City Officials Say Supermarkets Overcharge for One-Third of Items

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According to the New York Post, you're getting ripped off one out of every three times you buy something at a local supermarket. Over the past four months, inspectors from the Department of Consumer Affairs visited 408 grocery stores, some of them twice. At each, they picked some 25 to 50 items off the shelves and ran them through the checkout scanner. What they found: About a third of the products were overpriced.

Consumer Affairs Commissioner Jonathan Mintz won't comment on whether supermarkets are doing it on purpose, and supermarkets obviously aren't saying. But inspectors discovered violations that went beyond mis-labeled pricing: Broken checkout scanners, missing produce scales, taxes on non-taxable items. All told, they found infractions in about 67% of grocery stores—up from 52% the last time they did a sweep back in August.
· City supermarkets' new 'rip-off' shock [NYP]