Two evenings a week I visit our closest "Lidl" supermarket. I was there again last night, stocking up on vital supplies. My trolley wasn't even half full so it was a bit of a surprise when the checkout lady announced that my bill was £90.79
"Hell! The cost of things really is going up isn't it?" I muttered.
Amongst other items, I had picked up two bottles of wine, a bottle of vintage English cider, four cans of IPA beer and some salmon so perhaps these more pricey items had pushed the bill up beyond normal expectations. That's what I was thinking as Clint whisked me home.
I put the shopping away and then marched down to the local pub to see my old mate Bert. It was only when I got home and plonked myself in this swivelling computer chair that I decided to check my till receipt. Nowadays many shoppers don't bother with till receipts but this little tale should act as a useful warning to them.
Everything on the till receipt seemed to be in order until I reached the very last item. I had bought a bag of cherry tomatoes priced most acceptably at £1.09. I had to do a double take at that point as the receipt indicated that I had bought not one but thirty five bags of cherry tomatoes - coming in at a colossal £38.15 (US$44.36)
In an instant it became very clear why my total bill had taken me aback earlier on Tuesday night.
This morning I drove back to "Lidl" with the bag of cherry tomatoes and my till receipt. The two members of staff I spoke with were most obliging and not for a single moment was there any suspicion that I might have actually put thirty five bags of cherry tomatoes in my trolley.
I was refunded but it bothers me slightly that no gesture was made in relation to my inconvenience and the unplanned drive back to "Lidl". A voucher for say £10 would have been a nice touch. Anyway, the moral of this story is: check your supermarket receipts - unless of course you happen to be a millionaire!
It would have been nice had they offered you something for your inconvenience at their mistake.
ReplyDeleteI might push it further with the national customer services
DeleteIt's hard to imagine how X 35 was entered. We always skim through receipts but it's very rare to find an error.
ReplyDeleteI wonder why the mistake happened in relation to the very last item. I guess I will never know.
DeleteI love cherry tomatoes but that would be a bit much.
ReplyDeleteI don't love them that much!
DeleteI had a very large bill for fruit and veg last week. As it turns out, I mistakenly ordered 5 trays of kiwifruit instead of 5 kiwifruit. We ate a lot of kiwis last week :)
ReplyDeleteYou ate a lot of kiwis! But did you eat the kiwi fruit?
DeleteYes, check your receipts. Here the produce is priced in pounds and on the receipt is in kilograms. You have to do some math to check that one.
ReplyDeleteThat mental arithmetic would destroy my brain.
DeleteWe were out doing some very rare stocking up at two different grocery stores recently. When I got home and looked at the receipts I was astonished to find that one total was exactly $100 more than the other, down to the penny. That doesn't happen very often.
ReplyDeleteIt was a bit of magic!
DeleteBefore I started reading your post, I looked at the receipt and wondered why you bought 35 x cherry tomatoes. I thought maybe you were going to tell us about something special you were planning to cook but it seemed very unlikely.
ReplyDeleteI only check my receipt when the amount I pay does not feel right. Usually, prices at my local Aldi vary little, and I only once found an error years ago, while I was still at the shop and they corrected it instantly.
But even Aldi have increased some of their prices, so that I now carry home about 2/3 of the things I used to get for the same amount of money.
Same at "Lidl". Even discount supermarkets have to maintain their profit margins.
DeleteOh my goodness, this made me laugh! I always check whilst in the shop and quite often there's a mistake. Asda are good they usually give you a few pounds for the inconvenience but annoyingly it's on a plastic gift card. Used once and thrown away!
ReplyDeleteIf supermarkets spot a shoplifter they come down heavily on them but when it is their glaring error they seem less bothered.
DeleteThat is infuriating. I don't shop at Lidl very often, but usually I've found their receipts to be accurate. In future I'll keep a closer eye on what they charge me.
ReplyDeleteAll supermarkets make occasional errors.
DeleteI was a bit horrified at that entry thinking maybe they are charging each cherry tomato individually! Thank goodness you noticed and got it sorted. I always check my receipt as I'm walking away from the shop, that way I only have to retrace a few steps if there is a miscalculation on it.
ReplyDeleteIt is not advisable to check a receipt when driving a motor vehicle.
DeleteThis reminded me how cheap food is in the UK compared to in France. The last time I bought a cauliflower here it was 4€. All the other veg items would be at least twice what you paid for them, even in Lidl or Aldi or on the market.
ReplyDeleteAnd you have to factor into your shopping trip the extra time taken being held up in the queue while every other person checks each item on the receipt before walking away. In France you would have a lengthy argument about a bill if you had already left the shop, one which you would probably lose!
Nobody robs Yorkshire Pudding... not even a big French supermarket chain.
DeleteOur checkout tills are usually so busy that we don't get the chance to check the receipt before the next customer's goodies are rolling down the belt towards us. I try to check before we leave the shop but we often wait until we are home. Sometimes I notice an error but is has only been 30p or 50p - not £38!
ReplyDeleteI am so glad I spotted the error. If I were a red indian (Native American) they would call me Big Chief Eagle Eye.
DeleteMaybe they were charging you £1.09 for each tomato
ReplyDeleteUnder Richie Sunak, that will be next year!
DeleteThey need to ketchup with those extortionate priced tomatoes.
ReplyDeleteHa-ha! I get it.
DeleteSome millionaires, got to be millionaires by checking the receipts. Those would be expensive tomatoes.
ReplyDeleteYou make a good point. Many rich people are very mean.
DeleteFood prices are absolutely outrageous here these days. I see lots of beans in our future this winter!
ReplyDeleteGood thing you checked that receipt.
Everything is going up here too. Poor families are really struggling.
DeleteAlthough yes, food prices are going up tremendously, it is a good practice to study the receipt to make sure that all was charged as it should have been.
ReplyDeleteSupermarkets make mistakes - just like the rest of us.
DeleteMrs D always checks mine.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like very private information.
DeleteA friend needed a rutabaga for a soup. She went to the grocery store, picked up a few things and was astonished at the price. Turned out they had charged her $14 for the rutabaga. A bit flabbergasted, she said that was not the price on the sign. They were charging that price per pound. She quickly decided that her soup could do without rutabaga just this once.
ReplyDeleteRutabaga is not a term we use in Once Great Britain. We call it swede.
DeleteI always check my receipts before I leave the store. Thirty-five bags of cherry tomatoes? I'm surprised the clerk didn't check it, as I'm sure they have a good idea of what everyone's purchases should come to and that one didn't make sense. Glad you got it sorted but as you said, a voucher would have been welcome to make up for the hassle of you having to drive back to the store to right their mistake.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it is the same in Alberta but here in England every shopper was customarily handed a till receipt for every purchase made. Nowadays many people leave shops without receipts. They have been given a choice in the matter.
DeleteI've had a few errors over the years but usually I catch them as they are scanned. The grocery store I go to has a digital display that flashes up the item and the price as it will appear on the receipt as it gets scanned. The most common thing that happens for me is that someone won't know what fruit or vegetable I have that gets sold by the pound and manually keyed in. They mostly just guess instead of asking me and I'm surprised at how often they guess wrongly on things that I eat regularly like brussel sprouts or kiwi.
ReplyDeleteKiwis are endangered birds Ed. I am very surprised that you eat them.
DeleteFor a while now I have been using self-service checkouts, so can see instantly on the screen if anything is amiss. I know that a lot of people don't like them but I prefer to scan and pack in my own way without the pressure of a queue waiting for me to clear the till.
ReplyDelete