I have a few friends who believe differently than me on this issue. If you go into a store and find an expensive item that was accidentally marked down to say, $1, when you take it to the checkout stand, are they legally required to sell you that item at that price? I say that they can refuse sale to anyone at any time and that if you insist on buying the item for $1 they can ask you to leave. There is nothing to prevent a malicious clerk or attempted shoplifter from grabbing a store tag, writing in $1 and slapping it onto a brand new JetSki. Does anyone have any real examples of this legality and not just gut feelings?
No, they are not legally obligated to sell it to you at that price. If it’s a small difference, most stores would do it. If it was a jet ski for 1 buck, they’d probably accuse you of trying to commit fraud.
I work in a grocery store, and while this isn’t exactly what your asking. We call whatever department it’s from and find out what the price is/should be, if we think it’s wrong or if the customer complains that it’s a different price.
Of course, if a jetski comes through, I’m going to wonder just what are we selling nowdays.
Dunno where you’re shopping that has handwritten pricetags, Ben. All the grocery stores I patronize have the price encoded in the computer, not on tags pasted to the groceries, and when the clerk scans it, the price comes up automatically. Beep.
All the clothing stores, hardware stores, mall stores, etc. I patronize also have this system. So I don’t see how you could “grab a tag and write $1 on it” and meet with any kind of success up at the register. The clerk’s not even gonna glance at the tag, she’s just gonna swipe it and listen for the beep.
And even when you sometimes see a handwritten price on a piece of Wal-Mart clothing (“marked down to $5.99”), still the clerk doesn’t look at the price, she just beeps it. And if you did want to write a lower price on it yourself, and then say, doubtfully, when she beeps it, “Um, I think that price on the computer is actually too high,” all that’s gonna happen is the following:
She’ll turn on the blinking light, and telephone for a price check, “Ladies Wear, line 1, Ladies Wear, line 1”, and after youve been standing there awkwardly for 10 minutes, and all the people in line behind you are beginning to mutter curses under their breath, someone from Ladies Wear will finally come toddling over and will glance at it and say, “Nope, that’s not right” and will peer at the computer and say, “There, that’s the right price.” So you will have spent 10 minutes standing in line and P.O.'d all the people standing in line behind you, and for what? Not worth it, say I.
I rectly bought a CD from Wal-Mart where the price rang up $13.99. I complained however that the price tag on the CD said $10.99. The cashier vioded out the $13.99 and typed in $10.99. I paid and that was that.
Right, but the $10.99 wasn’t handwritten on the price tag, was it? It was printed, right?
This happened to me at the Gap a few years back. I think there was a difference of ten dollars or so. They absorbed the cost and apologized to me. I guess they can do that sort of thing when they have their clothes made by eleven year olds in Malaysia.
Okay, let me modify this to the question I originally sent and not get off track over handwritten versus printed tags. Let’s assume that I go in Wal Mart and find a large screen TV that has a printed sticker for $1.00 (Low prices. Always) on it. When I take it to the counter, they scan it and it comes up LARGE SCREEN TELEVISION PRICE = $1. Are they legally obligated to let me have it for $1 or can they say at that point, “Tough luck. There was an error on the scanner. You can pay $2000 for it if you still want it, but we will not sell it to you for $1, even though it is clearly our sticker and not counterfeit and it did scan for the item marked and for $1.”
I was asking to see if anyone had actually had a case like this in business law or knew of a reported case where someone (verifiable and not just “I think” or a no name urban legend) bought a $2000 item for a dollar on a technicality.
I tried sending this to Uncle Cecil, but a staff member wrote back that generally “no” was correct, but he didn’t have any evidence other than that is just the way it is.
The truth in advertising laws (Lanham Act) require that a merchant who advertises a product at a prticular price, must sell it for that price. So, if a price is published in any way, the merchant is bound to honor it.
If the price is a misprint, the merchant is NOT bound to honor it, although in my experience, most will sell it at the lower price to remain in good standing with their customers. If you find a big screen TV for $1 at Walmart and they refuse to sell it to you, you’d have to prove that they violated the four elements of the Lanham Act. Good luck, because it’s a pretty high standard.
By the way, it’s easier to generate bar code labels than you think. They’re not a trade secret. Many suppliers to large chains like Walmart have the ability to pre-price products with labels specific to a particualr store.
IANAL but I do remember in Business Studies class in secondary school (15 years ago) we covered this. Basically there are two parts to a contract (which is what buying something in a store amounts to), an offer and an acceptance of that offer. A price sticker on an item is NOT AN OFFER on the part of the store to sell you the gods at the sticker price. It is an invitation to make an offer to the store to buy the goods at the price on the sticker. When you go to the checkout you OFFER to buy the goods at the price on the sticker. The store clerk can then ACCEPT your OFFER or refuse it if they think the sticker price is incorrect. It boils down to pretty basic contract law (at least in Ireland and I’m pretty sure England. Cant speak for the other side of the pond). As has already been said the store may still you the item at the sticker price evn if it is wroing but this is just goodwill on their part.
Do you live in Michigan? Try this link:
http://www.ag.state.mi.us/cp/alerts/c_alerts/consumer_alert23.htm
That Big Screen TV may be $5.00 off. Score!
I have some Straight Dope on this – at least as far as Massachusetts law for supermarkets as of six years ago as applied to mislabeled items. The law essentially required individual price tags on most items, and set penalties if the price tag was different from what the cash register rang them (through looking up the price associated with the bar code. HOWEVER, there was a specific exemption for clear, major errors (I can’t remember how that was defined, I vaguely remember something about less than 1/2 the intended price, but could be wrong). So if you found a bunch of five liter tins of extra virgin olive oil labeled with price stickers indicating $0.49, the store didn’t have to give you a year’s worth of yum-yum for next to nothing. (On the other hand, most stores had a some kind of offer to give you either double the difference or the item free if you found a pricing discrepancy, so you might be able to talk them into a small discount on one tin if you found them mislabeled – it might have worked with me when I was approving customer discounts)
(**Wow, I never thought I’d find the opportunity to share THIS little bit of knowledge with the world! Thanks SDMB **)
I live in Montreal, in Canada and here there is a law (they actually have signs with it by the cash registers) which states that if there is a difference between the price marked on the item and the price scanned, the price on the item stands and: If the item is worth 10$ or less, the merchant has to give you the item for free. If the item is worth more than 10$, they must give you a 10$ discount. It’s actually happened to me a couple of times when buying food a the grocery store. Most cashiers will say “sorry, the item is not 3.99, it’s 4.59, do you still want it?” to which you brightly answer “yes, since it’s free!” At which point they’ll most probably call the head cashier who will autorise the transaction and give you the item for free. So my answer to the 2000$ seadoo with the 1$ price tag is you would end up paying 1990$ for it…
Before anyone points out the discrepancy with “the printed price stands” I never understood that bit myself, since it’s either free or 10$ discount, but it is the wording on the signs.
bryanmaguire is right. I was taught in high school Bisness Law class that a price tag is technically an invitation to make an offer.
Yeah, it was a printed tag and not a handwritten one.
OK, I got mys facts straight (Finally!) http://www.opc.gouv.qc.ca/indic_prix/afficheAF.pdf is a link to the actual sign you see next to cash registers. If I understand correctly, A mispriced item worth more than 10$ will cost you the advertised price minus 10$.Sorry for any confusion caused by my previous posts.