Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[yarrow@sfo.com]

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 ;-)