Your Loyalty Card Could Let Grocery Stores Charge You More — Here's Why

Just by shopping, you’re likely giving your grocery store a lot of personal information. This is particularly true if you use a grocery store’s loyalty card or shopping app. And that knowledge could potentially be used to your own detriment. 

Imagine a scenario in which you’re standing in line, buying a dozen eggs, and you end up getting charged 50 cents more than the customer just in front of you.

Discover More: A $1,200 Grocery Bill? 5 Reasons Your Food Budget Never Seems Big Enough

For You: 7 Low-Risk Accounts Proven To Grow Your Money Up to 13x Faster

That might sound like a science-fiction movie, but it’s possible that a grocery store could tailor different prices to separate customers, simply because a computer algorithm decided that you were willing to pay more. 

This technique, known as surveillance pricing, is something the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is currently investigating. 

What Information Might a Grocery Store Use?

In addition to the information you voluntarily give to your grocery store, pricing technology companies can also collect data from websites and other sources, enough to help them build a fairly detailed picture of your spending habits.

A 2025 FTC investigation revealed that these types of companies can use everything from browsing history to geographic location to help businesses determine what individual customers might be willing to pay. The FTC also found that these pricing technology companies worked with at least 250 clients, including grocery retailers.

Feeding that information into an algorithm could result in a grocery store offering one shopper a discount while charging another full price. Customers who consistently buy one brand or type of product, for example, might be offered different pricing than someone who consistently pays the lowest price for an item. 

What Is the FTC Doing About It?

In August 2026, the FTC addressed the very issue of using personal data to set individualized prices in a proposed enforcement policy statement. According to the FTC, not every form of personalized pricing is illegal. Further, it acknowledged that it didn’t have the authority to ban the practice altogether.

What could violate consumer protection laws, however, is when companies don’t disclose how they’re using personal information to set prices. 

The whole process brings up an important distinction for shoppers. If a retailer charges you more based on your personal shopping history, you might feel taken advantage of. Getting a discount personalized to you based on that same history, for example, might feel like a reward.  

How To Lower Your Grocery Bill

As a consumer, there’s not much you can do if retailers use algorithms to determine their prices. But retailers can’t reach directly into your wallet and force you to spend. Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes, and a little bit of knowledge can help you save more money.

Rather than assuming that your favorite or closest supermarket offers the best deal, see what competitors charge for similar products. If you’re an online shopper, see if those prices match those available in physical stores. Third-party shopping services can often charge higher prices even before adding their delivery fees. 

Prices may also change if you’re signed into a shopping account or app. To see if that’s the case, log out of your account or app and check the price of those items once again. Just remember that a price difference doesn't necessarily mean your personal information was used to determine it.

To help manage privacy concerns, consider limiting the information you share with shopping apps and loyalty programs. By signing up, you are volunteering personal information that can be used to create a profile of you. While that may have some benefits, consider reviewing the permissions you give to an app and restricting location tracking.  

Realize, however, that by giving up a loyalty program, you might lose access to legitimate discounts or your own personal shopping history, if that means anything to you, so there’s a trade-off to consider. 

This article was provided by MoneyLion.com for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial, legal or tax advice.