'Dynamic pricing' used to raise costs of everything from food and Uber rides to museum visits

If you feel like you’re being nickel-and-dimed everywhere you shop – you probably are.

Instacart has been using a shady AI algorithm that charges different prices to different customers on the same grocery items in the same stores without telling them, according to an explosive study released by Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative earlier this week.

At a Target store in North Canton, Ohio, for example, the popular grocery app charged one customer $2.99 for Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter – while other Instacart users paid as much as $3.59 for the same jar picked up from the same location, the study found.

But it’s not just Instacart using cutting-edge tech to set higher prices. So-called “dynamic pricing” practices have been used by rideshares Uber and Lyft; Las Vegas convenience