a funny story about the supermarket last week

Supermarkets put up with a lot. I recently was giving a receipt a once-over in my car before heading home and noticed a special price on some ice cream items that was combined with a coupon didn't dekiver the proper price. Turns out the shelf tags were old and the FMC screwed up. (File Maintenance Clerk is what the guy in charge of updating tags is called at Vons where I briefly moonlighted during the strike.)

All I wanted was the correct price but instead they applied this policy of imposing punitory damage on themselves by giving me the product free. How much worse would they have to screw up before offering the life of a bagger in sacrifice?

Hanging tags at Vons sucked mightily. The software was amazingly bad with stunningly bad database design on top of that. There was no flag for products in the database that had never been in ventory and thus shouldn't produce tags in the latest batch. Thus great amounts of time are wasted looking for items that aren't sold at that store and then the manager is annoyed in the morning because you didn't have hours of free time to wander around and scan whiole aisle to insure the tags were accurate. n top of this the Lexmark laser printer I was using was in severe need of maintenance. If they hadn't had me in that job it would have failed entirely but I had enough general laser printer experience to do a fair tear-down and cleaning without the factory manuals with tools brought from home. I didn't dare tell anyone what I'd done but a few remarked how much better the printer was working.

I think grocery stores screw themselves over enough to make up for the amount of times they screw me over, it all balances out for me. Fast food on the other hand is a whole different story.

Supermarkets love, or at least they act like it, when something goes on sale, they don't have it, or, where it should be is something that looks just like it. and then the guy working there will tell you it's a substitute. it isn't, you get home and you finally realize why you just spent that extra 3 bucks you didn't know about.

now fastfood, sucks more, we left a fastfood restraunt, after driving through, and half way home, 2 miles latter, we realize that we didn't get our drink, normally we don't order drinks. so we have to go all the way back i go in and say we just went through the drive through and didn't get all of what we ordered. and the woman, whom I and the rest of my family had dealt with for being a complete jack@$$, goes in a cocky, i'm being nice but i'm still pissed you showed up, "Are you looking for this", and pulls out the drink.

Fastfood places can be good, as long as robots work their.

Don't you guys pay attention at the grocery store when they scan your groceries? Also check when you give them the coupons, sometimes they'll skip a few. BTW, Meijers is the best place to shop on double coupon days.

i pay attention at the checkout. the problem is at kroger and other stores with cards everything is changed at the end. so if they you have to check everything at through the whole reciept, make sure everything was changed.

It kind of sucks if you're doing massive grocery shopping, but I always bring my calculator (graphing calculator works well because you can list everything before you total). I have a habit of doing this at other stores with the calculator on my cellphone, just so I know what to expect at the register.

At Target, if something is ringing up different from what you expected, they're supposed to send someone out to where you found the item, and inspect. If all or many of the items are in the wrong spot, they'll give you the price change, unless the price is drastic (400 down to 10 for example).

You know, I'm getting sick about people throwing out the "bait and switch" when they don't know what the heck they are talking about.

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/guides/baitads-gd.htm

Read and be educated.

[quote name='JSweeney']You know, I'm getting sick about people throwing out the "bait and switch" when they don't know what the heck they are talking about.

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/guides/baitads-gd.htm

Read and be educated.[/quote]

I was thinking the same thing. Dracula, you are on the right track, but what happened at the grocery store wasn't bait and switch. Bait and switch is advertising something that you don't intend to have available for sale (bait), and luring the customer into a more expensive purchase (switch).

For instance, the reason some CC's started grabbing games off the shelf was because if they didn't have any games selling for $5 on the 11th, people could call bait and switch. Sure, CC didn't intend it this way, people just found out about the price changes well before the sale started. The grocery store had what was advertised, it was just mixed in with other products, which I'll say is not cool, as it can confuse the customer, but it's still not bait and switch.

All I wanted was the correct price but instead they applied this policy of imposing punitory damage on themselves by giving me the product free. How much worse would they have to screw up before offering the life of a bagger in sacrifice?


If you think that's overboard, you should work with one of my managers. We once had a customer order a part for a gas grill and pay around $35 total, including shipping, for the part. We had just started working with a new distributor at the time. The customer came back to the store once he had received the part, slammed his packing slip on the counter, and angrily asked me why we overcharged him. The packing slip listed the price of the part at $9.99, which turned out to be our cost for it... the new distributor was apparently clueless and had sent out hundreds of parts with our cost listed instead of the customer's price. Embarassment aside, our store hadn't actually done anything wrong, but my manager insisted on giving the guy a $35 gift card in addition to the part. Not only did the customer get the part for under our cost, he got it for free.

I just go there with the thought of what I would likem then put all that in my cart then walk around the store puting stuff back trying to remeber if I have it at home or not then I think I have the right stuff go home and find like 3 boxes of the stuff I just bought. I only buy meats when they are on sale and deep freeze them.

[quote name='Ledhed'][quote name='JSweeney']You know, I'm getting sick about people throwing out the "bait and switch" when they don't know what the heck they are talking about.

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/guides/baitads-gd.htm

Read and be educated.[/quote]

I was thinking the same thing. Dracula, you are on the right track, but what happened at the grocery store wasn't bait and switch. Bait and switch is advertising something that you don't intend to have available for sale (bait), and luring the customer into a more expensive purchase (switch).

For instance, the reason some CC's started grabbing games off the shelf was because if they didn't have any games selling for $5 on the 11th, people could call bait and switch. Sure, CC didn't intend it this way, people just found out about the price changes well before the sale started. The grocery store had what was advertised, it was just mixed in with other products, which I'll say is not cool, as it can confuse the customer, but it's still not bait and switch.[/quote]

actually the grocery store did not have the sale item that was advertized in the ad, it had the not on sale item in its spot on the rack. hence bait and switch. while they may not have intentionially done it,

As for cc not having any $5 games, cant they just say that their $5 demos are part of the sale, and therefore they didnt bait anyone so that is not bait and switch?

and as for why did I not notice the wrong price coming up at the register, well i have to scan my ralphs club card to get the deal, and yeah, it applies all the discounts at once(at the end like someone else said).

I remember one time I bought some strawberries that were 66% off at lucky's(before it was albertsons)they didnt give me the price, I was going over the receipt before i left the store and it charged me 6 bucks for the 2 pounds of strawberries instead of 2. they mislabeled the entire batch of strawberries on the shelf so none of them would ring up for the right price. they gave me the strawberries free and yeah, grocery stores screw themselves a lot.

Well doesn't the CC ad say "Select clearence games" or somesuch? So as long as they have one in stock they'd be good to go wouldn't they?

[quote name='"dracula"'][quote name='Ledhed'][quote name='JSweeney']You know, I'm getting sick about people throwing out the "bait and switch" when they don't know what the heck they are talking about.

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/guides/baitads-gd.htm

Read and be educated.[/quote]

I was thinking the same thing. Dracula, you are on the right track, but what happened at the grocery store wasn't bait and switch. Bait and switch is advertising something that you don't intend to have available for sale (bait), and luring the customer into a more expensive purchase (switch).

For instance, the reason some CC's started grabbing games off the shelf was because if they didn't have any games selling for $5 on the 11th, people could call bait and switch. Sure, CC didn't intend it this way, people just found out about the price changes well before the sale started. The grocery store had what was advertised, it was just mixed in with other products, which I'll say is not cool, as it can confuse the customer, but it's still not bait and switch.[/quote]

actually the grocery store did not have the sale item that was advertized in the ad, it had the not on sale item in its spot on the rack. hence bait and switch. while they may not have intentionially done it,

You don't seem to understand. For it to legally be a bait and switch, THERE MUST BE INTENT. If there isn't intent, it could just be poor ordering, but so long as the store had on hand a reasonable amount of product for the expected response to the ad, or had written in thier ad about the limited nature of the sale, they are completely in the clear.


As for cc not having any $5 games, cant they just say that their $5 demos are part of the sale, and therefore they didnt bait anyone so that is not bait and switch?

They don't need to. The wording in thier ad suggests a limited nature and limits it to the supply on hand, which puts them in the clear in a legal sense. Not to mention that they put the ad out as a good faith offer.. they honored the pricing, even though a couple of people stumbled on the sale a week early.

The only possible way they could get in trouble would be for them to try to suggest 10-50 dollar games as a substituion to the deal.

Even if they did that, however, even a gifted legal mind would have a hard time establishing intent in any form, considering the volume of product that CC had and sold at the promised pricepoint.

Good job with the "bait and switch" explanation, that should be a sticky. That's probably the #2 faulty complaint, right after "OMG they have to sell it to me at that incorrect, cheaper price it's TEH LAW!!!!11"

I still work at a grocery store nights (gotta pay the bills... well, I guess it really pays for the games) so...

[quote name='fireball343']i pay attention at the checkout. the problem is at kroger and other stores with cards everything is changed at the end.[/quote]

Give them your scan card thingy first, before they start scanning items. That way you can see the sale price as they ring up.

Bait and Switch is what Bestbuy does when they advertise something that they know each store has 0, 1, or 2 of for the duration of the sale, and when you go there to buy it they try and sell you something more expensive. Supermarkets are just dumb, they're not smart enough to try anything like that. They'll have a sale, and may or may not have more than the usual amount, and will often sell out until they get more. But they're usually really good at giving rainchecks.

I live by this motto, "Never attribute to malice what can easily be explained by incompetence." You're not going to get the brightest bulbs in the world with minimum wage, and if they are, they're certainly not going to care enough to go out of their way to help you or to screw you. Bestbuy on the other hand has publicly demonstrated its sheer contempt for customers. Just be nice to the person at the supermarket and they'll do whatever you want that won't get them in trouble.

What you shouldn't do at the supermarket is buy a cart full of groceries with 20 expired coupons 5 minutes before close.

Oh, and don't be a dick to people. It should go without saying. People will go out of their way to screw you if you give them a reason to.