4 steps to take if you’re charged the wrong price at the supermarket
You’re leaving the supermarket, receipt in hand, and you can’t shake the feeling the total is higher than you’d tallied in your head. You check the receipt and notice you’ve been charged more for an item than the advertised price. So, what do you do?
1. Let the supermarket know as soon as possible
If you leave it too long, the advertised price might change, and it'll be harder to prove what the price should have been.
If you’re still near the supermarket, go back in and speak to someone at the service desk or someone who looks like they’re in charge of the checkout area.
If you’ve made it home and don’t fancy going back, give them a call and ask what you should do.
2. Gather your evidence
The supermarket should be able to look in its system to find your shop and see what you paid if you didn’t take the receipt.
You can help your case by taking a photo of the advertised price and presenting it with your receipt.
3. Know the supermarket’s policy on overcharging
This one’s pretty easy because it’s the same across the big 3 supermarkets: Woolworths, New World and Pak’nSave. All 3 now have policies that if they overcharge you, you’ll get fully refunded what you paid for the item, and you can keep the product.
The policies state that if you’ve bought more than one of a product, you’ll only be fully refunded for one of them. For the rest of the products, you’ll get a refund of the difference between the correct price and what you paid.
4. Let us know!
We want to keep an eye on how widespread the issue is – and for that, we need your help. If you’re overcharged – even if you’re refunded – email your photos and receipts to us at: playfair@consumer.org.nz.
Aneleise shows us what to do
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Aneleise Gawn is Consumer NZ’s consumer advocate. She has been heavily involved in our fight for supermarkets to Price it Right.
While shopping at her local supermarket, Aneleise noticed the avocados had two prices – one sign priced a single avocado at $1.69, and the other priced it at $1.99. She selected an avocado from under the $1.69 sign. After getting home, Aneleise realised she’d been charged $1.99. She returned to the store with her avocado and receipt and was told she’d be refunded the difference – 30c. Aneleise pointed out that Foodstuffs’ refund policy requires a full refund when a customer is overcharged. (Foodstuffs owns New World and Pak’nSave.) The store agreed and refunded her $2.
Avocado prices
“I was pretty disappointed that I had to quote Foodstuff’s refund policy to get a full refund. It’s all very well and good having a policy in place, but if it’s not being adhered to, it’s pretty pointless. That’s why we’re calling for the government to strengthen our laws with our Price it Right campaign,” Aneleise says.
Foodstuffs said staff had been trained on the new refund policy that has been in place since the end of June in the South Island and start of July in the North Island.
Why pricing errors matter
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Pricing errors might not seem like a big deal if you’re just talking a few dollars here and there. But our recent research found that 62% of New Zealanders had noticed pricing inaccuracies. This is at a time when many New Zealanders are struggling with the cost of living.
The Commerce Commission’s willingness to file criminal charges shows it’s taking the problem seriously, too. Last month, 2 Pak’nSave supermarkets pleaded guilty to more misleading pricing charges.
What can you do to help?
Our Price it Right campaign calls for the government to introduce a mandatory supermarket pricing accuracy code. The code would:
set out clear pricing rules
require a supermarket to compensate consumers when it gets pricing wrong.
The campaign also calls for higher penalties for supermarkets that don’t price it right.
Sahar Lone, Consumer’s communications and campaigns manager, explains that the policies supermarkets have are voluntary.
“Supermarkets could withdraw their policies at any time. They also might not always translate into practice, as we saw when Aneleise was overcharged for her avocado. We want supermarkets to be forced to compensate consumers and the Commerce Commission to be able to issue infringement notices when supermarkets get it wrong. Fines also need to be much higher to incentivise supermarkets to comply,” Sahar says.
Foodstuffs wanted us to add it is committed to the refund policy and has no intention of withdrawing it.
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Even Australians get it - so why not Kiwis???
“Ten years ago, if a heatwave as intense as last week’s record-breaker had hit the east coast, Australia’s power supply may well have buckled. But this time, the system largely operated as we needed, despite some outages.
On Australia’s main grid last quarter, renewables and energy storage contributed more than 50% of supplied electricity for the first time, while wholesale power prices were more than 40% lower than a year earlier.
[…] shifting demand from gas and coal for power and petrol for cars is likely to deliver significantly lower energy bills for households.
Last quarter, wind generation was up almost 30%, grid solar 15% and grid-scale batteries almost tripled their output. Gas generation fell 27% to its lowest level for a quarter century, while coal fell 4.6% to its lowest quarterly level ever.
Gas has long been the most expensive way to produce power. Gas peaking plants tend to fire up only when supply struggles to meet demand and power prices soar. Less demand for gas has flowed through to lower wholesale prices.”
Full article: www.theguardian.com...
If even Australians see the benefit of solar - then why is NZ actively boycotting solar uptake? The increased line rental for electricity was done to make solar less competitive and prevent cost per kWh to rise even more than it did - and electricity costs are expected to rise even more. Especially as National favours gas - which is the most expensive form of generating electricity. Which in turn will accelerate Climate Change, as if New Zealand didn’t have enough problems with droughts, floods, slips, etc. already.
New BEGINNERS LINEDANCING CLASS
Epsom Methodist church
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Monday 9th February 7pm - 9pm
Tuesday 10th February 10am -11am
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Time to Tickle Your Thinker 🧠
If a zookeeper had 100 pairs of animals in her zoo, and two pairs of babies are born for each one of the original animals, then (sadly) 23 animals don’t survive, how many animals do you have left in total?
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