1 penny change from shops

LameWolf

If a shop did that to me, it'd be the last time I shopped there! It may only be 1p, but it's my 1p, and if I choose to give it to charity, it'll be to a charity of my choosing! So there!:D

In fact, at our favourite pub, there's a box for a charity we like to support, so Mr LW and I offload any coppers we have on us in there.;)

JackieO I look out for "shrapnel" on the Redways (MK cycle paths) when I'm out dog-walking.

Justamum

Years ago I lived for a while in Richmond in Surrey. I used to buy my veg from the market and one of the stallholders always asked if he could keep the change if it was only 1p. I'd always say 'no'. It always annoyed me - imagine if everyone let him keep the odd penny change, it would soon add up to quite a lot of extra profit for him.

I also used to live in South Africa and if you were buying something and the amount came to, say, R15.47 it would be rounded down to R15.45. My husband said that when he was younger and living in Swaziland, if a shop didn't have a couple of cents change for you, they'd give you chappies bubble gum as change :rotfl::rotfl:

I keep the shrapnel from my purse and bag it up, then when there's enough put it in the bank.

Justamum

HappyMJ wrote: »

They can do what they like. If you don't it then pay £1.49 in exact change. There's no law that says they even have to give any change at all. Think about the buses that don't give change if you don't have the exact fare.

Are you sure? When you take something to the counter to pay for it, you're offering them a certain sum of money, which they accept by taking the money off you, and that forms a contract. If they don't give you the change then they've breached that contract by charging you more than you offered and they accepted. Strictly speaking surely that's theft?

Petlamb

LameWolf wrote: »

If a shop did that to me, it'd be the last time I shopped there!
</snip>

Ditto! It may only be 1p, but it's MY 1p to choose to take or leave, and I should be offered it. And as many others have said, that'll be mounting up nicely for them.

jackyann

I do know that there is some sort of limits on "legal tender" and you can look it up on the Royal Mint website. It's to stop people paying, say £100 debt in 1p coins. So someone can refuse to accept more than 20p worth of 1p coins, or £5 worth of 5p coins.
However, I'm not sure how it applies to giving change.

Spendless

jrtfan wrote: »

It was my son who first brought this to my notice (think he was aged 10 at the time). He was taking coins from his pocket money to buy himself a drink or sweets etc from one of these shops in particular, and one day he complained to me that he often wasn't given the correct change back (short by 1p or 2p). I suggested that he use a different shop initially, but then I started to notice the same thing was happening to me, too, at a handful of the local corner shops!

IMO your local shopkeepers have adopted this in your area as a 'custom' ie they are trying it on. Protest and see what happens. Make sure you update us though.

jrtfan

Justamum wrote: »

Are you sure? When you take something to the counter to pay for it, you're offering them a certain sum of money, which they accept by taking the money off you, and that forms a contract. If they don't give you the change then they've breached that contract by charging you more than you offered and they accepted. Strictly speaking surely that's theft?

My thoughts too. Perhaps we need to be quoting the price on the item when we get to the tillpoint, just to make it clear that is the amount we intend to pay?!

Then again, thinking about it, at least one of the shops in question never actually displays any prices on their goods unless the manufacturer has it printed on the packaging as a special offer (can't recall seeing many RRP goods in there, though). But that's probably another story altogether.

jrtfan

Spendless wrote: »

IMO your local shopkeepers have adopted this in your area as a 'custom' ie they are trying it on. Protest and see what happens. Make sure you update us though.

I certainly will do, Spendless, and thank you for taking an interest.

Coincidentally, I had a read through our local village Facebook page earlier today and on there were several warnings from villagers regarding some of these shops. A recurring one was about overcharging, just by £1 here and there. Another is that often, once they get home, they notice some things they've bought are out of date but have still been sold for the full price. A third is that these small shops have begun to charge for credit/debit card payments; nothing unusual there. However, the claims are that there's no signage clearly displayed to this effect; the retailers are not informing the customers verbally about the charges before putting the transactions through; and the charges have been between 50p and £2 per transaction.

I thought the Consumer Rights (Payment Surcharges) Regulations 2012 had put a stop to excessively high fees and capped credit card payments to 0.3% of the transaction value, debit cards to 0.2%- ? So if somebody had paid £2 fee for paying by credit card, that means they must have spent £675 in that shop - am I working this out properly? Maybe I'm wrong and the capps don't apply to these small businesses. Anyway, this last part is hearsay as I use cash to nip to the corner shops. The overcharging and the out of date goods, I can vouch for!

[Deleted User]

Imagine if say Tesco's or Sainsburys decided to keep a penny on every bit of cash tendered how much they would make over the period of even a day let alone a week !!!

Pollycat

jrtfan wrote: »

Then again, thinking about it, at least one of the shops in question never actually displays any prices on their goods unless the manufacturer has it printed on the packaging as a special offer (can't recall seeing many RRP goods in there, though). But that's probably another story altogether.

jrtfan wrote: »

Coincidentally, I had a read through our local village Facebook page earlier today and on there were several warnings from villagers regarding some of these shops. A recurring one was about overcharging, just by £1 here and there. Another is that often, once they get home, they notice some things they've bought are out of date but have still been sold for the full price. A third is that these small shops have begun to charge for credit/debit card payments; nothing unusual there. However, the claims are that there's no signage clearly displayed to this effect; the retailers are not informing the customers verbally about the charges before putting the transactions through; and the charges have been between 50p and £2 per transaction.

I don't know what your other shopping options are but going by the points in your posts that I've bolded, I'd be avoiding all these shops like the plague!

Round our way, shops always give 1p change - even the charity shops - and I've never been charged for using a credit card.