Walmart Scanner "Errors" Overcharging People

[Dis]

Originally posted by Jon Miller
I hvae thought this was happening, in all types of stores, for years

I mean, who really checks how much things cost (as long as it is in the right ball park)

JM

I check the prices. Often I'm only buying a few things, I'll notice if they are off. But of course, if I have a whole list of things, I won't check those.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Sava





Odin

and you even said "your" instead of "you're"

I don't see how K-mart and Target are any better.

[Dis]

and of course, even with the over charges, you are still saving money over other places.

So does it really matter?

[Berzerker]

The two studies said random purchases at 60 Wal-Mart stores in California found that the wrong price came up 8.3 percent of the time. At 78 stores in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, check-out scanners rang up the wrong price 6.4 percent of the time. In both states, some prices rang up higher and some were lower.

The researchers said the average cost of overcharges was more than that of undercharges.

According to the NBC news story I saw on TV, the study indicates that Walmart overcharges people an average of $1.33

What was the rate of undercharging and the average undercharge?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Sava
* Sava cues dueling banjos

[MikeH]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Let me clue you in on a secret. If you find an error, you get 3$ off the item or the item is free if it is below 3$. So paying attention and asking for price checks is good for the pocket book.

In Britain (at least this was true when I was working in a shop) the store manager is personally liable for items that are overcharged. The fine is maxed out at £5000 for magistrate courts but if a big supermarket faces charges it can go to crown court where the maximum fine is unlimited. Theoretically the fine can be in the region of thousands of pounds PER ITEM, which is a lot when you can have tens or hundreds of the same item on the shelves. In practice that'd probably only happen for continuous overcharging.

Still, because of this we had people checking every price in the store (around 10,000 items) continuously, aiming to check every price in the store every day. Certainly you wouldn't expect it to ever get as high as 1% errors. That would be a major problem. 6 do 8 percent is unbelievable.

Some supermarkets now are experimenting with computerised displays on the shelving so that price changes are automatically reflected on the shelves when they are changed in the stores pricing computer as used by the checkouts. Although obviously the computer still needs to know what goods are where on the shelves so it might not solve all problems.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Verto
I'm inclined to believe this is just a simple mistake made in trying to keep up with shifting inventory prices, etc. At Albertson's, where I work, we make our fair share of 'em. Ex: Brand X soups go on sale for a dollar a piece. But, 1 flavor of soups is accidentally not scanned by a Scan Coordinator (updates the product code's new price onto the computer system). So, you have 10 flavors that come up for 1$, and one flavor that does not. Our policy is, you get 1 of those items for free if they ring up wrong, and the rest at the correct price.

Wal-Mart assuredly has better technology to keep track of this, but still, they have a helluva lot of products.

Exactly. When I worked at CVS, once in a while a product would ring up more than it should have. Sometimes it was because a sale didn't come up or just the computer had a higher price than the shelves. If I knew about it (a sale price that wasn't coming up), it'd manually change it, but I'm sure there were plenty of people who ended up overcharged for one thing or another.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Sava
The National Institute for Standards and Technology, the University of Illinois-Chicago, and the University of California-Berkeley have agendas to push?

The people who funded the study are the ones with the agenda to push.

[Datajack Franit]

people shopping at Walmart deserve it

[Japher]

I don't mind paying 8% more now and then since all the other times I save so much!!!

[CerberusIV]

I still fondly remember the time I got a half bottle of whiskey free from Tesco's because it was on offer for less than half the cost of a standard bottle and they charged me the normal price, not the offer one. Talking to the same cashier the following week, she was laughing as she explained how, the moment I left the store, three supervisors ran the length of the store and started pulling the bottles of the shelf to stop anyone else buying any until they sorted the price on the computer.

If the system is that flaky it could potentially cost Walmart a lot of money by undercharging, not to mention any fines and/or loss of sales if it was ever proven to be deliberate.

Either the survey is skewed - by targeting mostly sale items rather than goods on sale at the normal price - or Walmart go to the same people as national government for their IT systems.

[Aabraxan]

I've actually seen items labeled as "on sale," where the sale price was higher than the regular price. I got rather puzzled looks from the cashier when I asked to pay regular price rather than the sale price.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Odin


I don't see how K-mart and Target are any better.

You got something against Target, boy?


HUH, HUH? Are you dissing Target? BRING IT ON -- you and me, outside, now!

[Sava]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
The people who funded the study are the ones with the agenda to push.

But the people who funded the study did not conduct the study.


The study was objective and scientific.

Walmart has been PWNED

[Sava]

Originally posted by Berzerker






What was the rate of undercharging and the average undercharge?

It didn't say. The report mentioned that the cases of undercharges were rare. And that altogether, overcharging and undercharging averaged out... the total average "error" was +$1.33

so the data includes all errors... undercharges and overcharges...