Walmart Is Getting Heat For Overpriced Meat Products — And It Could Face A Lawsuit

Walmart's slogan may be "Save Money, Live Better," but as a series of social media posts have revealed, the corporation has been overcharging shoppers for meat via rampant mislabelling. Customers have discovered that the weights listed on some of Walmart's meat packages are incorrect, and these weight discrepancies could indicate fraudulent overpricing and deceptive tactics to get customers to pay more for less food.

A viral TikTok video from @james_wrigg exposed a glaring pricing error at Walmart that appears to be systematic. As the post's caption reads, "Found a couple hundred dollars over priced meat in 60 seconds." In the video, they walk into Walmart's meat section, pick up several hams, then take them to the produce department to weigh them on the produce scale for accuracy — and the results are off-putting, to say the least.

In reality, a visibly-small store-bought ham labelled as weighing 4.98 pounds weighed in at 1.83 pounds for a total of $25 — more than double the actual price per-pound. The poster repeated the process with all of the hams, revealing that the weights were several pounds lighter than their labels indicated. Worse, JJ Buckner shared a Youtube video documenting all of @james_wrigg's visits to other Walmart locations, and the mislabelling issue appears to be chain-wide. 

In their YouTube video, JJ Buckner broke down the actual-versus-marked price discrepancies across multiple posts shared on TikTok, and found that Walmart was overcharging by roughly $7 to $15 per meat item — price differences which demonstrate a breach of federal law, per Cornell Law School's breakdown of 15 U.S. Code § 1453(a)(2). In other words, Walmart could be in deep water.

Consumers aren't confident Walmart will make reparations. In a Reddit thread, some hypothesized that the major corporation will "immediately remove all scales from the sales floor," while others insisted that a larger penalty or fine will be necessary to incite change. Indeed, it's estimated that Walmart grossed $703.06 billion in 2025 — a $20,000 fine would only be a slap on the wrist.

Systematic overcharging via mislabelled meat seems to be an unflatteringly serial issue for Walmart. In 2022, the corporation faced a class-action settlement for overcharging customers for sold-by-weight products, including poultry, pork, and seafood. While the company denied any wrongdoing, it forked over a $45 million settlement, and affected customers were awarded up to $500 in cash for reparations. 

Time will tell whether another round of customer payouts could be on the way for Walmart shoppers. At least for now, budget-conscious foodies might consider shopping at another popular chain grocery store for meat.