Whole Foods Apologizes for Ripping Off Customers, Pays Massive Fine

Whole Foods, the purveyor of organic and high-quality natural products that has helped to redefine what consumers demand in their food, has admitted to overcharging its customers for certain products.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the company must pay $800,000 for the offense in the state of California, although overcharging also occurred at stores in New York. Whole Foods co-CEOs John Mackey and Walter Robb released a video in which they apologized for the overcharging incidents and said that the practice was not common, and they would try to remedy the problem through increased training of its employees.

They said they chose to pay the fine even though sometimes the charging practices would benefit the customer, by allowing them to pay less for a more expensive product. The issue was that prepackaged goods whose value was determined by the weight of the item, were regularly marked with weights, and thus prices, over the actual weight of the item.

The California payments come a year after California said the state would monitor the company for five years to ensure fair practices for consumers. The New York revelations are more recent, and a final punishment has not yet been worked out. The fine for the first offense is $950, and can increase to $1,700.

The CEOs said they would hire an independent auditor to ensure the new practices were effective and that customers were being charged properly for what they were purchasing. They promised to release a status report on these new changes in 45 days.

The CEOs urged people to double check that they were rung up for the appropriate item and said if it was revealed they were overcharged, they would get the product in question free of charge.