I am not convinced it was a human error neither am I convinced it
is a system error. What is it then? The blanks .......are for you to fill after
going through the scenarios that developed and prompted me to such a unpleasant
conclusion.
We went to do our usual supermarket shopping and picked up a styrofoam tray of middle eastern dates covered in cling film. It has a price label indicating RM14.98 for a kilogram, packing date and the Price for that particular tray of 500 gms of the dates at RM7.49. Simple enough. But it was not to be. After paying the cashier for our purchases that day, I browsed through the receipt and was surprised to find a RM14.98 item. I double checked, was convinced there was an error, requested the cashier to re‐ check the item. The conclusion was that the Fruit Dates were scanned and picked up by the scanner/Point‐Of‐Sales system at RM14.98. The cashier approached her supervisor and explained to me that their system had picked up the item as a kilogram pack. I was duly reimbursed the amount overcharged.
The explanation given to me seemed ridiculous? If their system at some point was able to print out the price label, indicating the price/kg and the price for that particular pack, then I believe at some other point in time the correct pricing has been altered with. Was it deliberate? Was it a system error?
Luckily, I did not buy much on that day and was easily drawn to the incorrect amount charged. Had there been more items, or more items of similar value, there could be an oversight.
I do hope it is a case of negligence by the supermarket, and not being diligent in staff training and supervision. However, I do have my doubts that it is as simple as that. Similar incidents have happened before and it is difficult to brush it off as negligence.
I hope that other shoppers experiencing similar incidents would be able to get back their losses and the managements of Supermarkets will do something to prevent that occurrences. (Not only this one).
Imagine, if there are shoppers, (how many?) unaware of such
discrepancies and the supermarkets getting away with it, not for one item, as
such incidents are not uncommon, but for.......... items.
Is it then a case of an unscrupulous trader taking advantage of naive consumers? The consumer could be enticed to buy thinking it is a good bargain as the Fruit Dates are of good quality. A justification for the vendor could be that those dates should have priced at twice the price per kilogram!
