So I have suspected nefarious deeds of Kroger for quite some time now, but it was only today that I was able to catch them in the act. Unfortunately I did not CATCH them catch them, IYKWIM. I have no proof other than my memory.

If you shop at Kroger (or a Kroger-owned store, which are many), you are familiar with their yellow sale tags. Or I should say “sale” tags, as many of them are things like Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, regularly $1.85, this week “on sale” for $1.79!!! (actual tag from this week)

So, these yellow tags have dates on them. So for instance that goldfish “sale” says Price good through 12/31/07 (I think – something like that anyways). I assume that they do that so that they don’t have to change the tags every week – they can just leave that one up there. But they don’t just leave it up there – I guarantee that when goldfish go on sale in a few weeks for 3/$4 or something, that they’ll take down that tag that is supposedly good through 12/31 and put up a new tag for that week.

And when they are lowering the prices, I don’t really have a problem with it. But now that we have the backstory, allow me to mention what happened this week.

Starting last week, Kroger started a promotion where if you buy 15 participating products, you get $5 off your order. This has been a pretty good deal, allowing me to stock up on things like tortillas, refried beans, spaghetti sauce, tomato soup, and Kleenex, among other things. While I was in the store Tuesday night, I was wandering through the aisles and noticed that Pepperidge Farms frozen products were 50% off and also part of that sale. Garlic bread was on sale for $1.09, and one of the participating products. When I got home, I saw that there were .55/1 coupons around, so I ordered some. Since Kroger will double .55 coupons up to $1, it would make the garlic bread 9 cents each, and buying 15 would get me $5, so it would be a moneymaker. I checked the price and it said “Promotion good till 9/16/07).

So I ordered the coupons. Had the deal only been good last week, I wouldn’t have, because since it was already Tuesday and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to get the coupons in time. But “PROMOTION GOOD TILL 9/16/07!!!”, so away I went. Sure enough, the coupons came last night and I went off to Kroger.

But when I got there, the garlic bread was $1.99. The tag now says Promotion good through 10/31 (or some future date – again I forget what it was exactly). They switched the tag on me!!

Now, it is possible that they could claim a loophole that the PROMOTION itself IS still going on, so the tag last week wasn’t a lie, since it said nothing about the price, just the promotion (buy 15 get $5). But I think that this is certainly shady, and possibly illegal. If I had some sort of proof about this (like if I had taken a picture of the price before), I might bring it up to someone. But alas, I do not. And I don’t know how I could ever even prove something like this, unless I go taking pictures of tags that MIGHT change. But I definitely will be wary of sale tags that claim to go further than one week out.

Anyone want any garlic bread coupons? Because, to paraphrase the immortal Ned Ryerson, I sure as heck-fire am not paying 65.7 cents for a loaf of garlic bread.