BOGO? If you shop at Safeway, it's more like BOGUS

Who doesn't like a BOGO. Buy one, get one free? There's always room in the freezer for another package of English muffins.

But sometimes, apparently, the deal isn't quite what it's cracked up to be.

In California, Caleb Haley was hoping to score a BOGO on ice cream at a Safeway. But $7.49 for a pint seemed a bit high, even for a two-fer. And it was. The price prior to the BOGO promo was $4 a pint. And when the BOGO deal was over, it reverted to $4 a pint. So, if you threw a couple of pints into your shopping basket, thinking you were saving big bucks,

well, as it turned out, all you were saving was 51 cents. 

I mean, I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream, and all that. But this isn't much of a BOGO.

So Haley decided to file a lawsuit against Safeway, alleging that these bogus BOGOs have been offered across the California Safeway universe - 243 stores - for the past four years.  And needed to stop.

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.” (Source: SFGate)

It wasn't just ice cream that Safeway goosed. 

Peets Coffee. Gorton's frozen fish sticks. Oreos. 

The prices for these products were also jacked up, and someone not paying attention might pick up, say, a package of Oreos and not ask themselves, Isn't $6.79 a lot to pay for Oreos? Instead, they might say, Oreo BOGO? I can have a sleeve for dinner tonight, and still have dessert for the next couple of weeks. Cool!

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.

Pretty shoddy practice on Safeway's part, that's for sure. 

But it's apparently something of their standard operating procedure. 

Among the other lawsuits charging fraudulent behavior that Safeway's settled, was one in Oregon.

Safeway just paid $107 million to settle a 2016 suit that claimed that Safeway had "duped" shoppers into a not-so-BOGO on boneless porkchops. 

What's Safeway's defense going to be? Caveat emptor?

I'm not all that price sensitive, but the next time I pick up a couple of packages of Thomas's or two pints of Ben & Jerry's thinking I'm getting a BOGO deal, I think I'll check out what those items are going for in a store I'm not shopping in. Just to get a sense of what the "real" price is. I'm sure it'll be okay. After all, I'm not shopping at a Safeway...