Sainsburys deliberately overcharge you at the till on reduced price goods

AGBB8S

I used an automatic Till in a Sainsburys Store, and some of my goods had Reduced Price yellow labels on them. I did not spot until I got home that I had been charged the full Price for the reduced Items and I don't live local to the store. Attempts to speak to someone on 0800636262 have been frustrating. Sainsburys Advisors struggle to speak English, then keep complaining "the Systems down" but "will send a Voucher in compensation" but no voucher ever arrives. It seems like Sainsburys have gone to the dogs!

I read a thread somewhere (but cannot find it now) about Sainsburys Supermarkets practice in deliberately charging the Full Price on their goods that have Reduced Price yellow labels - customer who posted this stated she was told the Cashier has to be asked to honour the labels at checkout otherwise Full Price will be charged. Customer was told by Cashier "Sainsburys do this because customers are fraudulently putting yellow stickers on goods that are not discounted". If this is the case then I feel Sainsburys are operating illegally and gone the wrong way about trying to solve the problem of false yellow labels. 

Has anyone else had experience of this issue of being overcharged in this way? 

Voyager2002

My experience: reduced goods often still have the original full-price bar code visible to the scanner, and so the wrong price can be registered. When this happens i need to call over a member of staff who invariable corrects the error without question.

fwor

Yes - I've noticed this. You get no warning that the till is not applying the discount. The staff at my local Sainsbury's describe it as a "fault in the system that has been ongoing for several weeks", so it seems that they have not been informed about what their employer is doing.

I've also noted that Nectar reductions sometimes simply don't get applied at the till. I noticed this (after the event) a couple of weeks ago, but 2 days later the Customer Services person refused to refund the difference between what I paid and what I should have paid "because I did not have the item with me".

I asked the person "helping" me at the CS desk to make sure that the labelling or the pricing was checked and corrected, which she said she would do. Four days later the error was still there, and anyone buying that item using Nectar was still being overcharged.

teaselMay

Our Sainsburys has to approve all yellow sticker items because of the amount of fraud involving them, it's company policy at the moment apparently. Other places do too, Aldi for example you have to ask the self scan cashier to apply the discount. 

MrsPorridge

I always check my receipt before leaving the store.  A few times there have been errors and on going to customer services it has been rectified immediately.

MattMattMattUK

teaselMay said:

Our Sainsburys has to approve all yellow sticker items because of the amount of fraud involving them, it's company policy at the moment apparently. Other places do too, Aldi for example you have to ask the self scan cashier to apply the discount. 

I have been told the same, the fraudsters cracked the barcodes for reduced price items, so were printing their own and applying them to products to get things cheap, often joints of meat and steaks, but even doing it for bottles of spirits which do not go off. They are apparently going to move to a new system next year which I think will be QR code based and active, so that discount label only works when it has been generated within the store's system, that was part of them upgrading all the self scan scanners across their estate. 

As for the moment they do not cover up the old barcode because they often have scan that, then manually discount the product. Some discounted items will go through if they are still over a certain value which apparently varies by day, so one day it might be £2, the next day £5, and the day after that £1.50.

As usual with these things, it is a minority who end up spoiling things for the rest of us. 

AGBB8S

Voyager2002 said:

My experience: reduced goods often still have the original full-price bar code visible to the scanner, and so the wrong price can be registered. When this happens i need to call over a member of staff who invariable corrects the error without question.

Thanks for response. Sure I think all supermarkets have this sort of issue where the original barcode can be left visible in error, the reduced price sticker is meant to cover them up. But I am positive I scanned the Sainsburys Yellow Label part and still got charged full price. Unfortunately I was pushed for time whilst checking out so I did not spot the error to call for assistance. I have 5 Items out of 20 that should have been reduced - so all were either labelled incorrectly, or its a deliberate policy of Sainsburys to charge Full Price? You seem to suggest the labels sometimes work for you without assistance. This leads me to believe I was just unlucky!

AGBB8S

Where Sainsburys have really shot themselves in the foot is in their after-sales service, its appalling!
I won't be venturing back to that store again.

Hermann

Discounted items currently have to be entered manually at the till by staff, even if using self scan.

If you try to self scan the the reduced label barcode you do get an error message asking you to sort out at the till however if part of the original packing barcode is visible you might scan that by accident which will then just charge you full price.

The reliable way to ensure you are charged the reduced price is not to self scan them but take them to be dealt with by staff at the till.
Staff at my Sainsburys state this is due to a recent problem with fraud.

Unfortunately if you've paid full price that is because the wrong barcode has been scanned, ie: the original packaging barcode.
If it's automatically scanned thats the wrong barcode being read. Just remember not to scan reduced priced items but have them dealt with manually by staff and you will always pay the reduced price.

Cornucopia

Reduced labels have always been a source of over-charging, going back to the days when it was a good idea to place reduced items with the reduced label facing upwards so the cashier would immediately see them.

I'd definitely be cautious when self-scanning reduced items.   I try to cover the original barcode with my hand if I remember.   Although if I forget, a staff member can re-scan the reduced item.   And also check the receipt before leaving the store.

General_Grant

The other day I bought one yellow-stickered item along with a full-price item.  I was self-scanning (at the till, not using the smart gadgets) and was expecting to have to call the assistant to enter the reduced item but it actually went through at the reduced price with no need to call the assistant.  Maybe they have changed back - it was certainly a disincentive to have the extra fuss of manual entry by a member of staff.