To say this was deceptive of M & S? Big fat strawberries to them!

[NotJustACigar]

I was in the Liverpool shop today picking up some fruit to have after tea and selected a pack of strawberries. Went to pay and the cashier rang them up at £5.99! I thought this was ridiculous and said so. He said "well that's the price" so I said "well that wasn't what the label said on the shelf and anyway that's a ridiculous price, it can't be right". He just kept repeating "well that's what they rang up as" so I kept repeating "that just can't be right". I should say at this point that I have a foreign accent and this I believe causes some (though by far not all) cashiers to treat me like I'm an absolute moron. But it pissed me off and I didn't back down.

Finally after several rounds of this the cashier offered to call someone to check. By this time the rest of the people in the queue were muttering to each other and staring daggers at me. Finally a manager came over and asked what the trouble was. The cashier said "these strawberries rang up at £5.99" so the manager said "sounds about right" in a fairly challenging tone.

I responded "that's not what the shelf said" so he sighed and said he would go check. He raced off so I followed him. At the shelf, there were several other packs of strawberries in the same area where I had gotten my pack. They were in packs of 600 grammes labelled Virtue variety from Spain and priced at £2.79. Only difference was that mine were marked £1 off and the label was a different font and slightly different colour. He shoved aside the shelf label for blueberries and there was a label that said "giant pack of strawberries £5.99" and he said "you see, yours were £5.99". I pointed out that the others were the same variety from the same country in the same amount and asked how the ones labelled £1 off could be over twice the price and pointed out that the giant pack weighed exactly the same as the other pack. Manager shrugged and said "the labels different, see?".

I bought the other pack of course for £2.99 and got no apology at all. And yes it annoyed me to the point that I'm now on my fourth paragraph complaining about them! Okay in the scheme of things it doesn't much matter and I do know that I have to check labels and weights carefully as all the supermarkets these days will try to trick people. But with these particular labels I stood absolutely no chance and feel really annoyed about it. Marks and Spencer used to be a premium food brand I think but now they are as shady as the rest and no better. AIBU to be really annoyed about this?

[EverythingsDozy]

£6 for strawberries??? YWDNBU! I would have been too!

[SometimesLonely]

I would have been annoyed too in your situation but it's not just the price on the shelf label that you have to look at. I have learned to look at the other much smaller print details on the shelf label as well. If the article is the same as all the details on the shelf label but the barcode on the item shows a higher price at the checkout, it is the law that you should have it for the shelf price. Been there. Mention the Sale of Goods Act and they'll back down (if you are in the right).

[Janorisa]

I complained in M&S about some croissants that were stale on the day I purchased them which also happened to be the BB date. She reluctantly said I could exchange them, but pointed out that they were within their rights to sell them on that day - it annoyed me because that wasn't the issue I was raising.

[SchroSawMargeryDaw]

It's not the law, it's only the law if they actually sell you it for the cheaper price but then realise.

That's not great of M&S, and if yours were £1 off, they were meant to be £7?

[CrohnicallyChanging]

Is it law, lonely? I thought the price label was an invitation for you to offer to buy the goods at that price, but the shop doesn't have to sell you anything at that price if they don't want to?

Tesco have a much better policy- at least they used to- if an item scans higher than the shelf price (and you buy it at the higher price) they will refund twice the difference. I once got paid to take some clementines off their hands (was a better than half price offer, so they refunded me more than I originally paid!)

[SchroSawMargeryDaw]

"Is it law, lonely? I thought the price label was an invitation for you to offer to buy the goods at that price, but the shop doesn't have to sell you anything at that price if they don't want to?"

That's true. I think most decent places will offer to sell you them at the shelf price though.

[UterusUterusGhali]

I'm outraged on your behalf.

Yanbu.

[Joules68]

You first said £2.79 then said £2.99.... Which was it?

You got it wrong? Confused? Not the cashiers fault either by the way, and what does 'as shady as the rest' refer to?

[Joules68]

On my till at work we have a 'shelf price correction' option.... It happens. Humans make mistakes

[Nessalina]

I had a similar issue with M&S the other day - they were offering 3 for £6 on their deli range, so I picked 3, and when I checked my receipt I'd been charge full price for them (about £10!).
I went to customer services and the lady was quite nice about it - she took me to the shelf and I'd picked two items that weren't in the deal without realising! All the deli stuff was on 'branded' shelves with the offer all across them, but only stickered items were included!
So I said I didn't want one and she refunded me, but I thought it was very misleading to have them all lumped together on the shelf when less than half were on offer. Lucky I checked my receipt!

[NotJustACigar]

The thing is the manager never even admitted I was right. Plus his and the cashiers attitude towards me was more like "scum from the bottom of our shoe" than "valued customer". I really felt lower than dirt walking out of there with my strawberries (which weren't even very nice and not as good as the ones we had from Tescos last week). but I might be bitter.

And omg I have just found an article about bizarro giant mutant strawberries for £6.99 www.itv.com/news/update/2014-02-12/giant-strawberries-the-size-of-an-egg-on-sale-in-uk/ Apparently the shelf label underneath the blueberries must have been for these Frankenstrawberries but they are definitely not the ones I tried to buy. The ones In my pack were Virtue and these are la Ellen King. Nowhere on the pack I had did it say King plus they were normal sized. I tend not to buy fruit that looks like it was invented by a mad scientist in a lab anyway so no way would I have chosen these!

[NotJustACigar]

Oops linky www.itv.com/news/update/2014-02-12/giant-strawberries-the-size-of-an-egg-on-sale-in-uk/

[NotJustACigar]

£2.79 (the £2.99 was a typo). The cashiers attitude was certainly his fault and shady as the rest refers to the deceptive business practices of course.

[pinktransit]

I had something very similar a while back in Sainsbury's. The shelf label very clearly said buy one get one free on packs of chicken breasts. So I picked up 2 packs. I was charged for 2, so queried it.
I was technically in the wrong, as it was the 300gram pack, not the 320 gram pack. However - every single pack on the labelled shelves was 320 gram. The 300 gram ones were on another shelf entirely.
I felt that this was deliberately misleading. What really upset me though was the staff attitude. They eventually got someone to check the shelf, dragged me halfway across the store to 'prove' that they were in the right, and generally made me feel as though I was trying it on to get something for nothing.
In fact, it's one of the few things that can still make me feel cross years later :( I get how you feel.

[littledrummergirl]

I do know that I have to check labels and weights carefully as all the supermarkets these days will try to trick people.

They don't try to trick you. Sometimes mistakes happen despite peoples best efforts. Shopworkers are only human and nobodys perfect.

[NotJustACigar]

Oh dear. Funny then how all these "innocent mistakes" are always in favour of the shop and not the consumer, then, isn't it? Of course they try to trick consumers - they want us to spend more. Wake up!

[NotJustACigar]

Pinktransit,yes, that's exactly it. The way they drag tried to make me feel like a sub-normal burglar for querying them is what really annoyed me, too!

[CrohnicallyChanging]

pink in circumstances like that, I have been refunded by Tesco as they said something along the lines of 'the offer didn't apply to those items, but we can see why you thought that' and usually take the sign down (to show you and also so no other customers are fooled by it).

(Not trying to be an advert for tesco, honest, it's just it was the only decent sized supermarket within a half hour drive for a long time, so I did many a weekly shop there!)

[extrasleepneeded]

Morrison's is terrible for this often have the offer price above one item while the item on offer is often on a different shelf

[hugoagogo]

What winds me up in M&S is, the giant sticker on things saying £2 then in tiny print 'off' so you think you are getting some nice cheese (or whatever) for £2 when it turns out it's £3.50, but used to be £5.50.

I'm not silly I do check, but I think it's misleading and it seems intentionally so.

[NotJustACigar]

Hugo it does seem intentional - otherwise we would be equally likely to be charged less than expected and that happens only once in a blue moon ... only time I can remember it happening actually is on a bag from Tescos that was apparently on sale and not labelled as such. But far, far more often it's attempts to overcharge.

And to be clear, I definitely don't blame these practices on the employees but I do think it wouldn't hurt to be polite to customers.

[CoolCadbury]

YANBU. M and S are terrible for their shelf labelling and I can't help but think its a deliberate policy to try and confuse. I've bought what I thought were deals, only to find out that one item was not in the deal but was rammed next to the deal item so it confused me. It's happened several times.

£7.99 for strawberries? Go to Morrisons love, 99p a small punnet and £3.99 per box.

[maddy68]

It's not the law that they have to sell it at a lower price if incorrectly labeled. Price tags are an invitation to treat so not legally binding until the contract has Been made

[littledrummergirl]

Op. Dont tell me to wake up please. I have spent enough time working in retail to be fully aware of how stores operate.
Someone put a large ticket on the shelf which covered the ticket next to it.
Given that you can have four people changing sometimes 1800 tickets in a day, mistakes happen.
It doesnt mean that they are out to get you.
In this case yabvvu.

[deakymom]

mistakes may happen but the attitude sucked