Ok, so today I go to the 711 and buy a quart of chocolate milk. The sign clearly says $1.49. I go to the register and the guy tells me $1.69. I tell him, “the sign says $1.49”, he says “oh… someone forgot to change the sign”.
I say bullshit, I was ripped off and the only reason I paid and didn’t bitch about it all day was I was running late and didn’t have time for this nonsense.
On the way out of the store, 2 other customers even told me they have been ripped off by this damn store!
Half the merchandise in the store doesn’t even have a price on it or on the shelf.
They wait til you get to the register to pay knowing most people won’t make a scene and will just pay whatever they say.
My question is, I live in Philadelphia, PA… who do I report these shady practices to?
The BBB is not a consumer support place. They represent business. As already pointed out the Mayor’s Office of Consumer Affair and state Weights and Measures Division should be your first stops.
Next time this happens, and whether you are running short on time or not, take your cell phone and take a picture of the sign and a picture of the clerk. You might be surprised at how fast the problem is corrected. If not, the picture of the sign, along with your receipt (with the incorrect price) can be used as evidence in your complaint.
Ok, so I just filed a complaint with their company’s consumer relations department.
Ain’t holding my breath that they will do anything, although I did however let them know I was notifying them before I file a complaint with any consumer protection agencies.
Well… that’s one less store I will be doing business with!
“Here’s $1.50. Keep the change. If you don’t like it, call the police and accuse me of theft and then we’ll see you in court for false arrest.” I think the guy wrote down my license plate as I was leaving, but I never heard anything more.
Contact your local news media. Many newspapers and news stations have reporters who cover beats like this. Businesses caught in lies and ripping off citizens are great material.
I know that this is a recreational outrage thread but let me give you a few real points. I used to work on pricing systems for a major supermarket chain. Stores generally don’t make pricing errors to simply ripoff the customer and, if they did, the clerk isn’t in on it. No one, not even minimum wage staff gets rich on 20 cent grifting one victim at a time. All stores have pricing errors from time to time, some more than others. Your rights depend on state law. In some states, the clerk can give you the correct price when it is scanned and you can agree or not agree to it. In other states, small discrepancies go to the consumer as long as they are presented in good faith and have firm evidence like a price sticker attached but shelf tags don’t always apply because they can be moved or misread. In no state, are you entitled to buy something because of a large pricing or ad mistake just because it exists.
You weren’t ‘ripped off’. The store made some degree of a mistake and didn’t handle it well. That should be addressed with the store manager who may give you something for it. When I worked in that area, we found the most nasty, nitpicky (almost always old) customers to audit stores for pricing mistakes as part of an innovative program. They got free products for every one they found and they were good at it. We tried hard to eliminate them all but no one gets to 100% consistently. If the store is managed well at all, the manager will listen to your complaint. If not, you can go somewhere else. Stores don’t get punished severely by the government for small pricing mistakes as a general rule however as long as they can outline ways that they minimize them.
You are exactly right… “Stores don’t get punished severely by the government for small pricing mistakes”, which is the reason a lot of them cheat customers by not putting prices on items, or double scanning them, or charging full price on an item even though it is on sale. It can always be brushed aside as an “honest mistake”.
If the customer however accidently walks out of the store with a 25 cent candy bar w/o paying for it, it’s time to call the cops and you can explain to the judge that it was an “honest mistake”.
Even if a few customers look carefully at their receipt, there will be many more, including the elderly that won’t or can’t check if the prices are correct, and stores know that.
And don’t tell me stores don’t deliberately cheat customers because I worked for Radio Shack and we were told in a meeting ways to cheap the customer so the manager could pocket the money himself. I objected to it and was fired 2 days later. The manager even refused to tell me why I was being let go!
These kinds of things happened to me many times, not just in 7-11, but also in ACME Markets, which many, many times has double scanned items and charged full price for a sale item.
They have even tried to argue that although the store circular says it’s on sale, it…well… kinda isn’t. They know that nickel and diming people like this won’t get them in any real trouble, so why not go for it.
Wanna know the safest way to steal a million dollars? Steal one dollar off a million people!
Well, yeah, you bought milk at 7-11. Of course you got ripped off. Next time, go to a grocery store. Let me guess, tonight you got ripped off buying a bottle of whiskey in a bar…
You seem to be missing the point entirely. I wasn’t complaining about having to pay too much at 7-11 versus had I bought it at a supermarket. I fully understand the prices are higher in smaller stores.
The point was… they marked the price on the shelf at one amount and charged me an entirely different amount, thereby cheating me out of my money… which is ILLEGAL!
