Watch that Price Display

The next time you go for shopping at one of the big supermarkets, I advise you to watch for the price of each of the items on the display as the cashier at the paying counter scans each item.

My family and I went to Carrefour Ampang this afternoon to purchase our weekly stock of food and household goods. Among the items that we were going to purchase was a 10-kg bag of rice and a notebook bag. The price for the rice was displayed as RM20.00 (on offer) and the price for the notebook bag was shown as RM89.90.

When these two (2) items were scanned at the counter, the price for the rice was displayed as RM40.00 (instead of RM20.00) and the bag as RM93.50 (instead of RM89.90). We immediately told the cashier that they were incorrect. The cashier immediately called someone to go and check the price for the bag. The staff checked and came back to confirm that the correct price was RM89.90 and not RM93.50.

My wife did not wait for the Carrefour staff. She personally went to check the price of the rice. She came back with another 10-kg bag of rice of another brand which cost RM25.00. She told me that the bag of rice on promotion at RM20.00 was no longer available, it has been sold out.She told me that the bag of rice that she took earlier was placed where the sign showed the price as RM20.00. She therefore assumed that the bags of rice placed under the RM20 price tag would cost RM20.00. Furthermore it was of the same brand.

I was told to go to the Customer Service to claim back the difference between RM93.50 and RM89.90, which was RM3.60, which I got back in cash.

The point I am trying to make is that one should always know how much one is going to pay for an item and make sure that the same price is shown on the display when the cashier scans the item. Let's not divert your concentration, like sms or call someone over the phone, while the cashier is scanning the items because you will not know whether you are paying for the right prices as indicated.

As for the bag of rice on offer at RM20.00., why still displayed the price tag at RM20.00 when the rice had been sold out? Why not just remove the price tag instead?

I'm not saying that the supermarket is deliberately trying to cheat the customers this way.Most likely it's an oversight or one of the staffs forgot to remove the price tag or place the correct one. Just imagine if we didn't observe the scanned price properly or didn't check the receipt after that - we would be paying more than we should.