I see these donation requests at many places when I check out in the US. For example, PetCo will ask if you would "like to donate to save pets lives" and it see

I see these donation requests at many places when I check out in the US. For example, PetCo will ask if you would "like to donate to save pets lives" and it seems reasonable to assume that they treat the donation in a similar fashion to CVS in this case. That's not to say that this isn't fraudulent, just pointing out that this seems to be a very common practice. Never once have I believed that I would be donating directly to the charity (this is despite the phrasing rather than because of it) and, indeed, it seems much more like I am simply increasing the amount of my transaction in order to get [the retailer] to agree to donate the amount of the increase to charity. Given that context, I've never once considered following through; if anything I would ask the cashier, "Which charity is it?" so I can just donate myself. I believe at least one benefit of this for the retailer is the ability to claim this (not technically a) "donation" as revenue, which they then actually donate for the tax benefit. Of course they want the consumer to spend an extra (up to) $1 so the retailer 1) gets that as additional revenue and 2) avoids paying taxes on this revenue. It's nice to see this being called out in a class-action suit; hopefully something comes of it.