When it comes to pricing, no supermarket (in Cluj) is perfect. At Auchan, we’ve seen old labels with old prices left up.
I remember working at a DIY shop in Britain, where my boss told me the importance of pricing things correctly. We could get fined five thousand pounds if the items were in the wrong place. Well, someone forgot to tell that to the managers of places like Kaufland, where we often have to check the bar code against the price tag. (At least there are bar codes.)
So, at places like Profi and Auchan I found out of date labels, and at places like Lidl and Kaufland I found items in the wrong place (so, mislabeled because of location.) In any case, I have a habit of double checking prices on those little boxes on the wall, so that I don’t have to say, ‘hey, that’s more than I expected’ at the checkout.
Why not just complain when we get overcharged? We could tell you the story about the customer who complained about a mispriced item at a local Lidl and was tackled by a security guard for it. Sometimes, you don’t feel like wrestling with a guard.
(I don’t think that guard still works here: most guards just do their job and don’t tackle you for complaining about high prices.)
In any case, all the major supermarkets seem to have had a price label problem at some time. (Okay, so I personally have not had an issue with Carrefour in Romania, maybe in another country. Or Penny, but how many Penny’s are there? Drive three miles every time I go shopping? No thanks.)
But Mega Image has to have the worst case of price mislabelling. You see, they have introduced weighing stations with stickers, like most of the supermarkets (last I checked, Lidl and Penny still let you weigh at the checkout. So do some Carrefours, but I don’t remember if they all do.)
Great, you say! This is the one time you don’t get surprised at the till. But that is the problem.
The sticker said 4.99 a kilo. The receipt said 9.99 a kilo. They both have the same weight. So, guess what, we ended up paying twice the price. And yes, we did use a store loyalty card and still had to pay the higher price.
The sticker lied! That is the first time I have seen that at any supermarket, and I’ve shopped in at least twelve different countries.
How much did we pay exactly? A little over twice what the sticker said. Why don’t I give an exact number? Because then I would tell you how many oranges I bought, and that’s a personal matter. I lived in Belgium, but never in Finland. So I believe in financial privacy. Mega Image is also from Belgium (it is an offshoot of the Belgian supermarket, Delhaize.) How many oranges I bought is none of your business, unless you’re willing to give me a refund.
What is your business is that the stickers they put on fruit are not to be trusted, at least not at Mega Image. I hope they fix that issue soon.