Getting Ripped Off at the Supermarket

SeaBreeze

SeaBreeze

Endlessly Groovin'
Location
USA
Only since I've been retired have I really been looking at my store receipts, and you wouldn't believe how many mistakes I find, being overcharged or something on sale not ringing up the sale price, them scanning six instead of five, etc.

Well today was a new one. I bought some stuff from the supermarket and paid with a check as usual. On the way out I glanced at the receipt and it showed my total price, it showed the amount of my check as ten dollars more than it was, and a ten dollar cash given. That particular cashier wasn't very nice either to boot.

Sooo, I went back over to the register and told him there was a problem that needed to be fixed. He told me to wait, which was expected as he was taking care of the next person. I would have just gone to customer service, but in this particular store the line is always two blocks long a very long wait.

Then another cashier came over and told him to go to lunch when he finished that check out. Before he could take off, I made sure that he needed to address my issue. The other woman was at the next register and she told me to go to her, she seemed to be a supervisor assistant.

She had no answers as to how or why that would happen. She did minus the amount that was $10 higher and made it for the purchase cost only, on a small piece of paper. I told her I didn't want to be overcharged on my bank statement for that purchase, and just told her to give me the ten bucks to make it easier. She wouldn't do it, so I'll have to make sure everything is normal with that check.

I don't think they can charge you more than what's written on your check really, but I know some people want cash back in addition to paying their bill. All I can figure is that first cashier was trying to pocket ten dollars by doing this, nothing else made sense to me.

When I went home I told my husband that maybe that guy was doing that to people all day and nobody noticed. Anyway, I was annoyed for the inconvenience, and I can't imagine how many times I must have been ripped off when I was still working, in a hurry and never reviewing my receipts at all.

Anybody else notice mistakes or overcharges at the register?
 

I buy my groceries.......and most everything else...online and pay using EFTPOS so there's no way that could happen to me. I do agree that we should all examine receipts and statements more carefully. I check out my bank accounts every few days to make sure things are as they should be.
 
. What ticks me off, I used to be able to see every item as it rings up, but these days they start ringing your items up before you can get them all out of the cart, so sometimes you may miss seeing something rang up at the wrong price. But, I more often than not scrutinize my receipt prior to walking out and even if I get home and find the error, I'll ring them up and make them aware, so far most stores will comp me the difference. But yes, be especially careful and watchful when checking out, not all cashiers are on the up and up.
 

I've found mistakes before. Usually it's when something doesn't ring up at the sale price. My husband and I both keep a close eye on things as we are being checked out. I've never had a problem like you did Seabreeze, that's kind of strange. I don't know what that guy was trying to pull unless he planned to take a ten out of the register before the day was over. I'm sure the bank will not allow your check to be changed though.

A lot of people claim it's impossible to have your purchase to go through twice but it did happen to us one time. It was about 15 or so years ago in Maryland or some super cold state. I didn't own a heavy coat and seldom even use a light weight coat in California. I'm pretty sure this was a K-Mart or Wal-mart in Baltimore. I went in and bought the heaviest warmest parka type coat I could find. It was under $100, I know that. So the first time it didn't go through and they had my husband swipe his debit card again. I check all our financial affairs regularly online to make sure nothing weird is going on. When we got back to the hotel I looked and we had been charged twice! So we went back and they immediately corrected the mistake.

I just remembered last week while I was shopping at Walmart my husband took 10 cases of water up to the check out so he could put them in the truck and then come back in the store. He was watching and thought the clerk accidentally rang up 11 cases so after she was all through he told her and then so she didn't have to change anything he told her to go on to the next person and he'd just run back and get one more case of water so it worked out fine.
 
I've caught a few mistakes..but I agree about them ringing up before you even get there to check prices. It's usually sale items not marked down. I pay cash or debit usually. SB..your issue is strange. I wouldn't have been too happy. I remember years ago a checker where I worked got fired for doing "creative" charges to net money from the til.
 
At Whole Foods I never have a problem. At Stop and Shop I had so many errors, some for vitamins which are expensive, that I starting doing self checkout which brings my checkout issues to zero. And it's faster too. :eek: Is self checkout an option for you Seabreeze??
 
I spend more time checking the date stamping than the prices. I have a bad habit of not even noticing the amount I am paying at the checkout, which is very remiss of me!:rolleyes:
 
SB...I was in the grocery business for years and have seen just about every type of crooked cashiers going. Certainly sounds like he does this as many times as he thinks he can get away with it. Probably knocks down an extra hundred or two a week. Seriously. I've seen it happen.

Before scanners, let's say the store is busy, a customer hands the cashier $20 for a $10 item. The cashier opens the cash drawer and gives customer $10, but doesn't ring up the sale. $10 in pocket of cashier. Do this several times a day and cashier could be driving around in a new Benson convertible.
 
RadishRose said:
I never check. I will start now, after reading this. There have been a few times when the total seemed a bit high.
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I was a manager for awhile, Rose. I've seen a few things you wouldn't believe. The new scanners make it almost impossible to skim money this way, but scanner prices are set with a main computer, and sometimes they are set wrong. If an item is on sale, but the computer price wasn't changed, you are charged full price. Doesn't hurt to check over your receipt now and then.
 
If you use a debit card you have little recourse if you get double charged. I got double charged at Home Depot, the store manager would not remedy the mistake, and even my bank would not reverse the mistake. I was P......OOO'd!
 
I often find mistakes take the receipt back to the cashier, they reverse the whole total charge on my debit and put the right total amount through again. This happens frequently in a store here where university student cashiers work often in rush hour when customers are in a hurry.
 
I might point out that in the retail hierarchy that cashiers have the most work for the lowest pay. Being a cashier is entry level for most stores. You want to do your time until you can move to floor associate or anywhere but stuck behind a register. If you want accuracy you have got to use the self-check. The only problem there? The machines tend to poop out quite regularly and guess who has to fix them?
 
tnthomas said:
If you use a debit card you have little recourse if you get double charged. I got double charged at Home Depot, the store manager would not remedy the mistake, and even my bank would not reverse the mistake. I was P......OOO'd!
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That is good to know as I thought for sure they'd refund the $, especially with it being the same price and within a minute or two of each other. I guess we were really lucky to get a refund when we paid twice for my coat.
 
tnthomas said:
If you use a debit card you have little recourse if you get double charged. I got double charged at Home Depot, the store manager would not remedy the mistake, and even my bank would not reverse the mistake. I was P......OOO'd!
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In a day and age of electronic transactions these stores have to remember they are messing with people's bank balances and credit limits so it's important these transactions are handled correctly ie credits back into the original account. Some people like cash but that cash won't do you any good if later in the day you try to charge something if the item is over your credit limit or beyond the minimum balance requirements of the bank.
 
tnthomas said:
If you use a debit card you have little recourse if you get double charged. I got double charged at Home Depot, the store manager would not remedy the mistake, and even my bank would not reverse the mistake. I was P......OOO'd!
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I won't use a debit card, heard too many bad things about them, checks or credit cards (or cash) only for me.
 
The other frustrating thing is when the wrong price is on the shelf tags under the item. In stores like Walmart where the individual items are seldom priced, you have to try to match up the SKU number with the number on the box to see WHICH shelf tag matches WHAT item, which is real fun when the tag is on the bottom shelf and you have to get down on your knees to see the tiny little numbers. Or you have to find a scanner and check the price.
 
jujube said:
The other frustrating thing is when the wrong price is on the shelf tags under the item. In stores like Walmart where the individual items are seldom priced, you have to try to match up the SKU number with the number on the box to see WHICH shelf tag matches WHAT item, which is real fun when the tag is on the bottom shelf and you have to get down on your knees to see the tiny little numbers. Or you have to find a scanner and check the price.
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If in doubt one of the quickest ways to match up a product besides description is the last 5 of the bar code sku number to the last 5 on the shelf tag. Most of these stores lack basic organization or don't keep up with it. I don't even want to get into to looking for clothing sizes.
 
I certainly didn't mean to sound like everyone's a crook, as fur says, it's a low paying and tough job. When I was in the business, we had the machines that each item had to be separated. Meats were the red button, produce was red and all other items were rang up under the white button. It was quite a job to keep items separated. Scanning is so much quicker and usually accurate as long as the programmer puts in the right prices.
 
QUOTE I don't think they can charge you more than what's written on your check really, but I know some people want cash back in addition to paying their bill. All I can figure is that first cashier was trying to pocket ten dollars by doing this, nothing else made sense to me. QUOTE

I don't think the bank will let them charge you more than the amount on your check. BUT, I believe that clerk was pocketing money. I try to watch my receipts, especially if if seems high, and especially in places like Wal-Mart I usually check my receipt before I leave the store -- not down to the penny, but briefly run through it.
 
I certainly didn't mean to sound like everyone's a crook, as fur says, it's a low paying and tough job.

Something else the store I was in had problems with. There was more than one cashier who got caught stealing people card numbers. I dunno how they did it. Maybe take a quick picture while the customer is distracted? When the cashier has your card watch them like a hawk. The stores are usually clueless about individual employees.

Sheer number of people they have some real winners sometimes. There used to be this girl that management admired. She had been a cashier a few years and looked like she knew her stuff. But if you really talked to her there was something really odd there. One day I was in a hurry to ring somebody up and this woman's check in code was on the register I used.

It was just one quick transaction. After the customer left this girl marched up to me " DID you just use MY register??? NO I AM so serious!!! NOBODY goes using MY register!!! Don't YOU EVER do THAT again!!!". Yeeesh, uh okay I certainly will not. They would have made her head cashier if she had asked.

You know within a year after that she grabbed a drawer of cash and made a run for it. Don't think they caught her either.
 
I try to make a sincere effort at watching as everything is put through the scanner. If I see something wrong call them on it. If something is in correctly charged at one grocery chain. They have to give you the item free scored that a few times. I use my debit card all the time. Never had a problem with using it. Mind you here in Canada debit cards are very mainstream. Sorry you had issues Seabreeze.:(
 
Arachne said:
I try to make a sincere effort at watching as everything is put through the scanner. If I see something wrong call them on it. If something is in correctly charged at one grocery chain. They have to give you the item free scored that a few times. I use my debit card all the time. Never had a problem with using it. Mind you here in Canada debit cards are very mainstream. Sorry you had issues Seabreeze.:(
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Like you, I never have had a problem with the use of my debit card, even when having issue of getting charges reversed back to my account, it must be different banking locations and how they handle client accounts. Even when one of the main credit checking keeping companies charged my card a fee when I went to do a supposedly free credit check and they refused to refund the money, I disputed it, my bank reversed the charge. Can't say the credit check company made life easy for me, thereafter, but, things eventually got back to normal when I needed to check my scores. I'm able to use my debit card same as a credit care for purchases to a degree, but, I don't I usually hit the debit unless a store doesn't do debit... I did end up getting a regular credit card, seems you don't have much choice these days, but, I rarely use it.
 
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Of course, I go way back. People didn't use cards back then. Cash and checks. I guess it's still fairly easy to rip off folks with cards if one knows what they are doing.
We didn't have cameras back then, either.
 

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