Lidl mispricing: check your receipts

sarahTT

I am just returning from my local Lidl (like the Asda in walking distance). I have bought just eight product lines of which a grand total of three were mispriced: the eggs (one pack) were shown as £1.18 on the shelves, £1.29 at the till; French camemberts (two) were £0.99/£1.19 and the 720g pork loins (also two) £3.25/£3.49, altogether a difference of 11p+40p+48p or 99p. I had to talk to their manager to get this rectified as the till person insisted they were unable to honour those misprices. Well, the manager claimed that this is not true and that Lidl would always honour the prices shown on the shelves -- make of that what you want. (The eggs had been already £1.18/£1.29 at least ten days before but I only checked the receipt when I came home; as it was just 11p I let it go.)

It seems many people can't be bothered to check their receipt (that is if they get one in the first place as Lidl now ask shoppers whether they even want a receipt... honi soit qui mal y pense).

I've had massive misprice problems with my local Asda, to the extent that I pretty much stopped shopping there. So far Lidl has been much better, I think there have been perhaps two or three misprices in the last 18 months or so. However... is Lidl now going down the same route as Asda?

Anyway, what I want to emphasise that IMO it's important to get a receipt AND to check it... otherwise they can get away with pretty much everything.

Rosa_Damascena

sarahTT said:

I am just returning from my local Lidl (like the Asda in walking distance). I have bought just eight product lines of which a grand total of three were mispriced: the eggs (one pack) were shown as £1.18 on the shelves, £1.29 at the till; French camemberts (two) were £0.99/£1.19 and the 720g pork loins (also two) £3.25/£3.49, altogether a difference of 11p+40p+48p or 99p. I had to talk to their manager to get this rectified as the till person insisted they were unable to honour those misprices. Well, the manager claimed that this is not true and that Lidl would always honour the prices shown on the shelves -- make of that what you want. (The eggs had been already £1.18/£1.29 at least ten days before but I only checked the receipt when I came home; as it was just 11p I let it go.)

It seems many people can't be bothered to check their receipt (that is if they get one in the first place as Lidl now ask shoppers whether they even want a receipt... honi soit qui mal y pense).

I've had massive misprice problems with my local Asda, to the extent that I pretty much stopped shopping there. So far Lidl has been much better, I think there have been perhaps two or three misprices in the last 18 months or so. However... is Lidl now going down the same route as Asda?

Anyway, what I want to emphasise that IMO it's important to get a receipt AND to check it... otherwise they can get away with pretty much everything.

Don't you mean caveat emptor?

Cornucopia

The Tawny Tomatowls (they are a mix of different colours and flavours of small tomatoes) were the only misprice on my Lidl receipt this week, but sadly they were also mispriced last week.    The cashier saw me checking the receipt and asked me if there was a problem with it.  (Which was good).

I'm not sure if it is the present situation, though.   The Fin Carre chocolate bar with whole hazelnuts was mispriced for weeks and weeks last year.

What's slightly disappointing is that they do not seem to automatically sort out the problem after someone has reported it to them.

decus et tutamen

p00hsticks

I was in B & M at the weekend and noticed that a large number of shelf prices were completely missing, replaced by a card that said someithng like 'new pricing point coming'. I can only imagine that there have been a large number of price changes (increases ?) passed though centrally onto the tills and the staff in store haven't recelived the new price labels for the shelves....

pumpkin89

p00hsticks said:

I was in B & M at the weekend and noticed that a large number of shelf prices were completely missing, replaced by a card that said someithng like 'new pricing point coming'. I can only imagine that there have been a large number of price changes (increases ?) passed though centrally onto the tills and the staff in store haven't recelived the new price labels for the shelves....

I can understand it's not the fault of the staff in that particular shop, but I would be following up with Trading Standards.  The law is very clear that prices must be displayed.

https://www.gov.uk/product-labelling-the-law

sarahTT

Well, from the deep fount of my experience I'd say that Lidl has been pretty good till now. Home Bargains are very good, I can only remember a single misprice in a few years. Asda, as I wrote, have been abysmal (and not only because of their frequent misprices but also because they have only one lady at customer service and there's always a lengthy queue there... so even if I've seen a misprice more often than not I'd just take it on the chin). Tesco and Sainsbury's have the odd misprice but I don't shop there enough to make a valid comparison.

Then again, I'd assume that a well-run Asda would be much better than mine and a badly run Home Bargains much worse.

As to not price labelling stuff, I agree the winner there has to be B&M. Again, that's a shop I avoid completely nowadays.

Many if not most French supermarket chains have electronic price tags and this system works extremely well in my experience... but we'll probably have to wait another decade or so until we get those futuristic gadgets over here. Then again, on the bright side, many products here in UK are MUCH cheaper than the equivalent in France. Both Lidl and Aldi are good for such comparisons as they often stock the same product lines on both sides of the channel... and some price differences are eye-watering, even when taking the 5% VAT in France into account.

millie

Do they still give you a £5 gift card at Asda when they overcharge you? I know they did in the past you usually had to ask for it though. 

sarahTT

@millie It was a £2 card when I was still shopping there and I got a few off them... but the customer service queues in the end were so horrendous that I gave up on complaining and also on Asda itself.

millie

sarahTT said:

@millie It was a £2 card when I was still shopping there and I got a few off them... but the customer service queues in the end were so horrendous that I gave up on complaining and also on Asda itself.

Yes my mistake I remember now. I do all my shopping online now so dont have the problem anymore, although I have it from Asda.