Sacramento Area Local News

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ― The law says the store has to give you the lowest posted price. We uncovered Kohl's pattern of mistakes that could be costing you.

The ads promise bargain after bargain. 60%, 70%, sometimes 80% off. Deals luring you into Kohl's where according to its ad, "you can expect great things."

"I was almost overcharged on my shoes," Customer Barbara Blake said.

The Citrus Heights senior didn't think it was a great thing, when she was charged $64.99 on shoes supposed to be $59.99. --And she's not the only customer overcharged.

"It's happened a lot, at least five or six times," another customer told Kurtis.

Sacramento County inspectors have caught Kohl's charging more than the posted price during surprise visits. After we scanned through 2008 inspection reports, we found Kohl's failed inspection after inspection after inspection. When we went undercover at the Antelope store last spring, we too were overcharged.

No one at the store wanted to talk about it as they kicked Kurtis out of the store. They referred us to a Kohl's corporate number for comment. We never heard back.

So we wanted to know if there have been any improvements at Kohl's. Once again we requested its inspection reports in Sacramento County; this time for 2009. The reports show there are still problems. Out of 23 inspections in 2008, Kohl's failed 11.

The store in Folsom overcharged inspectors on three visits. One involved a $50 charge for a dress supposed to be $24.49. The stores in Natomas and Antelope each also failed three inspections last year. The stores in Elk Grove and Citrus Heights each failed one.

Matt Braddock is not surprised. He worked for Kohl's for 2 1/2 years and says he left on good terms in August for school.

It was his job to put up and take down sale signs.

"I would say a lack of communication, a lack of training is the problem", Braddock said.

After working at two different stores, he saw the same issue. He says sale signs are put up at night, but often the morning crew is told to move products around.

"When they move stuff, they leave the sign behind. When they put the new product on it, it keeps the sign of the incorrect product."

Braddock says he saw the wrong signs above products many times. He says some sales were just too big; too many signs to put up and take down during the allotted shift. Sometimes he says they just didn't finish. Matt claims he complained to management, but the problem didn't get better.

"It's not right for customers to be overcharged all the time, especially when it's such a simple and easy to resolve the problem," Braddock said.

Sacramento County inspector David Lazier spoke with us last spring about the number of inspections Kohl's failed.

"It tells me they don't care. Their business model, their business practice, sloppiness is okay," Lazier told Kurtis in April 2009.

His office fined the department store thousands of dollars, but he didn't think that was sending a clear enough message.

"The information they gave us, is we were too busy to get around to get that taken care of. Well that's not the consumer's problem. That's a store management problem."

Lazier is no longer allowed to talk about the case after turning it over to the District Attorney's office for prosecution.

Once again we reached out to Kohl's corporate office about the overcharges, and the concerns brought to us by Matt Braddock.

This time they did respond with a brief statement.

"Thank you for calling Kohl's directly. We appreciate the opportunity, but are declining your request to comment."

"If they're not acknowledging the problem, they need to be punished in a way, where they acknowledge the problem and take heat and change," Braddock said.

The Sacramento County D.A.'s Office won't comment on its open investigation. Interestingly enough, these same sign issues caused inspectors to get undercharged too.    Sometimes the price rang up for much less than the posted price. The county does not go after Kohl's for those cases, because as they put it, they don't prosecute Santa Claus.

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