Washington AG says Albertsons ‘fleeced’ customers with ‘deceptive’ BOGO sales
The Washington state attorney general is suing Albertsons, saying the Boise-based grocery giant overcharged customers in millions of transactions.
The lawsuit, filed Thursday in King County Superior Court, alleges Albertsons used deceptive “buy one get one free,” or BOGO, promotions at hundreds of Albertsons, Safeway and Haggen stores in Washington from 2019 to 2024. The promoted deals ran on kitchen staples such as bread, cereal, fresh produce and olive oil.
Nick Brown, the Washington state attorney general, accused the stores of artificially hiking the prices of products slated for the BOGO promotions in the weeks or months leading up to the sales. After the deals ended, the stores would lower the prices within about 30 days, according to the lawsuit.
“The net result is that consumers think they’re getting a second item free, but in practice, they’re just paying an inflated price for the first item,” the attorney general’s office said in a news release Thursday.
The release cited an example: An Albertsons store in Gig Harbor raised the price of a bottle of olive oil by 57%, from $6.99 one week to $10.99 the following week for a BOGO promotion. After the sale ended, the store dropped the price back to $6.99, according to the release.
Albertsons said in a statement sent by email that the allegations are not true.
“We engaged in good‑faith discussions with the Attorney General’s Office and strongly disagree with its claims, which are based on flawed analysis and data errors that we identified and raised,” the statement said. “Albertsons Companies is committed to complying with the law and to offering customers clear value through our promotions.”
The company declined to comment further, citing pending litigation.
Brown’s office alleges the pricing practice affected over 3 million transactions from October 2019 to May 2024, and that the stores brought in as much as $19.7 million by attracting customers with the promotions.
“Affordability is a major issue these days,” Brown said in the release. “We’re not going to stand for people getting fleeced by these deceptive practices.”
The release noted that this is not the first time Albertsons faced deceptive pricing allegations tied to BOGO promotions in the Pacific Northwest.
Albertsons paid $107 million to settle a class-action lawsuit in 2016 involving similar allegations at Oregon stores. The company also settled a proposed class action case filed in 2023 related to alleged deceptive BOGO promotions in Washington stores, according to the release.
This story was originally published April 30, 2026 at 4:58 PM.
