A Northern California man filed a lawsuit against Safeway last week after he noticed something seemed off about the discount he received on a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.
On April 14, Caleb Haley went to his local grocery store in McKinleyville to buy the ice cream, paying $7.49 in a buy one, get one free sale that he was eligible for using his Safeway Club Card. But the price of the ice cream was lower than that prior to the promotion, costing $4 – a price that returned as soon as the BOGO deal ended, Haley alleged.
These promotions have been offered at 243 California Safeway stores over the last four years, according to the lawsuit filed by Haley against the grocery retailer and its parent company Albertsons. The lawsuit accuses Safeway of raising the cost of goods included in special sales so that customers have to pay more for their product of choice – and buy more of it than they typically would – in order to get what is being advertised to them as a better deal.
“Contrary to the language of Defendants’ free product offers, the BOGO products are not actually free. Instead, Defendants increase the price of the first unit of the product to cover the cost of the second—purportedly ‘free’—unit of the product,’” the lawsuit alleged. “These ‘free’ sales are unlawful, unfair, or deceptive practices under California’s Unfair Competition Law and are impermissible under California’s False Advertising Law.”
The lawsuit claims other products saw price spikes during Safeway’s BOGO deals between March and May of this year: Gorton’s frozen fish sticks, which increased from $8.99 to $11.99, Peets Coffee, which went from $8.99 to $13.99, Oreo cookies, which went from $4.99 to $6.79, Dreyer’s ice cream, which went from $4.00 to $7.49 and Haagen-Dazs ice cream, which went from $5.99 to $7.49.
The lawsuit claims that nearly 800,000 Safeway customers were affected by the so-called “deceptive” deals. Haley is seeking actual and punitive damages, as well as injunctive relief prohibiting the grocery retailer from inflating the cost of products included in BOGO promotions to more than their regular retail price.
A representative for Safeway was not immediately available to provide comment to SFGATE.
A Safeway store in San Francisco is seen on June 5, 2023. A Northern California man filed a lawsuit against the grocery retailer last week, claiming it deliberately inflated the cost of products included in its BOGO deals.
Amanda Bartlett/SFGATEIt’s not the first time the grocery retailer has been accused of overcharging or deliberately misleading its customers. In 2014, Safeway agreed to pay $2.25 million to settle a lawsuit filed in Marin County alleging that it charged higher prices than advertised, misrepresented the weights of products and falsely claimed that produce from other countries was “locally grown.”
And last month, Safeway agreed to pay $107 million to settle another class action lawsuit filed in Oregon in 2016. That suit alleged customers had been duped on similar BOGO deals on boneless pork chops. Also in May, the company said it would pay an additional $8.75 million in yet another settlement for improperly charging Portland shoppers a 1% clean energy surcharge on non-grocery items. Customers were eligible to make a claim to receive up to $200 in the settlement.
Haley’s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court’s Northern District of California. A hearing has been scheduled for September 5.