Nobody agrees on that. TFA follows "a state government inspector" whose effectiveness is hampered solely by a "North Carolina law" which "caps penalties at $5,000 per inspection." That law [1] doesn't exist outside North Carolina.
This is the first time I'm reading about this. We have a dollar store in my town. I'm curious to replicate this experiment myself and send the results into the local newspaper if the discrepancy is real.
[1] https://www.ncleg.gov/enactedlegislation/statutes/html/bycha... § 81A-30.1
Yeah it does. This is specifically the sort of thing that the FTC is in charge of addressing.
That is ultimately controlled by who the president is. There is some funding problems with these enforcement agencies that forces them to pick and chose their battles. However, you'd be naive to think that there isn't a significant difference from how Lina Khan ran things and how Andrew Ferguson runs things.
I routinely see this type of crime heavily policed and reported on in NC. Whereas my entire life is in coastal SC and never once in my life saw this repeated on or enforced.
You couldn't get away with this for as long in the UK as a retailer. Either the CMA or Trading Standards would deal with it.