Bargain-hunters love the thrill of seeing huge discounts fall off their total at the cash register, but this joy doesn’t necessarily reflect the truth. If a retailer never intended for anyone to pay the original sticker price, was it ever an original price at all?

When JCPenney ended its failed experiment with “fair and square” pricing under Ron Johnson, employees say that the company gave customers what they wanted by hiking prices, then cutting them again. “All of a sudden, the rack of $7 shorts became $14, and then they were 50 percent off,” one employee told NBC News last summer.

Most shoppers know that this goes on on some level, but … hey, wait, why are we yapping about an NBC article that ran back in August? One of the JCPenney employees interviewed now claims that the retailer fired him for admitting to the press what most shoppers already knew in the first place. For the story, he used his real name, and said that he saw teams moving through the store, doubling prices on housewares.

It will surprise no one that shortly after his TV appearance, the employee was fired. JCPenney fought his unemployment claim, and is now in arbitration with him to get back any company documents that he might still have. That’s why he’s now come forward: to let everyone know that the retailer allegedly fired him for saying out loud what most shoppers know to begin with.

This J.C. Penney Worker Was Fired For Telling The Truth About Its ‘Fake’ Prices [Huffington Post] (Thanks, Rowell!)

Some of JC Penney’s big sales are misleading, say employees [NBC]