Reply #14: When I worked at Casual Corner, we had a person whose job was settling fines

[Atman]

That's all she did, work with various state agencies to settle fines.

A lot of stores do what is called a "pre-mark." It is especially prevalent on clothing items; the tags are printed and affixed by the manufacturer with a price that is double (or more) what the item is ever intended to sell for. Then a hand-writing font is used to overprint a marked-down price, usually in a different color ink just for effect. Then they advertise it as a "SALE" item, and mark down the fake mark-down to get what they were going to originally charge anyway. The customer thinks they're getting a great deal, a suit for 75% off a price that the item never sold for in the first place.

The practice is illegal in most states, but the fine was usually about $500 or so, IF they got caught. Often they didn't because the item would sell out before any random inspector happened by. Meanwhile, the chain has made millions of dollars off the fake sale item (we had over 1800 stores). The $500 fine was simply seen as a very minor cost of doing business.

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