Chipotle Cheating No Longer: Customers Can Go Worry-Free of Their Pennies

Chipotle is no longer cheating customers out of pennies after allegations that the Mexican food-chain practiced "rounding" on bills to avoid dealing with small change.

On Monday, the New Jersey Star-Ledger discovered that the restaurant had a practice of rounding costumers' bills up or down without giving any advanced warning. The investigation was prompted when New Jersey resident, Jayson Greenberg, noticed his bills were not adding up.

The Star-Ledger then asked readers to send in their bills from the eatery and found that a store in New York City rounded the customer's bill up while a store in Missouri did not.

The questionable business practice sent up a red flag and prompted the paper to contact Consumer Affairs. The practice turned out to be against New Jersey statutes in the Weights and Measure Acts, which deals with the misrepresentation of prices on commodities.  

When Chipotle was contacted, spokesman Chris Arnold admitted to the practice and explained, "It's something we do in some high volume markets, including New Jersey. The way it works is that prices auto-round to the nearest quarter and that's indicated on the receipt. The idea is simply to limit the possible combinations of change on cash transactions to keep the lines moving quickly in high volume areas."

Shortly after, the company updated its policy to include a rounding line to customers' receipts. Many New Jersey stores also decided to discontinue the practice of rounding up, instead choose to only round down.

Arnold told the Star-Ledger, "It was never our intention to have a policy that was confusing or misleading."

Following the discovery, Consumer Affairs acting director, Eric Kanefsky, said, "We will follow up to ensure that the restaurants' actual practice matches this stated policy. Consumers should be aware that New Jersey law requires businesses to provide consumers with clear and accurate information about the prices they charge for goods and services."