NJ Joins Ftc Lawsuit Accusing Dollar General of Charging More at the Register Than on the Shelf

The tag on the shelf says one thing. The register says another. Federal regulators and 20 states, New Jersey among them, allege that happened at Dollar General stores for years, and they're taking the chain to court over it.

The Federal Trade Commission and its state partners sued Dollar General Corp. on Monday, Oct. 26, in federal court in the Middle District of Tennessee. The complaint alleges that the discount chain, which runs more than 21,000 stores, routinely charged customers more at checkout than the prices shown on shelves, price tags and ads, and failed to fix the problem despite tens of thousands of consumer complaints, the FTC said.

Regulators allege that adds up to millions of dollars in overcharges. "Dollar General has betrayed the trust of millions of American consumers," said Christopher Mufarrige, director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. These are allegations, not findings: the FTC said it files a complaint when it has reason to believe the law is being broken, and the court will decide the case.

Dollar General is pushing back. The company said its goal is "100% accuracy between shelf and register prices in every store," while acknowledging that "occasional price discrepancies can occur," as at other retailers, despite its policies. It said the suit wrongly suggests it has "abandoned our mission" and that it has cooperated since learning of the investigation in early February 2026. Dollar General also said the FTC's monetary demand was "orders of magnitude larger than" any realistic assessment of the price discrepancies. The company said it will defend itself while staying open to a reasonable resolution.

New Jersey has been here before. In November 2023, Dollar General agreed to pay $1.2 million, including a $1.18 million civil penalty, to resolve allegations by the state Division of Consumer Affairs' Office of Weights and Measures. The state said its inspections found more than 2,000 instances of register prices above posted prices at 58 New Jersey stores. That deal required yearly price audits at every New Jersey store for three years.

The new case now heads through federal court, and no trial date or refund process has been announced. Shoppers who think they were overcharged can file a complaint with the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs at njconsumeraffairs.gov or 1-800-242-5846, or report it to the FTC at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.

Source: Federal Trade Commission; Dollar General; New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs. Originally reported by FOX 29, with additional reporting from Retail Dive and The Associated Press.

File photo: A Dollar General store in Sapulpa, Okla., in September 2026. Photo: G. Edward Johnson (edwardjohnson.com), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; cropped.