to think they should have honoured the shelf price.

[martini84]

Out shopping with dc. They each choose a treat. One of them was priced x on the shelf but was rung up at a higher price. About 15% dearer but not a huge amount as less than a pound.
When I questioned it I was basically told tne price was wrong and did I want it or not at a dearer price.
If I had not been with dc I would have and brought nothing onn principal.
Yeet dd would have been upset so I felt oblidged to pay.
Aibu to be annoyed about this. I appreciate there is no obligation to sell to me at all nut surely this is really bad customer service.
It was a chain btw. (Probably franchise.)

[superbean]

If the price shown is wrong, it's a misleading price indication. This is a criminal offence and Trading standards can prosecute for this but tend to go after big stores where they "mystery shop" and find lots of Mis-pricing, and prosecutions only happen when the store continually re-offends.

From a contractual point of view, the shop is not obliged to sell at the incorrect price because of the way offer and acceptance works in a shop (see other comments above about invitation to treat).

Unfortunately, most checkout staff will be utterly clueless about the consumer protection act , so if you mention misleading prices at all, it's unlikely to help :/

Any decent store manager would in my opinion have honoured the incorrect price and corrected the pricing straight away.

[FredFredGeorge]

WidowWadman Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008

It's not relevant to the contract going on in the shop, it's purely consumer protection law, so you wouldn't've covered it (although I do think if could've been mentioned in it...)

It's obviously an area where if something is unfair is going to end up in a decision by a court, but the act does say

"Making an invitation to purchase products at a specified price without disclosing the existence of any reasonable grounds the trader may have for believing that he will not be able to offer for supply ... at that price "

Is always considered unfair, however I suspect in the simple case of a mis-labelled item on the shelf, the due diligence defence would likely be more than enough. As superbean says it's something trading standards enforce, and obviously only care about big cases where it's worthwhile.

Given it's mumsnet, another thing always considered unfair is:

28. Including in an advertisement a direct exhortation to children to buy advertised products or persuade their parents or other adults to buy advertised products for them.

[frogwatcher42]

I thought trading standards laws said that things have to be sold as displayed including pricing.

[frogwatcher42]

oops cross posts

[MrsGSR]

There's a good chance I'm being really dense, but looking at the full paragraph of the quoted portion below, I'm not sure it would be relevant in this situation. It states:

Making an invitation to purchase products at a specified price without disclosing the existence of any reasonable grounds the trader may have for believing that he will not be able to offer for supply, or to procure another trader to supply, those products or equivalent products at that price for a period that is, and in quantities that are, reasonable having regard to the product, the scale of advertising of the product and the price offered (bait advertising).

Which sounds to me like it is saying if a product if advertised at a certain price, the shop has to disclose any reason it has to believe that it will not be able to met demand for the product, OR they must offer a similar product at the same price. There's an example given on page 21 that seems to support that.

Personally I think the OP should have been given it at the lower price, I'm just confused about the legalities of it!

[WidowWadman]

The law as quoted has - in my view - nothing to do with accidental mislabelling, which is what happened in the OP, but is there to stop deliberate fake "promotions" designed to get lots of customers to your shop without a hope of getting hold of any of the promoted items, in an attempt to make them buy other things while they're there.

[AKissIsNotAContract]

10p? I don't think I'd even notice if I was overcharged by 10p, much less feel bothered enough to post on MN about it.

[greenfolder]

10p?

[Cabrinha]

You need this angst for less than a quid?
Does no-one just accept mistakes any more?
If the store deliberately underprice on shelf to get you to buy, hoping you don't notice it's more at the till, then that's totally wrong.
And they should deserve your trust, so they should put systems - both people and IT - in place to ensure as far as they can that prices are right.
But come on - what happened here? Whoever's job it was to check the shelf labels made a mistake.
Yeah, I think that they should have honoured the price as it was their mistake and minor - even though not a legal requirement.
But it's not the end of the world, is it?

[martini84]

No not the end of the world. It was just the attitude of the member of staff. No real apology. They had made the mistake after all yet i was made to feel i was in the wrong.We knew because my dd was paying so she could practice her numeracy.

[Joanne279]

Would have courteous, but I work for a chain. The key is not to question the price and pay for it. Then approach customer services and tell them youve been overchsrged. Once you've paid for it, I believe they are required by law to sell for the advertised price :)

[MrsGSR]

It's not law, see the comments below. But most reasonable places would have given a refund, and they certainly shouldn't have been rude about it.