I was at the grocery store the other day, and the customer saw the cashier ring up his deli sandwich: $2.33. He told the cashier the price was wrong. One manager, two keys, several keystrokes, and five minutes later, the matter was settled: the price should have been $2.21.
The guy help up the line for five minutes for 12 cents, or about five percent of the price if my math is right.
How much difference are you willing to tolerate before you’ll dispute the scanned price? Mrs. Homie says that it’s all about the principle of the thing, and although she personally wouldn’t do it, she wouldn’t judge someone who held up the line for even a penny’s difference.
Not only would I not dispute it, I’m pretty sure I’d never even notice it. I’m just not that price conscious. It would have to be pretty egregious for me to notice ($20 for a sandwich I expected to cost $10, say).
Well, a few days ago I bought 4 items that had no price on them, but a stocker told me were $3.99 each. Turned out to be $4.99 each. Annoying, but I let it slip. A few months before that at the same place, I was buying 12 items that were 59 cents each, and the cashier accidentally keyed in that I was buying 120 of them. That one I didn’t let go. It involved not only keys but also having to explain to the manager that no, that price is not right.
In Canada, many of the big stores have a scanning code of practice policy that states that if the scanned price is different from the shelf price, you get the item free. I’m probably not going to notice for ten or fifteen cents, but I do try to watch when the cashier scans something that is marked down or on sale. I’ve gotten a few things at no charge that way.
I always dispute prices when I notice, but I don’t always pay attention if I’m buying large numbers of items. But if it was “buy one, get one half off,” or I used a coupon, or was supposed to receive rewards points, you can be sure that I am checking my receipt to make sure that I received the discount.
The shop at which I get my wine and spirits had some club soda in six-pack bottles (10 oz Canada Dry glass bottles) and the label said something like 2.50 (give or take). So I take it to the front with my purchase and the total rings up to be $15 more than I expected! Turns out, they were expecting patrons to break the 6 pack and pay $2.50 per bottle!
I’ll dispute a higher change every time. On the other hand, I’ll also tell the cashier that the charge should be higher if I know it should be.
Woe to the cashier that insists I pay a higher charge when I can either (a) point right at the price tag on the item; or (b) walk back and show them the shelf price.
This happened to me a few days ago. Tag on box said X. Scan said Y. The cashier would not defer to the lower price. When the shift manager looked at it, you could tell she also wanted to charge the higher amount. I was standing right there with a major stink eye on both of them. The shift manager decided the lower price would prevail. Good call on her part. Frankly, I was still pissed off because the cashier didn’t just accept the lower price immediately. One of the first “rules” I was taught as a cashier was if a difference in price exists, the lower price prevails. And then you immediately change the tags, labels, whatever.
One of the primary reasons for having scanners (besides inventory management) is to eliminate pricing mistakes. For that reason, questioning a 12-cent error is as important as questioning a 12-dollar error.
And yes, I’ve had items ring up at something different from the stated price, and I’ve questioned it.
The store where I used to live had a “if the price is wrong, first item free and additional items (of the same thing) at the lower price” policy, to which I had never really paid any attention. But one night, I spotted a favorite splurge item that normally costs ~$6 priced at $2.50. Thinking that they were having a sale, I grabbed all 5 of them. They rung up as $7 each, $35 total. When I pointed out the discrepancy, they honored their policy and gave them to me for $10 total. I was pretty happy, but I did notice the manager heading back toward the relevant shelf with a new tag as I walked out the door.
Most times I’m about the same place. Should I only have one or two items and it does catch my attention, my reaction is based on a list of variables. No line and I’m in no rush and I’ll wait to get 10 cents corrected. A line behind me and/or places I want to be and now we’re talking more like a buck.
I’m a store cashier. People actually put a lower price sticker on items, then argue when the bar code rings up higher.
One couple insisted the price on something was the sticker’s $1.29 when it rang up as $1.99. I ended up calling the head floor person, who took them over and showed them that every other one of those items and the sign above it said $1.99. So they accepted it. And paid with a hundred dollar bill!
Just yesterday, a woman in the line insisted that the 30 candies she had were 10 cents each. No, I know those are 99 cents because I checked the price yesterday. She left them behind.
Well, we don’t really know. Maybe the guy made some substitution on his sandwich that affected the price, and the manager ultimately decided that it wasn’t worth arguing about.
Two (possibly related) stories about scanning, one of which I just read this morning.
I just read an article about a girl in Australia who ripped off supermarkets for $4,500 over three months by gluing bar code labels from ramen noodles over the actual label. Some cashier got suspicious when she tried to get away with a huge rump roast for 72 cents.
It looks like she was going through the self-check line. I don’t believe this scam would work on any of the self-checkout lanes at the grocery stores where I stop, because the bar code is associated with a particular weight range. A packet of ramen noodles weighs next-to-nonthing, where as a 4-pound rump roast weighs fairly close to … um, let me see … divide by 7 and carry the 1 … about 4 pounds.
On the other story, I remember reading several years ago about a guy who as at one of the big hardware stores. He was buying some smallish item; I think it might have been a hand tool like a cordless drill, or something like that.
Anyway, there was a problem with the bar code, so the cashier keyed in the number, and then told the guy that he owed something like $18,000. Apparently, the number the cashier entered was the code for the “whole house lumber kit”.
The funniest thing about the story was that the cashier didn’t even do a double-take when the price came up so high. Of course, the guy just about had a heart attack, but the cashier just stood there as if everything were right with the world. Now, if the cashier had been on commission, then I could understand the desire to just stand there and hope the customer wouldn’t notice!
