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this post was submitted on 28 Sep 2026
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It's not about TOS. Changing the price after you put something in your cart but before you got to the register would be straight out illegal.
https://retaildigitals.com/price-accuracy-laws-by-state/
Michigan: Shopping Reform & Modernization Act (2011). Scanner accuracy law with a consumer “bounty”: if the register charges more than the displayed price, the shopper is owed the difference plus 10× the difference (min $1, max $5) on request.
Arizona, Wisconsin, Florida & most other states: Adopt the NIST Handbook 130 price-verification examination: periodic inspections sample 25–100 items; typically 98% must scan at or below the displayed price to pass.
Fail an inspection and re-inspections, fines, or stop-sale orders follow.
And so on...
I don't even live in US and I know that. Who come Americans are so confused about it?
And putting up fake "sale" signs is illegal, yet it is standard practice across major stores like Aldi
The US will not enforce that law. Companies will be able to upcharge based on any factor they want
Given many of those companies, like Walmart, are publicly traded, they jave a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value, which in the case of Walmart means maximizing profit. Even if the CEO didn't want to do it, shareholder lawsuits would likely force it to happen. Yes, there are cases where this doesn't happen (See: Costco), but Walmart is not structured in a way that would make that likely
You're not American, so you don't realize how weak consumer protections are here. Companies can, and will, do what they feel will maximize profits
I don't know.... I know that consumer protection is pretty much non-existent in US but a price of a product is still a price of a product. Let's say they want to go all-in, ignore the law and just charge everyone whatever they want. They would simply put a price 10% below real price on every sticker and charge you something else at the register. They would say that the price on the sticker is approximate and you have to identify yourself to know the real price. After scanning your consumer cart or your credit card they would show you the final amount. It would be way simpler than to put digital stickers, track the movement of every customer in real time, use face recognition to identify them and adjust the prices close to them. Technically they could do all this but for what? Why develop some hi-tech solution when a simpler solution is equally illegal? People would be pissed either way so they will do it only if they know their customers have nowhere else to go. I don't see any reason to play a game like that. Occam's razor: they want to change prices at night.
P.S. Unless they want to change the price for everyone in the middle of the day and the stickers are there so only first 20 customers are surprised at the register and start complaining. The rest picked up the product with the new price already... This makes some sense but it would be done in rare cases like unexpected weather change so they increase the price on umbrellas or something. But yeah, I could see that happening.
how does that prevent it? "if the register charges more than the displayed price" the whole point is the displayed price can change between cart and register.
We know. The laws written on paper aren't reflective of the realities of living in the US. You only have to look at price gouging that has been happening since at least the Covid pandemic to see how blatant it is..
It's way harder to prove that someone set prices above the inflation levels and their cost increase than to prove that prices change while people are shopping.
Proving anything means nothing when lawyers can be thrown at the problem by the richer party until the problem disappears. Its very hard to bring forth a suit when you have very little funds to get it off the ground. Lawyers are far from cheap in the US.
And this is before bringing up that there is no federal price gouging law in the US. And that price gouging is only illegal in certain states with price gouging laws when there is a declared state of emergency or natural disaster. And typically price gouging fines are as low as $100 to $1000 and is a misdemeanor. This is per incident, with several states having a cap within a certain time frame [ie.Alabama with no more than a $25,000 fine per day of there are enough proven instances.]
Price gouging in the US is literally legal short of those specific circumstances. And the penalty is absolutely nothing for these huge chain grocers. So why should we believe that these grocers will act in our best interest?