This madness is not limited to the United States of America... we have it bad down here in New Zealand. Retailers have charged $x.99 for many many years, even when advertising the before-
GST price.
Nowadays, the '
ninety-nine cents' is routinely shortened in verbal price advertising to "ninety-nine", or "nine-nine" for little prices. Big prices get "nine-nine" in the dollars place - the height of stupidity is the retailer who sells
big ticket items like home computers with the spoken price of "four nine nine nine ninety nine" - but at least they haven't scared
punters off with a "five thousand dollars" price, eh?
To compound matters, our forethought-deprived government removed the coins for 1 cent and two cents. I could understand removing the two cent piece, but now one can't even get change for the $x.99 prices... so retailers round up, or down, or
Swedish,
whatever that is, unless the buyer is paying via
EFT-POS, in which case you often get charged the literal price after being verbally told the rounded figure... we're
bullish on EFT-POS 'round here.