Receipts show East Utica Dollar Tree charging tax on food items other area stores are not
Story Created:
Nov 22, 2011 at 1:32 PM EDT
Story Updated:
Nov 22, 2011 at 7:13 PM EDT
UTICA, N.Y. (WKTV) - He kept paying sales tax on food items that he shouldn't have. He spoke out and now store officials claim something is being done about it.
Many of us probably don't even look at our receipts, especially when we're only buying a few items at the local dollar store.
However, Utica resident John Durney checks those receipts and he found that the East Utica Dollar Tree store in the Mohawk Street Shopping Plaza was charging him tax on food items like egg noodles and corned beef hash.
Other dollar tree stores that Durney shopped at elsewhere in the area were not charging tax on such food items, only that East Utica store.
Durney says it's been going on for more than a year, during which he figures he's overpaid about $26. He has receipts that illustrate this over the past month.
"They have heavy heavy traffic, so $26 a year, if you multiply that times 5,000 customers, that's $130,000 a year that they're over charging the senior citizens that go there, especially the refugees," Durney said. "They don't even know that they're being over charged."
Durney says that when he confronted store personnel at the East Utica dollar Tree with the issue, they got angry with him.
When WKTV NEWSChannel 2 confronted the store on the issue on Tuesday, the manager of the East Utica store said corporate was aware of the problem and that there was a technician there Tuesday to try and fix it, but they added that they had no idea when the problem would be corrected.
The NYS Attorney General's Office confirms they are looking into it.
Most Popular