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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] U.S. food banks, in a squeeze, tighten belts

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  • From: yarrow@sfo.com
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] U.S. food banks, in a squeeze, tighten belts
  • Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2007 12:54:25 -0800

No, it's not a scam. They're human. It's a big problem for most stores to get all the prices correct, especially if they change prices frequently. I always pay attention to the displayed price, and I usually don't buy too much at once, so as long as I'm paying attention at the register, I almost always catch the mistakes. How they handle it depends a lot on the individuals at the store.

Since I never shop at any of the -marts and go to Trader Joe's weekly for a few things at a time, I get charged the wrong price for something almost every time I shop at TJ's and buy anything other than my usual items. Typically I tell them no, it's a much lower price on the shelf, they say no, this is the correct price because it's in the computer, I say no it's not, they sigh and go to the shelf and bring back the placard from the shelf that has the price I remembered, and they grudgingly charge me the price that was displayed. It sometimes happens in the locally owned groceries, but not as much. At Whole Foods, sometimes they take my word for it and sometimes they stick with what the computer says (which, when I go back to check the shelves, is usually because the product was not shelved with the correct sign).

My rule of thumb is
"Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity, oversight, forgetfulness or other mindlessness."
and its corollary, Grey's Law, to keep in mind for one's own slips:
"Any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice." (with apologies to Asimov)

At 10:36 AM -0700 12/5/07, TradingPostPaul wrote:
Good for you. Everybody should be so persistent.

Most people in a big rush never see how often they're cheated blind. Every
time Barb picks up a sale item in any grocery, it rings up at the full
price. I mean 99% of the time. Every time she has to argue with the checker
and usually the line has to build up while somebody gets a manager to
verify the sale price. Of course she has the sale flyer to stick in their
face, but the checker still has to get permission to charge sale price. Of
course they blame it on the computer. This is a universal scam, and it may
be their whole profit margin. One exception: Trader Joe's, good prices, no
sale items. Don't know about Whole Foods (whole paycheck?) since we don't
want to pay sky high prices for food shipped so far it can't be fresh, and
nobody can verify it's really organic.

BTW at China-Mart the policy clearly states, right on the checkout counter,
if they misring an item you get three dollars off. Yesterday a checker had
the gall to tell her that policy was discontinued. Had to get a manager to
refund three dollars. They lied. If anybody wonders why we go there, we
only buy loss leaders. Help us put them out of business ;-)




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