Kroger Under Fire as Shoppers Claim They're Being Overcharged
Customers are sharing their frustrating experiences with Kroger pickup orders.
While inflation has been on the decline, the record highs hit last year forced all of us spend a little more carefully. But although we may have cut back on excessive purchases amid high inflation, it's harder to go without certain groceries. Those shopping trips definitely add up, and now some shoppers are claiming that they're costing even more than they should. Read on to find out why several Kroger customers are claiming they've been overcharged.
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Kroger's CEO said the company is focused on combating inflation for shoppers.
At a time when consumers are struggling with higher prices and ongoing shortages, Kroger says it's focused on alleviating stress for shoppers.
"We like to try to do everything we can to make it easy on a customer," Rodney McMullen, chairman and CEO of The Kroger Co., said during the National Retail Federation (NRF) 2023 Retail's Big Show in January.
According to McMullen, the company is constantly considering inflation's impact on shoppers right now. "We worry about it every day," he said. "About half of our customers are under a lot of strain from a financial perspective, and their wages haven't kept up with the inflation."
Kroger says it's focusing on new technology to help ease the strain. "For us, we're constantly focusing on how are we using technology to make it easier for the customer to inspire them on what's for dinner, uh, help stretch their budget a little bit and to get groceries how they want to get them," McMullen explained.
But some shoppers say they're being charged more than they should be.
On Feb. 3, TikTok user Hanna Daminski posted a video on her account @hannadaminski detailing a frustrating experience she had with Kroger recently.
"Kroger pickup decided I'm eating salmon for a month," she wrote on the video in overlaying text.
According to Daminski, she had ordered just one pound of Atlantic salmon for pickup from Kroger. The product was originally $9.99, but a screenshot provided indicated that it was on sale that day for $8.99. Instead of receiving the one-pound salmon she wanted, however, Daminski showed that Kroger's pickup service had given her six pounds of salmon costing roughly $50.
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Other Kroger shoppers said they've faced similar problems.
This doesn't appear to just be a one-time problem. In the comment section of Daminski's now-viral video, many shoppers said they've faced similar situations with Kroger.
"They've done the same thing to me! Twice in a row," one user commented. Another wrote, "Same thing happened to me with ground beef once. Ordered two 1lb packages and somehow ended up with a 10lb log?"
Other customers added that they have received the wrong quantity of many different items, including bananas, chicken, bagels, carrots, and even baking soda.
Some shoppers chimed in to say that Kroger wasn't technically wrong in Daminski's case, as the product was listed as a whole side of salmon for $8.99 per pound—not just smaller portion sizes of the filet. But they still slammed the grocer for purposely making this confusing for shoppers.
"The ad is not clear, which is what Kroger does all the time. I'm so over Kroger's misleading ads and price mistakes," one user commented.
A Kroger employee weighed in to say that the company's system isn't properly equipped to relate the proper size of some orders. "I work in a Kroger pickup. There's a thing at the end [where] you can write how much you want," they wrote. "Until they fix that thing, what you ordered shows up as one entire side of a salmon and corporate just expects you to know."
Kroger has come under fire for overcharging in the past.
Best Life reached out to Kroger for comment on the customer complaints surrounding the viral video, but has not yet heard back.
But this is not the first time Kroger has faced concern for overcharging customers. In Aug. 2022, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of Lisabeth Gansberg, a Northbrook resident who regularly shops at the Kroger-owned Mariano supermarkets in Chicago. Gansberg claims that she has often been overcharged at the Northbrook Mariano, alleging that the mega-grocery company routinely "charges the wrong price" for items by ringing up those on sale at their regular price.
More recently, in December, police in Moraine, Ohio, warned Kroger shoppers in the area to check their receipts after multiple shoppers reported being overcharged by the company—specifically in relation to the delivery service.
"People need to be vigilant if they are placing the Kroger delivery service," Sergeant Andrew Parish with the Moraine Police Department told WHIO. "One customer was charged over $500 for an order that she originally placed for only maybe $100."
