Rural King is latest local store to fail price checks; customers paying more at register
Nov. 15—Consumer complaints about pricing issues in local stores has prompted Butler County Auditor Roger Reynolds' office to do more testing, and a Rural King store in Hamilton is the latest to have items ring up at the register higher than they were marked on shelves.
Reynolds' office released a notice today saying its weights and measures inspector checked the store at 1416 Hamilton Richmond Road on Nov. 4. Of 50 items tested, there were 16 pricing errors — 12 were overcharges. The price scanned at the register was higher than what was on the shelf or product, the auditor's office said.
Stores are allowed a plus or minus 2 percent error rate on the total number of items tested. So of those 50 items, only one could scan incorrectly.
"A store manager is alerted to the test results following an inspection," the release from Reynolds' office said.
Another inspection occurred Monday with 14 items checked, and 12 items failed, with 10 being overcharges.
"These results are alarming," said Reynolds. "It's hard to believe that 10 days after being informed that your store is overcharging customers and has a 32 percent failure rate that something wouldn't be done to try and remedy the situation. Instead, it got worse."
Examples of the overcharges at Rural King, according to Reynolds' office:
—Forney 5 inch wire brush: Shelf price $11.99, scanned at $15.99 (33% overcharge).
—50 foot twisted sisal rope: Shelf price $7.99, scanned at $10.49 (31% overcharge).
—Lodge cast iron skillet: Shelf price $12.99, scanned at $14.99 (15% overcharge).
—Olympia 3 inch spring clamp: Shelf price $2.99, scanned at $4.99 (67% overcharge).
Rural King's inspection did yield two undercharges, the auditor's office said: A Bestair 20x20x1 3-pack filter had a shelf price of $27.98 but scanned at $19.98 (40% undercharge), and medium Tingley high visibility rainwear had a shelf price of $42.99 but scanned at $37.49 (15% undercharge).
The inspection at Rural King followed audits performed at local Dollar General stores and national inspections at Family Dollar. The auditor said Dollar Generals throughout Butler County all failed their inspections and even had double-digit error rates up to 88 percent.
In Butler County, there are 20 Dollar General stores and 13 Family Dollars.
The Journal-News attempted to reach Dollar General for comment, but did not receive a return message.
Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost is suing both Dollar General and Family Dollar in Butler County Common Pleas Court for violating the state's Consumer Sales Practices Act.
The Butler County auditor will be increasing price check inspections, the release said.
