Wrong price label on item

Bogof_Babe

I picked up a small, low quality backpack that was on TK Maxx's Clearance rail and had a red sticker price of £7 on top of whatever the previous reduced price was (they stick the reduced prices on top of each other for some reason). Carried it around for ages, unsure whether I actually wanted it as it was pretty rubbish quality and not my usual taste, but decided at that price it would do for a day trip I'm having later this week.

However, at the checkout the tag was scanned and I was told "sorry but that isn't the right price, it's £9.99". I said okay I'll leave it then, and paid for the couple of other things I was buying.

On leaving the shop it occurred to me that I thought shops had to honour the price displayed, even if it is incorrect. It's not as if someone could be deliberately trying to scam them, as the price sticker is clearly one of their own, and as anyone who shops at TK Maxx will know, they are pretty much impossible to remove from the previous sticker underneath (I have tried sometimes, to see how much I've saved!).

So, should I have stood up for my right to buy it at £7, or is it up to the retailer whether they decide to ask for a different price to the one on the item?

tomtontom

You had no right to buy it at £7. Look up invitation to treat, offer and acceptance (or the sticky at the top of the page)

Bogof_Babe

Fair enough, I thought I'd heard something like that in the past.

It does make a bit of a nonsense about pricing an item for sale at all though. Might just as well haggle at the counter!

ThumbRemote

Shops are allowed to make genuine mistakes. Deliberately mispricing items is still not permitted.

arcon5

People make mistakes, we're not all perfect!

It would only raise issues if they was deliberately or inadvertently misleading people. But even that doesn't give you a right to buy at that price.

hollydays

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

Fair enough, I thought I'd heard something like that in the past.

It does make a bit of a nonsense about pricing an item for sale at all though. Might just as well haggle at the counter!

If this was the law it would be easy to stick another price on something yourself then insist they honoured it. Clearly that doesn't make sense, hence the law.

RS2000.

hollydays wrote: »

If this was the law it would be easy to stick another price on something yourself then insist they honoured it. Clearly that doesn't make sense, hence the law.

That would be theft.

Bogof_Babe

Actually I have a theory about TK Maxx's system, as this is not the first similar incident I've experienced.

I believe their bar code triggers a description of the item on the screen. A couple of months ago I picked up a purse/wallet on the women's accessories Clearance shelf, priced at £8. At the checkout I was asked to wait a minute, as "this doesn't seem right". Assistant disappeared, then returned to say the price was correct but the item should have been described as a man's wallet not a lady's, so did I still want it? Well, err, yes I do - I didn't select it because of what the description was!

Therefore I think in today's case someone had selected the bag for a further/final reduction (original "Our Price" was only £12.99), and stickered it up, then hung it in the appropriate place in the shop with the other final reductions. However somewhere along the line the relevant amendment was not made in the computer system, hence the mismatch.

I found some similar bags in the men's Clearance area, which were indeed priced at £9.99, but were a bit bigger and much nicer.

Can't help wondering whether they would put the bag straight back on the shelf I found it on, only for someone else to have the same confusion.

If it was a tie-on tag I could understand the theory about unscrupulous customers changing the price, but these red stickers are virtually impossible to remove, so unless it was an inside job by someone who had access to the price sticker printer I can't see how a customer could have done this.

No worries, it was probably karma as I didn't really like it anyway .

hollydays

RS2000. wrote: »

That would be theft.

No , If it was successful it would be deception .but as stores don't allow it, the deception is stopped.

George_Michael

hollydays wrote: »

No , If it was successful it would be deception

It would actually be fraud (Fraud by false representation to be exact).
Deception as an offence was covered by S15 of the Theft act and this was repealed and replaced by the Fraud act in 2007.


Changing a pricing label is an offence even if the shop refuses the sale as all offence requires is that someone intends to make a gain (or intends to cause loss to another).

SuperHan

Bogof_Babe wrote: »

It does make a bit of a nonsense about pricing an item for sale at all though. Might just as well haggle at the counter!

Well, yes, but in 99% of cases the prices will be right, and you could try to haggle at the counter, but they most likely wouldn't drop below the price list they had on their systems!

I think there is a law somewhere about items having to be priced (although I can't find anything to back this up in a quick search, so maybe this is something my brain has thrown together all by itself) so that people can make decisions and not be misled, but mistakes happen and shops aren't bound by them. It's a different story if for example they took out a national newspaper ad and TV campaign and weren't selling at those prices, as that is a lot less likely to be a mistake and will bait people in to the store on false premises.