Supermarket Refund Policies

43722

I agree that the focus is being lost, and will leave it here for now. I may contact the supermarket concerned later this week. So far my attempts to contact them electronically have been thwarted by technological shortcomings on the company website...

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

RefluentBeans said:

The original question was why can’t retailers automatically refund. Feels we’ve gone way off topic, and arguing rather academic points. The system doesn’t exist, and likely can’t exist without major changes in operation and investment by the companies, for what is equivalent to pennies. Feel the points have been made above by myself and others. 

That's correct, the answer would be they don't have to (auto refund) as it is for the consumer to pursue their rights which in such a situation rights only arise of there is a breach of the CPRs, hence the mention of it in the discussion  

It isn't particularly about the law covering mistakes, rather how contract law works, case law deemed the shelf price displayed in a shop is an invitation to treat allowing the other party to make an offer which can be accepted or refused, that is instead of the shelf price being an offer, which when accepted by the other party would form a binding contract. 

An invitation to treat is aptly named, it's inviting another to make an offer. You could walk to the till with your 28p can of baked beans and offer to pay 18p. Of course the big name supermarket worker isn't going to accept but contract law wasn't based solely on supermarkets, in an almost identical environment, the owner of your local corner shop might accept your offer because they have too many tins of beans in the store room. It's all up for negotiation so the price on the shelf isn't particularly a mistake, rather the offer has been altered. 

When say you “they don’t have to sell at the shelf price” that is correct, they say £6 and you say hey I thought it was £4. They say we can’t do £4 and you say I’m not paying £6. That’s the negotiation and neither side can force the other to pay what they want and both can walk away. 

The issue is one where the transaction does occur and at a price the other was not expecting, because in the case of a supermarket the actual offer is presented on a small screen that is often faced away from you and even if you can see it it’s very hard to remember the price of everything in a trolley full of goods whilst packing the trolley back up, particularly in the two who shove the stuff through the till at the speed of light! The CPRs in this instance are looking at whether the actions of the trader mislead the consumer into accepting an offer that they thought was something else, or more specifically that he would take a transactional decision he would not have taken otherwise.

RefluentBeans said:

The only people who can say if a retailer has misled customers is a court.

Well yes, equally the only people who say whether your washing machine did or didn't conform to the contract, or decide any of the other topics on here really, is court. 

It's either all academic, in which case what are we all doing here, or it's all up for discussion  

sheramber

How would the supermarket identify those who paid by cash. Many in my local supermsrket do .

43722

Yes, it's a good point. Ideally, supermarkets would identify and refund all customers. But I can see that cash may be more difficult.

born_again

43722 said:

jon81uk said:

43722 said:

Yes, I am not suggesting that this was anything other than a mistake. But I was wondering, now that transactions are cashless, whether more could be done, via technology, to refund overpayments when the store has erred. I am not sure that you would need to contact each customer to do this. I know they debit £99 when I fill  up the fuel, but adjust the amount afterwards,  and they have made adjustments to online shopping bills too.

I always check my receipts, and inaccurate charging happens a lot.  I was also overcharged at a garden centre this week, and had to get a refund. 

But the automated system wouldn't know that someone forgot to change a poster in the frame outside the store. If the offer is meant to be running, 99% of the time it is running and the price at the till is correct. Where things more often go wrong is the human changing the signage on time.

The details of how the offer went wrong are not important. The issue is whether stores might be able to do more to make sure that customers do not lose out because of staff errors. Would it be possible to instigate a computer check for instance to find out if just one customer or 200 had been overcharged? Also, (and I think this probably does happen) do store managers ever walk around their stores to spot check a range of prices?

The reason for many of these errors are human. Wrong price put on shelf, or wrong price entered into POS system via computer. 
So until we make humans who do not make mistakes. It will continue to happen. 

You have to remember that this works both ways. Sometimes you get undercharged due to their error. Would you go back & point that out?

43722

Not really sure about that. I have corrected cashier errors in the past, because i didn't want missing money to be made 70 from their wages.  I find it strange though that people are prepared to use such arguments. I think a store, as a business, should take responsibility for pricing and pricing errors. This means they would refund any overpayments, and allow any underpayments to stand.

RefluentBeans

43722 said:

Not really sure about that. I have corrected cashier errors in the past, because i didn't want missing money to be made 70 from their wages.  I find it strange though that people are prepared to use such arguments. I think a store, as a business, should take responsibility for pricing and pricing errors. This means they would refund any overpayments, and allow any underpayments to stand.

No company makes up the difference from the employees wages. 

I don't think it is a strange argument. Its the want your cake and eat it too, and proves that mistakes do happen in the shop, rather going against what peoples (apparent) views are of 'Big Bad Supermarket aiming to be anticonsumer' on this thread. 

If the automatic refunds came in, like you want them to, would you be happy for them to charge you when the price was higher? 

43722

I think the store is the professional in this case. It follows that the store should, in my opinion, accept responsibility for pricing errors, and should not allow customers to lose out. Similarly, if a store undercharges, it should not expect a customer to return the money.

Grumpy_chap

43722 said:

I think the store is the professional in this case. It follows that the store should, in my opinion, accept responsibility for pricing errors, and should not allow customers to lose out. Similarly, if a store undercharges, it should not expect a customer to return the money.

This does seem to be a "have cake and eat cake" desire.

The store in the OP's case did act responsibly.  Once the price discrepancy was drawn to attention, the price was honoured for the OP and the store removed the incorrect price display.

RefluentBeans

Grumpy_chap said:

43722 said:

I think the store is the professional in this case. It follows that the store should, in my opinion, accept responsibility for pricing errors, and should not allow customers to lose out. Similarly, if a store undercharges, it should not expect a customer to return the money.

This does seem to be a "have cake and eat cake" desire.

The store in the OP's case did act responsibly.  Once the price discrepancy was drawn to attention, the price was honoured for the OP and the store removed the incorrect price display.

Exactly this - the retailer in this case acted responsibility. The theoreticals that have been described of a big supermarket who knowingly and purposefully leaves up false advertising and just refunds those who are 'savvy' to check their receipt isn't what happened. 

If the retailer refused to refund the difference, there'd be an argument for a breach of consumer protection from unfair trading, but the promotion was honoured in this instance! 

There is a difference between protecting consumers because they are in a more vulnerable position than companies, and then expecting the retailers to do all of the work. Customers are engaging in a contract, and so should actually make sure they get charged for the right amount! It's literally the bare minimum to expect customers to do.

In this case:

• Retailer advertises a product for the wrong price
• Customer buys the product for the higher price
• Customer notices they've been overcharged & informs retailer
• Retailer honours the advertised price, and refunds customer for that purchase

What law did they break? What more could they have, realistically, done?