A new study finds retail scanners can cost shoppers big bucks if shoppers aren’t watching their receipts closely. CouponNews.com reports that a story from the Journal of Retailing argues, “that scanner errors are as prevalent as ever, and not enough is being done about it.”
The authors examined 15 years’ worth of data from Washington state, involving nearly a quarter of a million items rung up at retail stores that use price scanning systems. The overall error rate, they found, was 4.08%. The good news is that more of those errors were undercharges (2.33%) than overcharges (1.75%). Another piece of good news, is that those percentages show an improvement from 15 years ago. The bad news is that the research found that when shoppers are overcharged, they are overcharged quite badly.
“It appears that overcharges have become more severe despite the percentage of mistakes declining,” according to the report.
This means you should really keep an eye on your purchases at the checkout. Some stores really consider over charges a big deal! Take Publix, for example. If you purchase an item and it scans higher than the product costs, let the cashier know. You will get the item for free!
The authors of the report also said that the “U.S. Federal Trade Commission has not conducted a study on the accuracy of scanned prices since 1998. The agency has largely left this responsibility up to local governments. Some municipalities are more diligent about checking retailers’ price accuracy than others. Areas of California have been particularly aggressive about auditing retailers at the point of sale, and fining any offenders. Just last week, Whole Foods was fined $800,000 for overcharging customers in three Southern California cities. Safeway agreed to pay $2.25 million to settle a lawsuit involving overcharges in the San Francisco area earlier this year.”
So, it really is up to consumers to keep an eye on purchases to make sure you are getting a fair price on your groceries.
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