Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

...to think I should be sold a pair of shoes for the price on them, and not a HIGHER price??!

34 replies

lololizzy · 21/04/2011 19:12

I went into a very well respected department store today that is meant to pride itself on good old fashioned customer service; in fact it's considered to be one of the backbones of this town..it's certainly a big pull for both tourists and residents alike.
Anyway....having made a purchase in a different part of the store, i wandered to a certain brand of shoe concession area... and found a pair of rather upmarket flipflop style shoes that i liked. Turned them over...price said £25, but this had been crossed out. Price written in over the cross-out, £35. Checked other pairs and this was the same. Bear in mind these are rubber flipflops. Being a good name, £25 you'd kind of expect, but i'm not paying £35 just for a bit of rubber.
I have myself worked in retail for nearly 25 yrs, and forgive me if i'm wrong and the laws have recently changed, but isn't this illegal practise? I called an assistant and she admitted that it was indeed, but it wasn't her power to change prices. I asked for a pair in my size and said i would take for £25 but not £35. She referred me to who i believe to be assistant manager, behind the till.
She said i could only have them for £35! Again i pointed out this was illegal and if prices had gone up, they needed to resticker them but not leave them out displaying two prices.. (being that it wasn't a sale and was actually an INCREASE!)
She was having none of it and was rude throughout, no apology and in fact a rather contemptous smirk on her face.
Obviously i didn't buy them, and came home and rang trading standards..only to find them closed...
So...who was BU??

OP posts:
Original poster
lololizzy · 21/04/2011 19:13

Correction.. no price written in OVER the cross out. But ABOVE it , so despite pen having been crossed over the orig price, both prices were v clearly visible

OP posts:
marmaladetwatkins · 21/04/2011 19:14

The old price was crossed out? I think that they were in the right...

Original poster
lololizzy · 21/04/2011 19:14

Aren't they duty bound to sell for the orig price as you are allowed to mark DOWN but not Up??

OP posts:
Original poster
lololizzy · 21/04/2011 19:16

I've worked in many shops and was frequently told that it was illegal to for example, place a new higher price sticker over a lower price sticker as customer could peel off and read what was underneath.
Not the case here but i still have a feeling they are wrong
And the assistant (the non rude one ) said she knew it was illegal!

OP posts:
eggyminniewhingesagain · 21/04/2011 19:17

They are not obliged to sell them to you full stop. Something to do with 'invitation to treat' AFAIK.

But there is no contract until you have agreed a price and paid for the item. YANBU to be pissed off, but they were not acting illegally.

mmmmmchocolate · 21/04/2011 19:17

It is illegal to cross out a price and put a higher price. The item should have been restickered. Try their head office in the morning and point out their mistake and see if you can get a goodwill voucher :)

penguin73 · 21/04/2011 19:18

Shops can change prices as they see fit- as happened with the recent VAT increase. As long as there is no confusion as to which is the actual price (ie one is clearly crossed out) they are not doing anything wrong.

eggyminniewhingesagain · 21/04/2011 19:19

I know it's wiki, but this explains it quite well

marmaladetwatkins · 21/04/2011 19:19

I too work in retail and would have probably sold them to you at the lower price as a goodwill gesture. Not hundred per cent on the legalities. I always resticker my stock if there is a price change...

Tweetinat · 21/04/2011 19:19

AFAIK any price advertised in an "invitation to treat". As such they can determine the price that they choose to sell at and even if incorrectly marked on the item or shelf edge, CAN request the correct amount before you've paid. It is then up to you to decide whether you want to accept or reject the invitation. They are under no obligation to sell to you at any price other than the one they choose.

YABU.

Original poster
lololizzy · 21/04/2011 19:22

I actually tried to be helpful initially, mmmmchocolate, and pointed out they should be restickered to avoid legal implications! I don't see why they are too lazy to do this. I was polite and they should've honoured the orig price as courtesy. When they did not, i was still polite but pointed out it was wrong and the girl was really rude with me! So i will complain.
I don't mind if shops put new prices on, i've done it myself in jobs. But you can't display the original price ! For a start , it really pisses customers off! It's not like a VAT increase in this case, but a whole tenner!

OP posts:
Original poster
lololizzy · 21/04/2011 19:23

No invite to treat, they told me the prices had merely gone up.

OP posts:
Original poster
lololizzy · 21/04/2011 19:25

thanks eggy will take a look

OP posts:
SomethingSuitablyWitty · 21/04/2011 19:32

T'is annoying though so YANBU. I recently bought a pair of boots that were actually displayed at a certain price in the window and when I was at the till they charged more more. When I questioned it they announced that they had been displayed incorrectly and were in fact 10 euros more than the displayed price. I was mad and this, I felt was definitely illegal, but I bought them anyway because I am a doormat.

JelliBelli · 21/04/2011 19:36

I'm with Eggy. I think YABU.

I think they have made an invitation to treat and you have made an offer in return. They simply declined your offer at the lower price, but they were willing to take an offer at the higher price, at which point the contract would have been made.

However, the shop staff should not be rude and should have explained the situation. However, like you, they may not understand the law.

I think you'll find it is simply good business practise, and not an illegality, not to increase the price on an item as it clearly creates confusion and ill feeling.

They were under no obligation to sell at the lower price. However, you may well make progress if you complain further up the food chain, as the staff were unnessarily rude to you.

Original poster
lololizzy · 21/04/2011 19:38

it's annoying that i was the helpful and polite one and they didn't have the courtesy to extend that back!
That's because I've had so many years in customer service...and I don't lose that when i am a customer myself... shame they don't train staff in same way!

OP posts:
eggyminniewhingesagain · 21/04/2011 19:41

You were polite and helpful, but you were also wrong. Sorry.

domesticslattern · 21/04/2011 19:43

I bought a pair of shoes which had a label saying £40 that I was charged £50 for at the till. When I queried it I was told that the label was wrong- so buy them for £50 or get lost.
I did some digging when I got home and, contrary to popular belief, that didn't seem to be illegal.
That seems a worse situation tbh.

Original poster
lololizzy · 21/04/2011 19:49

I have just rang customer services for that store and they apologised, admitted it was indeed illegal as the orig price was not 'invite to treat', and that i should've been offered there and then the orig price, or been referred to customer services, (who would've done the same) rather than lose a sale

OP posts:
Original poster
lololizzy · 21/04/2011 19:50

But maybe that's just that one store's view on the law..or maybe they are unclear too

OP posts:
iamaLeafontheWind · 21/04/2011 20:19

It's illegal to claim that an item is 'reduced' or 'sale' or '30% of RRP' (guess who I work for) but it's not illegal to change a price.

JelliBelli · 21/04/2011 20:25

Having had a google I think YANBU.

It's all to do with the misleading labelling, I think, and not the fact of increasing the price, I think. The unclear and misleading labelling falls foul of the Consumer Protection Act 1987 and is what creates the illegality.

Thanks for this Lolo, I am OKish on Sale of Goods Act but CPA was new.

So IMO the shop staff should not be rude and should have explained the situation. However, like me, they may not understand the law. Grin

myhouseWILLbecleanthisyear · 21/04/2011 20:38

Where I work (a large well known national and multinational I think dept store) we have been told that if a price goes up we must remove the original price completely.

There is the odd item that does come in with the wrong price on and we have to make sure that the price is removed. However they do get missed, but what we do is we change the price on the till to the price on the ticket, so the customer pays the cheapest.

Ive also been told that if it is a case of just one item being wrongly priced, say for example, just one pair of flip flops had the lower price on and all the rest were marked at the higher price then we dont HAVE to sell them at the lower price (although I always sell at the lower price - much easier). But it sounds to me like you didnt just have the odd one, but they all were like that.

I would be more pissed off with the way you were obviously treated. Sounds to me like there was no customer service there whatsoever. There have been lots of incidences (or a lot that I have heard about anyway) in my work where store rules (eg refund policy) have been broken so the customer gets their own way just because the managers are scared of that customer leaving and telling all their friends and those friends telling all their friends etc about the bad customer service they recieved and no-one wanting to go to that shop.

I think a lot of people would have sold at the lower price, unfortunately for you, you got the nasty people serving you.

Talking of shopping and price variations does anyone know if its the case once someone has paid x amount for an item then they have entered a contract to pay that? Just wondering because the amount of people who pay for an item then come back to tell me they were overcharged. Not that that in itself is a problem, refund given customer happy. But its when they say "I thought it was high as I was entering my pin/giving you the cash" The amount of people who say that. I often think that surely they could have said something BEFORE paying for it. If its busy, price differences may get missed, esp with scanners at tills doing all the work for you. Hope that has come out ok, Im not bothered about doing refunds, its just much easier to change a price than to refund a price and people often pay then check the price. Dont understand, but maybe thats just me.

Original poster
lololizzy · 21/04/2011 20:56

Thanks everyone for replying.
I never have a problem with prices going up especially when something's been on offer as it's my fault if i missed the boat..but it is not right to show BOTH prices on ONE ticket and on several pairs of shoes (that were never on special offer eg intro price etc). It should be the new price that is displayed only. Obviously it's different if something is marked down, as customer can see the bargain they are getting.
The other way round....is unprofessional, creates bad will and according to this store, is actually illegal...that's two staff members told me that now.
I admit it is all very confusing!
The annoying thing is i tried to help these young girls by suggesting they totally resticker for the legal reasons and actually said 'so you don't get into trouble for being misleading as you are marking up rather than down' , (and not just because i wanted the lower price - by then i'd decided not to purchase at any price) and i still got treated like poo.

OP posts:
JelliBelli · 21/04/2011 23:58

Yes, from my googling it IS illegal under the Consumer Protection Act to have misleading price labelling in this circumstance.

Staff were definitely BVU and rude. Boo hiss to them, I say.

Swipe left for the next trending thread