Lawmakers are aiming to crack down on so-called “dynamic pricing” in the wake of a jaw-dropping report showing that grocery delivery app Instacart charged shoppers different prices for the same items at the same stores without telling them, The Post has learned.
Members of Congress “were displeased, shocked, engaged and ready to consider legislative and oversight action,” Lindsay Owens, executive director of consumer advocacy group Groundwork Collaborative told The Post on Thursday, after meeting with 15 lawmakers.
The report finding Instacart charged hundreds of customers widely different prices at big chains including Target, Kroger, Safeway, Albertsons and Costco came as Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) introduced legislation to ban such practices.
“Greedy corporations are compiling Americans’ personal data and using AI to find their ‘pain point’ – the maximum they’re willing to pay. That’s not fair pricing, that’s predatory pricing. My bill puts an end to it,” Gallego said in a statement.
The lawmaker flagged January research from the Federal Trade Commission showing that retailers “frequently use customers’ personal information – everything from their location to the type of device they are searching on – to set tailored prices for goods and services,” according to his office.
In the House of Representatives, lawmakers are exploring ways to curb dynamic pricing, which sometimes employs AI tools to track customer data.
“They wanted to know what types of legislation they could pursue to protect consumers from this practice,” said Owens, who met with all Dems.
The pols were part of the “Congressional Dad’s Caucus” of Dems focusing on working families.
Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D.-Calif.) said after meeting with Owens, he’s “weighing next steps to bring costs down and rein in this type of pricing.”
“If Instacart’s AI pricing is quietly, unfairly and/or deceptively making some people pay more for the same groceries, that’s a big problem,” he said in a statement to The Post.
Any action on dynamic pricing would need GOP buy-in in the Republican-controlled House and Senate.
The high cost of living has caught the attention of pols across the political spectrum in recent months.
The Groundwork Collaboration report found that Instacart charged Target customers at a North Canton, Ohio store $2.99 for Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter one day in September – while other Instacart users that day paid as much as $3.59 for the same jar picked up from the same location.
Target said in response to the findings that it is not “affiliated with Instacart and is not responsible for prices on the Instacart Platform.”
Instacart was likely trying to determine how much money it could make off of Target shoppers, Owens said.
“At a place like Target which is not known for being on the low-end, Instacart was probably like ‘this is an interesting place for us to explore a higher mark-up,” she explained.
Instacart did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The company previously told The Post that its price “tests,” which “have now ended,” are never based on personal characteristics of shoppers and do not change in real time.
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