Massachusetts Consumers Need Protection from Retail Overcharging
Representatives from Cure CVS testified today before a Massachusetts state senate joint committee hearing, urging elected leaders to uphold the state's item pricing laws. Multiple bills are under consideration by the legislature, and revisions could weaken item pricing laws which currently require food and grocery retailers to sell any item
in the store at the lowest price indicated on an item, sign or
advertisement. Revisions to the laws could restrict the state's power to protect consumers from
retailers that overcharge.CVS Caremark Corp., the nation's largest pharmacy chain, is by far the most penalized food retailer in the state for overcharging and other pricing violations, according to Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation. And the overcharges aren't always just an oversight: some Boston-area CVS stores are still overcharging, even after being notified of specific pricing violations.
"CVS gives us hundreds of reasons why lawmakers need to keep our state's item pricing laws intact," Faron McLurkin of Cure CVS said at today's hearing before the state senate. "Seven hundred and eleven reasons, to be precise. That's the number of overcharges state inspectors found at CVS last year."
Overcharges at CVS increased 67 percent from 2007 to 2008, indicating that CVS has failed to correct prior violations of state item pricing laws. On average, state inspectors found almost five times more overcharges per inspection at CVS stores than at all other retailers in the state.
Although CVS stores made up only 6.6 percent of all state pricing inspections in 2008, CVS's violations accounted for 32 percent of all overcharges caught by the state that year. That's almost one third of all the overcharges inspectors found in Massachusetts. Massachusetts Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation Undersecretary Barbara Anthony has ordered CVS to correct its illegal overcharging problems.
To learn more about CVS's pricing violations in Massachusetts, download a copy of Cure CVS's report Your Total Comes To More than the Advertised Price: How CVS Hasn't Fixed Its Pricing Violation Problems in Massachusetts (PDF).
Posted by Alex G. on July 27, 2009, 2:01 PM
2 Comments
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Funny.... All of these stupid articles are written by the same idiot with a false agenda... His real priority is getting all cvs stores to unionize without having the write to vote. People from this union a.k.a. "change to win" even came to my house to try and get me to sign a document allowing them to do so. If enough people sign saying they are curious and want to know more, instead of having an anonymous vote, they want to automatically unionize the stores. The president of CVS said no, so now they're pissed and trying to get revenge... Pathetic and low... You lost... Move on.
I do applaud your actions to do something about an issue you believe in BUT you should direct your energies to helping the problem. CVS is a retail chain. Considering the economy, theft is at an all time high everywhere. There is nothing wrong with locking up condoms, razors or perfumes for that matter. CVS, like other retail establishments are in business to make money not give away free items. Why doesn't your organization stop picking on establishments and hand out free condoms on the streets of Philadelphia and other areas experiencing this problem instead of trying to change corporate policies. If you worked in a store with constant theft you would have to do something about it. As far as I'm concerned if you consider yourself mature enough to have sex then you should be mature enough to ask for condoms at a store.