Walmart Sued in Class Action Over Alleged Pricing Deception

WASHINGTON — Walmart is being sued over allegations it charges higher prices for products at the checkout stands than it advertises on its shelves.

The consumer class action lawsuits started in Chicago, Illinois, but are spreading, most recently to a court filing last week in Washington, D.C.

“Walmart’s Shelf Pricing frequently misrepresents the prices consumers are charged at the point of sale,” the original lawsuit says. “As a result, consumers fall victim to a classic ‘bait and switch’ and unknowingly overpay Walmart a higher price for the falsely advertised merchandise at checkout.”

Checkout prices often run 5% to 10% higher than the advertised prices, the lawsuit alleges.

Walmart has been fined for deceptive pricing in California and North Carolina but “even when Walmart is fined, the fines are a drop in the bucket for the $500 billion-dollar retailer and dwarf the hundreds of millions of dollars Walmart profits each year from selling overcharged goods,” the lawsuit says.

In Washington, D.C., the latest court filing claims violations of the Consumer Protection Procedures Act. It is a general consumer protection law that prohibits a variety of deceptive and unconscionable business practices.

It was filed Jan. 23 as a class action under the name of local resident Christina Rector. It makes many of the same allegations as the Chicago lawsuit.

Attorneys for the plaintiff hired a private investigator to check prices at two Walmart stores in Washington during a yearlong investigation.

He compared shelf tag prices with prices displayed by in-store price scanners at the registers and in a Walmart app that shows prices charged.

“To date, the investigation has uncovered over 400 items that were mispriced throughout Walmart’s D.C. locations,” the lawsuit says. “Many of the mispriced items remained uncorrected for months.”

Walmart blames any price discrepancies as the fault of employees who were too slow to change the shelf tags, despite a company policy that requires prompt updates. Walmart denies it sought to deceive customers.

The Washington lawsuit cited several examples. In one case, a Walmart store shelf tag listed the price for a vacuum cleaner as $129, the lawsuit says. The customer was charged $149 at the register.

In a second example, the shelf tag price for a blender was $39.88 but Walmart charged $47.97 at the register, according to the lawsuit. In a third example, a shelf tag listed the price of an electric skillet as $41.00 but customers were charged $49.96.

In one incident, the plaintiff said she purchased laundry detergent that was tagged on the shelf with a lower price.

“When plaintiff Rector noticed the discrepancy and informed the cashier, the cashier told her she would still have to pay the higher register price,” the lawsuit says. “Because she was already at the register and needed laundry detergent, plaintiff Rector paid the higher price.”

The lawsuit filed in District of Columbia Superior Court faces an uphill battle after an initial defeat for the Chicago lawsuit.

The federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, saying the price discrepancies by Walmart were unintentional.

The plaintiff then appealed, leading to a hearing this month. The appellate court’s decision is pending.

The Washington lawsuit is Christina Rector v. Walmart Inc., Case No. 2024-CAB-000434, filed in District of Columbia Superior Court.

You can reach us at [email protected] and follow us on Facebook and X.