Sign allegedly seen at No Frills scolds shoppers about removing reduced price stickers
A sign scolding customers about removing reduced price stickers was reportedly spotted at No Frills and has sparked a heated discussion online.
A shopper shared a photo of the sign they say they saw at No Frills on the “Loblaws is out of control” subreddit.
The sign reads: “Taking off reduced stickers is theft. Area under video surveillance. 50 per cent stickers will be reduced one to three days in advance. Cashiers will be checking at the front.”
The Redditor asked the internet if anyone else had seen those signs at other No Frills locations. They did not specify which location they saw this sign at. Though the poster’s past posts suggest this happened at a store in Ontario, Daily Hive could not independently verify this. The poster did not respond to our queries.
“Thought it was pretty ironic for them to put this up,” reads the post.
The poster has not commented on their post since sharing it, but it caught the attention of many others.
The sign alleges that customers are taking reduced price stickers off of one product and putting them on another item that isn’t on sale, so they can get a deal.
“You can’t stop me from taking the ’50 per cent off, eat today’ from watermelon to put it on a PS5 box!” one comment joked.
The act of removing a reduced price sticker and putting it on another product that isn’t on sale is called price tag switching, and it is illegal in Canada.
According to Toronto-based criminal lawyer Mark Zinck, price tag switching, improper self-checkout activity, and false returns are all classified as fraud under $5,000 in the Criminal Code.
“When most people think of shoplifting, they think of someone sneaking an item under their jacket, but many cases are fraud allegations that the accused changed a price tag, obtained an improper discount,” he shared in an explainer on his site.
He added that as of 2026, with the increased use of self-checkout kiosks, some shoppers are more tempted to manipulate price tags, improperly scan items or not scan them at all, and sneak unpaid products out of the store. Zinck said that, as a result, more Canadians are being charged with fraud under $5,000.
“Most of the cases we see come from Loblaws/Superstore, Canadian Tire, Home Depot, Shoppers Drug Mart, Costco, and Wal-Mart, but this is by no means an exhaustive list,” he noted.
ACHPF/Shutterstock
Loblaw could not provide Daily Hive with a statement without knowing the exact store in which the sign was posted. We asked the grocery giant about whether it gives its franchisees the liberty to post such signs and enforce such store rules, but we did not receive a response before publishing this article.
Replies to the Reddit post weren’t denying the legality of the alleged act, but many argued that Loblaw, the corporation that owns No Frills, is doing a similar thing to customers.
“And what the f**k do you call fixing grocery prices? That’s theft!” reads one comment.
“‘How dare you rip us off! You’re supposed to be ripped off!” added another.
Loblaw routinely gets accused of price gouging, and even settled a bread price-fixing class action last year.
The company was also in the hot seat recently over its new store designs for Shoppers Drug Mart and No Frills, which many Canadians weren’t impressed with.