1, 2023, and March 31, 2026. These reports came from all 48 states where the company operates. The complaint notes that the states treating an inspection as failed when more than 2 percent of items checked are priced incorrectly.

FTC investigators conducted undercover purchases in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Maryland between January 16 and April 1, 2026. The complaint states that every single one of these purchases resulted in the register charging more than the advertised price for multiple products. This evidence supports the claim that the company routinely fails pricing inspections across the United States.

The filing details the internal process that leads to these discrepancies. Dollar General changes prices weekly, and employees are required to swap shelf labels during a five-hour shift designated as “Compliance Tuesday.” Most of these changes are price increases. When the digital register updates before the physical shelf tag does, shoppers typically pay the higher amount. The complaint argues that stores are often too thinly staffed to print and place new labels in time.

A former assistant manager in Illinois told a news outlet that employees were lucky to work two to four hours of their eight-to 13-hour shift with another human being. The company’s CEO received this article, the complaint notes. This staffing issue is central to the states’ argument that the retailer neglects basic operational duties.

Dollar General has settled seven similar state cases with six attorneys general and consumer protection agencies since 2019. The complaint states that the chain paid more than $6 million in those settlements. The current lawsuit involves Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Utah.

In a response to the filing, Dollar General argued that the lawsuit suggests the company has abandoned its mission. The statement said, “Nothing could be further from the truth.” The retailer noted its goal is 100% accuracy between shelf and register prices. It acknowledged that occasional discrepancies occur despite policies and procedures.

The company stated that store teams are instructed to make things right when errors happen. Dollar General also said the FTC demanded a monetary amount in pre-lawsuit talks that was orders of magnitude larger than any realistic assessment of the discrepancies. The retailer maintained that the proposed sum was untethered to the actual costs involved.