Target's price-match policy doesn't actually allow the 'hack' that's trending on TikTok

• TikTokers and Instagrammers are sharing a price-matching "hack" to save money at Target.
• The shoppers use prices from a less-expensive store to convince staff to adjust the in-store price.
• While the move may work, Target's policy requires local stores to be selected for pricing.

TikTok and Instagram are full of money-saving tips, but often they need to be taken with a grain — or spoonful — of salt.

In a recent trend, shoppers say they've "hacked" Target's price-matching policy to save big bucks, in some cases $4 or $5 per item, by switching their home location to a cheaper city's Target store.

"This is for people who live in more expensive cities," a TikToker posting as Rachel Coopes says in one video. She then goes on to describe how she saved a dollar or two on every item in her cart by setting her app's location to Kalamazoo, Michigan.

In a separate video, Haley Sacks, who posts as Mrs. Dow Jones the Zillennial finance expert, recommends Harlingen, Texas, which she says is the lowest cost-of-living city, and which also happens to have a Target store.

At the register, the shoppers said they request an adjustment based on the lower-cost store's price.

"It adds up, I'm telling you," Coopes said.

While these shoppers and others may have successfully gotten prices adjusted, the move seems to go against Target's policy.

Still, TikTokers are touting the rule-bending move as a "hack."

Target did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment on this story, but its website says the current store is supposed to be selected in the app, and a store employee should verify prices with a Target-owned device.

For items sold by local retailers, stores must be no more than 25 miles away from the customer's address.

Other advice appears to be shaped by experience with pushback from store employees who may be more versed in the policy.

A TikToker who goes by @devriebrynn recommended being "real sneaky" in setting the app's Target location, while @jiniretfan53 suggested going early in the morning to "find the oldest looking worker you can find" working on the register.

"They don't know what you're talking about so they're just gonna do it," she said.

Target certainly has a competitive price-match policy. On its website the company promises to match the price of an item that's sold for less at another local retailer or one of 27 online stores. There are some limitations, though.

"When price matching with the Target app, the Target app must be showing the price of the current store location," Target says under in its Price Match Guarantee. "We match Target.com prices on in-store purchases and in-store prices for Target.com purchases. In-store price matches from other Target stores are excluded."

This latest "hack" follows other tricks that range from questionable to outright fraudulent, such as shoppers skimming a little extra laundry detergent from a dollar store, scanning a cheaper item at self-checkout, or putting old stuff into a new item's packaging to get a refund.

A lot of factors go into pricing merchandise for retail sale, not least of which is geography, and many of the things that make it expensive to live in a place also make it expensive to operate a business there.

The internet has blurred these boundaries, but national retail chains are acutely aware of local costs. That's why the policy says what it does.

Regardless, some shoppers will be indifferent to the propriety of persuading retail employees to violate store policy to give them a deal.

"I just saved $5 on my Flonase — New York City price gouging and allergies aren't getting me down," TikToker @devriebrynn says in the video in which she recommended sneakiness with setting the location. "I ain't got no reverence for corporations — go F 'em up."