Tesco misprice policy discussion area

Dick_Dastardly_3

MrSmartprice wrote:

It has always been difficult to prove the "mens rea" required to prosecute for deliberate overcharging, which is why it is usual to prosecute for reckless overcharging. It is then necessary to show that the company did not exercise "reasonable precautions" or "due diligence." This comes down to systems, training, and doing the job properly.

I have posted before about the systems at Mr T's and how they are probably unworkable. It also depends on the resolve and resources of TS Depts, who are often overawed at the prospect of taking on Mr T. Many shy away due to potential costs, and the fact that Mr T will have much better lawyers than the council.

The refusal to sell items at the indicated price is more tricky. Any shop can refuse to sell an item, thus preventing the supply of overcharged goods. It is possible to prosecute for "offering to supply" but in reality a TS Dept will rarely prosecute without an actual supply. They will do test purchases to get the best evidence if possible. That way it can be established what the actual price is, compared to the price indicated.

Yes I'd agree this is a problem that they can blatantly try to avoid the law due to their size, could they avoid the bad PR if it was made public thorugh other forums, I don't think so, I am talking about Newspapers, Letter to other supermarkets (with evidence), and letters to other bodies currently in court with Tescos, they can definetly not avoid the issue if it were presented at the shareholders AGM.

Incidentally item in question is priced at you guessed it £2.18kg on the web-site.

As regards to 'mens rea' I am a married man and not interested in such matters. :rotfl: :rotfl: Always made me laugh during law lectures though, suppose it because I'm a total juvenile :rotfl:

--Tony--

Poing wrote:

Hi, I have been following this thread for a while now and find it amazing how much Tesco are profiting from overcharging. I went into Tescos and had a clubcard voucher for 75 extra points when you spend £3 on Finest cheese. So I was looking at the cheese, trying to figure out the best ones to get. Anyway, picked up parmesan, cos it will keep for ages, and looking at the back to see the different prices as needed to spend the £3, and noticed that although the SEL said £17.08/kg there were packets on the shelf priced at £13.08/kg. (also some at £17.08 too). So surprise surprise I bought the cheaper one.

Are you mad, if you had taken the dear one it would have been an overcharge and free pruduct for you. And as you used a voucher even better than normal.

redfox

--Tony-- wrote:

Are you mad, if you had taken the dear one it would have been an overcharge and free pruduct for you. And as you used a voucher even better than normal.

how so? The packets the poster picked up were cheaper per Kg than the SEL, and Tesco don't do refunds for undercharges

Poing

--Tony-- wrote:

Are you mad, if you had taken the dear one it would have been an overcharge and free pruduct for you. And as you used a voucher even better than normal.

But the SEL said the higher price £17.08, so I presumed they would have claimed this was the "real price" and therefore I wasn't being overcharged???

I wasn't looking for a R+R, but didn't want to pay more than I had to (if that makes sense????) :doh: I was thinking that maybe they'd left the higher SEL up on purpose, so you can't claim R+R, if you see what I mean?

Addy

Poing wrote:

But the SEL said the higher price £17.08, so I presumed they would have claimed this was the "real price" and therefore I wasn't being overcharged???

I wasn't looking for a R+R, but didn't want to pay more than I had to (if that makes sense????) :doh: I was thinking that maybe they'd left the higher SEL up on purpose, so you can't claim R+R, if you see what I mean?

ALL 3 STORES I've visited over the past few days have had SEL labels £13.08 and price on product £17.08.

Had 2 vouchers for 100 points for dairy products from Kidsclub mailing, so free parmesan and 200 points for me

It's a huge overcharge though - that one I felt no remorse about whatsoever!!

--Tony--

My humble apologies, its me that can't read your all correct and I'm a wally

boyharris

MORPH3US wrote:

What did you want to go an do something silly like that for?!?!

Well i hate the thought of poeple getting ripped off i was trying to make a point and i thought i was doing it for the greater good of us all.

nannaC

boyharris wrote:

Well i hate the thought of poeple getting ripped off i was trying to make a point and i thought i was doing it for the greater good of us all.

Thats OK I also make a point by telling Cs of some mistakes and then go back later, and in most cases the tickets are still there. Like others I have also seen removed tickets put back by the next cs team on duty. In most cases the CS staff have informed the relevant Dept Manager of the price error, so my guess is that some of them are well and truly fed up with being piggy in the middle. One CS lady I have come across refuses absolutely to remove tickets now as she is fed up with rectifying others ongoing mistakes. Anyway you should now be in your local Mr T's so let us all know how you got on

ben500

MrSmartprice wrote:

It has always been difficult to prove the "mens rea" required to prosecute for deliberate overcharging, which is why it is usual to prosecute for reckless overcharging. It is then necessary to show that the company did not exercise "reasonable precautions" or "due diligence." This comes down to systems, training, and doing the job properly.

I have posted before about the systems at Mr T's and how they are probably unworkable. It also depends on the resolve and resources of TS Depts, who are often overawed at the prospect of taking on Mr T. Many shy away due to potential costs, and the fact that Mr T will have much better lawyers than the council.

The refusal to sell items at the indicated price is more tricky. Any shop can refuse to sell an item, thus preventing the supply of overcharged goods. It is possible to prosecute for "offering to supply" but in reality a TS Dept will rarely prosecute without an actual supply. They will do test purchases to get the best evidence if possible. That way it can be established what the actual price is, compared to the price indicated.

Whilst I accept in principal what you say here and certainly respect your authority, I think however if everybody who was intimidated, unduly delayed, banned or refused r&r were to make a complaint to local TS the instances throughout the country would prove overwhelming evidence of lack of diligence and active encouragement due to complacency, Tesco could not and I'm confident would not fail to respond to such an onslaught from its customers and TS departments up and down the country, they will be forced to act and possibly in doing so make modification to its policy which would publicly underline its repeated failure to act on information supplied and no matter what the outcome of any case brought ultimately damage its shareline, at the moment they are merely backpeddling on a local level with a modicum of action at HO level when and only when a complaint is made. I don't think that to give up before you get your gloves on is necessarily the right course of action but I do understand the reluctance and inevitable weakness compared to Tesco of the TS offices, If I'm right (Please correct me if I'm not) such an influx of complaints actually triggers a procedure within TS to centralise the complaints and corelate evidence in support of a test case with the individual complaints and evidence in support. Thus allowing resources to be focused on one or a small series of events to establish sharp practice or lack of diligence.

I suppose Tesco would claim that managers were acting independantly and outside of their remit taking such actions but the repetition and failure to act when notified would clearly indicate a high degree of compacency and a distinct message that Tesco actually condone these actions.

Dick_Dastardly_3

I agree with Ben500, how many overcharge receipts must MSErs have in total throughout the country, the number must be huge, hundreds and possibly even thousands, for similar products and throughout stores on a national basis, and similar times. It would not take a statistician much time to correlate this sort of evidence, and come the the conclusion that Tesco's are at best incompetent with their pricing integrity.

Also as another point, it would not be too difficult to for the relevant body, to take a look at Tesco's accounts (not the published summary but Ledger level accounts), they must be posting these overcharges somewhere in the accounts, I suspect that for management visibility they will have a General Ledger account specifically for overcharges, which I'd imagine will have a large overall total. Further evidence of the clear overcharging in stores. Lets make that number as high as possible !!!

Everyone needs to make sure that they keep all their OC receipts in some sort of order, that way the trading standards job is virtually done, if you have a need to call TS into action, or maybe if you wish to give ASDA an early xmas present !!!