Nerdy Note: Mispriced beans

Premier_2

If a 40p can of beans is priced at 4p, they don’t have to sell it to you.

...and if a 40p can of beans is correctly priced at 40p, they still don't have to sell it to you.

Shopkeepers are free to choose who they sell to just as buyers are free to choose where they buy from

EDNA

A couple of years ago I found (and bought) a reduced price leather jacket incorrectly marked at £3.00 instead of £30.00 and the only comment from the check-out girl was "A lot of people have been buying these cheap jackets today" .... need I say more?

kevgy

why doesn't this apply to ebay sellers who think the final price is too low and didn't set a reserve?

Fuchsia_a

jicms wrote: »

I am finding that most times I visit the supermarket I am overcharged for something. I recently bought four shampoos from Tesco which were advertised as half price. When I got home I discovered I'd been charged full price for them all. I complained online and they suggested I took them back and get a refund (my time and petrol again).

This had been happening to me an awful lot in Sainsburys with their reduced goods until recently. I emailed their customer service, and they said it was probably because the staff hadn't been sticking the new price stickers over the old bar code properly. :rolleyes: They seem to be slightly better now, but I was having to go to customer service for refunds practically every visit before as they wouldn't sort it out at the checkout.

moneysavingbimbo

As I understand it, if you go into a shop & there are, for arguments sake a pair of shoes that are priced incorrectly, you can ask the shop to accept that amount. If they choose to decline, they have to take the item off the shelf for a period of 48hrs prior to attempting to sell it again at the higher price.

This is something that I was told when I questioned a store that declined to sell me a pair of trainers at a ridiculous price they'd put on the shoes in error! I'd love to know if it really is true. :j

moneysavingbimbo

Jicms - you said about "supermarket overcharging" - what I normally do in that situation is telephone the supermarket as soon as I realise there is a problem. Ordinarily I scrutinise my receipt as soon as I have finished unpacking, However another type of situation is a recent example would be when I bought some strawberries from waitrose that were virtually all mouldy when I went to eat them & yet they were still in date. I had the receipt, the store telephone number is normally on there or I find it if not. I called Waitrose about these strawberries & explained what had transpired & that I'd had to throw the majority away. The lady I spoke to made a note in their "communication book" & she agreed when I was in the area again I could get my money back, all I'd need to do is take back the receipt & the top of the punnet. I've also done the same with Tesco's when they scan things twice, or charge the wrong amount. As long as you call them within approx 24 hrs of your initial visit they don't tend to give you a time limit on your return. Thus, you get the money you are due, at a time that is convenient. It works for me! :T

Kazzajr

I now always check my receipt before leaving a store and will always go to customer services to get a refund if applicable, at supermarkets I don't check the prices as the items are going through.

Has anyone else noticed in Asda the customer service staff aren't so willing to give out the £2 giftcards, a few times I have been given just the refund and when I queried the gift card have been told "oh I forgot about that". I wonder if they are going to be stopping this policy soon?

Mamzie

I always check my receipt and normally find a mistake every other shop, frightening really

GrahamH

I'm afraid this post will disappoint the conspiracy theorists out there...

In my experience over 20+ years in retail, the staff in the stores are expected to know the law and apply it.

However, it's also recognised that it's not a particularly easy task for some store staff, (due to education levels, etc) and sometimes other priorities (keeping the shelves full, keeping the queues down, dealing with goods arriving, dealing with customer problems, etc etc) may distract them from keeping this area of the law to mind at all times

Consequently, chains put policies in place to ensure that once a mistake is found, they put things right and promptly. eg

moneysavingbimbo wrote: »

As I understand it, if you go into a shop & there are, for arguments sake a pair of shoes that are priced incorrectly, you can ask the shop to accept that amount. If they choose to decline, they have to take the item off the shelf for a period of 48hrs prior to attempting to sell it again at the higher price.

The last bit is one such policy - it's not a legal requirement. It's the store trying to be whiter than white, and enabling it, if ever necessary, to show a court that
1. staff knew what to do in the event of a mistake being discovered
2. procedures were in place to stop more customers being misled while the mistake was being corrected

Neo08 wrote: »

I was always under the impression that if it is mispriced, they dont have to sell you it at that price as long as they are all removed from sale at that time. Once the price has been corrected they can be put back out for sale.

As above, not the law, but another shop's policy.

CARLA-xyz wrote: »

Actually, there must be circumstances where they would have to sell. For instance, last year I spent over an hour looking at kitchen cabinets door handels, difficult to decide, comparing style & prices at same time. Finally decided and picked up about 10 sets (for whole kitchen) at £2 each. But at the till they said it was an error and they should be £5 each. I said the box on the shelf clearly said £2 each and I'd spent an hour considering which handles to buy. They said, without hesitation, that I could have them at the marked price.

Purely Goodwill - legally they could have have stood their ground for the £5, but as a business they don't want to lose your custom.

dinesh17 wrote: »

My understanding, having worked for a high street jeweller which was notorious for mispricing (unintentionally mind, the items were so small it was easy to get mixed up!), ....
This changes, however, once the salesperson begins entering the item into the till as it means the company has accepted your offer (which is obviously the price you see on display). If the till then says the price is x instead of y, the retailer still has to accept your offer and cannot back out.

That's not law - that's the company's policy (very generous though!!!)

dinesh17 wrote: »

Another caveat to this was if the difference was greater than 30%, the retailer could back out and take the items off display for 24 hours.
If the retailer realises the item is wrongly priced before entering it into the till, they can withdraw from sale for 24 hours and dont have to honour the price.

The 30% thing is just the jeweller's policy, not the law, same goes for the 24 hours. The law is that they mustn't mislead deliberately.

christopherlondon wrote: »

I agree. What really bugs me these days is when the shop is doing a BOGOF or buy one get one half price type of offers that are so common when you look at you receipt afterwards you see it has not been recorded.

I had this with the CO-OP several times and all they say when you challenge it is "oh dear the till should pick it up automatically but they must not have updated it yet".

I did pursue it after the third time of it happening at same branch and after some exchange of emails I did get an apology and vouchers worth £25 as compensation when I was only short changed by about a £1 so that was fair.

I have to wonder if they go on the basis that when you buy a load of stuff you will not notice if the till misses a few of the specials but they deny that.

In most cases, NO THEY DON'T. It's in their interest for you to benefit from the offer, as you then have a better perception of them (for offering good prices/deals). Most likely this was an offer which had finished, rather than the tills not having been updated. As mentioned above, store staff aren't perfect, are human, often don't receive good training or clear communications, often get given other priorities and sometimes forget things, eg perhaps in this case someone omitted to take down old bits of cardboard advertising the offer.

The smaller the store, the less of a "career" the company offers and the less well organised the company, the more likely this will happen. Coop generally has small stores, and despite the nice ethical advertising, their organisations seem to have been a disorganised shambles for decades - some might say they would struggle to organise a p!ss up in a brewery.

kevgy wrote: »

why doesn't this apply to ebay sellers who think the final price is too low and didn't set a reserve?

It DOES apply, but it's just very difficult to enforce. Feedback is realistically often all you've got. There's absolutely nothing to stop you taking the guy to court but
a) you may not be able to trace him
b) he may not have the cash to settle any claim you succeed in making and
c) doing so may take a toll on your time (and stress levels)

GrahamH

Having dispatched the conspiracy theorists, there is however plenty of fun to be had (and money to be saved) with pricing...

asea wrote: »

I'm not sure that the original post will make any difference to the dishonest opportunists on here who hunt out misprices to make a quick buck at the expense of retailers!

Notareargunner wrote: »

What Martin Lewis and other TV pundits have been trying to explain is that just because a shopkeeper puts up a price, that price is a given. We have lost the art of haggling and an old fashioned hand shake is still a man's word amongst some communities in this country.
There are many cases of shopkeepers, having made a mistake, being willing to withstand that loss on the odd occasion. Too many contributers do not recognise the good will gesture of decent shopkeepers for the almost malicious, fraudulent activity of a greedy shopper.:beer:

I agree that we as consumers should use our judgement on the retailers concerned... There are some big players out there who think they are powerful enough to be beyond the law and therefore deliberately mislead consumers, or don't do anything to prevent consumers being misled.

Consequently I will happily take them to the cleaners myself on their own mistakes. If that makes me a

asea wrote: »

dishonest opportunist,

so be it. I happen to believe I'm helping (in a small way) to get the retailer to act up to the standards they claim in their PR!

Every Little helps if you are trying to cut costs and jobs and at the same time dodging the law, but it leads to lots of opprtunities to be hung by your own petard...by anyone who knows roughly where to look

The "constant 70% off sports goods" brigade and the permanent Carpet and Furniture sale retailers also spring to mind as blatantly dishonest. Any company with anything to do with the telecoms industry - Mobiles, Broadband, cables, landlines - all seem to think themselves immune from honest pricing legislation.

One retailer claims to be never knowingly undersold. I think they are built on a big deceit...

"Never knowingly undersold" works as an enticement, as they have a lovely middle class image with nice friendly staff and a quaint ownership structure - people don't believe they would lie, so they make huge profits and huge staff bonuses by relying on this blind trust.

For every 1 customer who finds a cheaper price elsewhere, hundreds don't bother looking - so the promise costs them virtually nothing, as they almost never have to live up to it! Next time you're buying something they stock, take their price, and then do no more than 10 minutes quality research (check other stores' prices on the web, read a few magazines). Then go and get it for a much more realistic price - TVs and the like can be hundreds of £££ cheaper

Other cheap tricks - they often sell products in "exclusive" packages (eg camera with case, when you can only buy the camera on its own at other retailers). But if the package is £50+ more than the camera on its own elsewhere, how much are you really paying for that case???

Or worse, their package has a black camera case with grey edging where other retailers packages have a grey camera case with black edging. In those situations they won't honour the price promise as the item isn't the same. All done on purpose, so they can charge you a higher price, and still avoid being taken to court for not matching the price.

Whilst they wriggle by refusing to match prices with online only retailers, and the likes of Costco, they just seem to totally ignore prices in any nearby retailer with a "discount" positioning, as if they're just scared to set foot in there!!! It's all great fun, and the best bit is the pretend horror from the staff when you go to claim the cash back and they try to pretend it's all a big accident and shouldn't happen:rotfl: