Missouri attorney general: Walgreen Co. deceiving consumers

Under that agreement, Walgreens said it would remove tags within 12 hours of their expiration.

Attorney General Chris Koster filed court documents asking a judge to hold the nation’s largest pharmacy retailer in contempt of the settlement and issue steeper fines, including up to $5,000 for each expired tag.

Koster said Tuesday that the company already has paid the state $136,500 for pricing violations uncovered by the audits.

State inspectors said they found expired tags at stores in Kansas City, Grandview, Lee’s Summit, Liberty, Oak Grove, Harrisonville and Platte City, as well as other parts of the state. “This has become institutionalized as a marketing technique for Walgreens, and it is outrageous”.

The company consented to monitoring under the 2014 order, saying then that it would allow the chain to continue business practices that were “consistent with our 113-year history of acting in our customers’ best interests”. The company reached a settlement in June 2014 that included having an independent auditor monitor its Missouri stores for three years. “My office’s 2013 investigation showed a relationship between expired tags and consumers being overcharged at the register”, Koster said in a statement. “It is the stores’ responsibility to ensure fair and accurate pricing”.

Koster sued Walgreen in 2013, accusing Walgreen of overcharging customers and using deceptive advertising and pricing schemes in Missouri. He said he would seek a fine for each of the 1,300 recent violations.

“I don’t think there is any Missourian who thinks they should be able to put up a big tag that says this item is on sale, enticing a consumer into purchasing it, when the tag is more than two years out of date”. Thirty Walgreens stores have failed these audits and several failed more than once, with one store failing six times in a row.

KCTV5’s Heather Staggers went to the Walgreens at North Oak Trafficway and North 63rd Street in the Northland and found items priced incorrectly there.