Video game marked incorrectly, was I wrong here?

[Spark Dino]

A customer just left pissed off, and I am sitting here wondering if I did the right thing For background, I manage a small independant toy/video game shop and it is really important to me that I treat my customers right.

There is a family that has spent a good amount of money in our store. I have, however, had several "run-ins" with them about returning used video games for full price.

Today, the customer was going to trade in about $5 worth of games, and had picked up another game he wished to purchase. When he brought it to the counter, I noticed that it had a price tag that said $5.99 even though I knew it sells for more than that.

So I looked it up on the computer, and indeed, the price was supposed to be $15.99. He balked of course, and wanted the $5.99 price (using his $5 of trade-ins for a total sale of $.99). I told him that I was sorry that the price was mislabeled, but that it was too much of a difference so the price was a firm $15.99. He was saying things like "I'm such a good customer", "Come on", "But $5.99 is what it says on the label" etc. I told him sorry, but no. He ended up leaving with his trade-ins, frusterated.

My coworker said I just should have given the $5.99 price to him and that I shouldn't let people leave angry. The coworker also said sometimes it is best to shell out a few bucks to keep a long-term customer and of course I agree with that and I want to treat people well. I do understand why the customer was upset the price tag was wrong, but I can't just give $10.00+ away whenever someone switches the tags or someone makes a mistake with the price gun. Now I am kind of obsessing if I did the right thing, what do you guys think?

[kelly]

I'm pretty sure that you have to sell something at the price it's marked at, unless you actually saw the person switching the tags over. I know when I've been a customer and that's happened, I've expected it at the advertised price and not the price it should be. Conversely, when working in a store I've always given people the price on the item or the shelf, not what it scans at.

[Spark Dino]

I'm pretty sure that you have to sell something at the price it's marked at, unless you actually saw the person switching the tags over. I know when I've been a customer and that's happened, I've expected it at the advertised price and not the price it should be. Conversely, when working in a store I've always given people the price on the item or the shelf, not what it scans at.

So if someone switched the tags prior to when you picked the item up the store would give you the lowered switched price? Say you found a xbox 360 with a tag for $20 , they should give you that price?

This game was not an advertised item, and there are no shelf labels for rows of mixed video games either. Also, our tags are just general white tags, they do not have the name of the item printed on them. I'm not sure if this matters or not, but this store is not a Fred Meyer sized store, just a small Mom & Pop place.

[pbmods]

Try calling the BBB (go to http://lookup.bbb.org/ to find your local office).

Failing that, call your local police station and ask for the records department. At least in Chicago, it exists and they're happy to answer any questions you may have.

This is, of course, to find out if your actions were legal. As for whether or not what you did was right... well, the customer will probably be back eventually. Especially if he has been shopping at your store for awhile. Usually, the customers that don't come back are the ones that weren't customers to begin with.

[Casino Jockey]

I AM NOT A LAWYER!

now thats out of the way, heres the way i understand the laws are (at least here in australia)

You have a legal right to decide who to sell to - or not sell to in this case. i was told it's the same as a phone company not selling to someone with bad credit - you would just lose money on it.

anyway i am not a lawyer so we will see what happens

[Broomjockey]

I'd say, if they were REALLY good customers, and weren't acting sucky, maybe give them $5 off or something like that. A $10 difference is huge, especially in a Mom&Pop type operation, and in used video games. But it's ultimately your choice.

[Spark Dino]

Um, guys? There is no legal requirement that I sell an unadvertised item for the wrong price. If there was, people would constantly go around putting $1 stickers on $100 items. For confirmation I did call the BBB, and they said that while some companies may have different policies regarding this situation, it is entirely up to the store what to do, as long as the store did not intentionally "bait and switch" the customer.

Also, NO TRANSACTION EVER TOOK PLACE, and as the previous poster mentioned, I have the right to refuse service to anyone.

edit: I spell good.

[Ree]

Not sure where you live, but I found this, from the Consumer Protection for the state of Massachusetts:
"Q: I tried to buy a radio that was marked $50, but the store wanted to charge me $150 saying the sticker price was wrong. Can it do that?

A: It depends. Although the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act prohibits businesses from using unfair or deceptive business practices, the law does allow for human error. The store does not have to sell the item to you at the marked price, if it is a gross, obvious error by an employee. If it is not a gross or obvious error, then you get the lower price. You should try to negotiate a fair price with the store manager. If it's a scanner accuracy issue, you can also contact the division of standards, which is responsible for scanner accuracy.

Q: Do I have to pay the scanner price of a product in the grocery store if it was marked for less on the shelf?

A: If the item is marked with the wrong price, that is the price you pay (although there are exceptions for gross errors). Keep in mind that electronic scanning is not foolproof, so you should always watch the display screen for prices. If you think you're being overcharged, speak up. If you notice a pattern of electronic scanning errors in a particular store, talk to the customer service department or the store manager..."

[Cia]

I bet that somewhere in the store you will find a game with the $15.99 sticker on it. Someone goofed up and put the wrong sticker on the wrong game. It's simple human error and you shouldn't have to take the hit for this mistake.

[El Barto]

I'll usually give someone the marked price. It's usually an old tag from a price change that came through the system and we didint notice or one that was activated but we havent finished the putting new lables up, so its rarely more than a couple dollars. If there is a very large difference I'll explaing to the customer that the difference is too large to sell at the marked price and I'll offer to take a couple dollars of the real price.

There have only been 2 times in the 3 years I've been in this store that we completely refused to budge on the price.

The first one I've mentioned here before (at some point during the last 3 hacks), and I guess is more of a scammer than a mis-marked product, a woman had pulled the green 75% off stickers off some discontinued cosmetics products and stuck them on a new skin care product she wanted. We had carried that item for maybe 2 weeks, no way in hell it was 75% off, and the girl that she went up to when she checked out was the person that put all those stickers up the day before. The cashier (who is also a supervisor) tells her she can't have it at that price, assisstant manager comes up and tells her she can't have it at that price, and she doesnt get it at all.

The second one happened to me. Last year Tracfone changed all thier phone cards. Most of them kept the same price, except one, which changed from $89.99 to $99.99, but the person that switched the cards didnt notcie this so the label stayed up. And guess which one a customer wanted to buy. If this was anyother item I would have price modified it. But you cant change the price of phone cards, the register wont let you. It won't even give me a manager authorization screen when I tried. I told the woman this, I even turned the screen around and did the whole thing again to show her there was nothing I could do about it. SHE WENT NUTS. She started yelling and screaming and after telling her several times there was nothing I could do, she said the magic words: "I'm going to Wal Mart, its cheaper there." Thank God, if that didnt leave soon I would have tossed her out. This woman was a total ass. From what the cashier told me she was one of the people who wanted to pick a fight about something. Before the card was even scanned the woman started going nuts, pointing at the card saying "the label says 89.99 I should get it for that price."

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

At my store, whenever somebody complains about price (usually due to a sale sign being placed in the wrong spot, or an item being put in the wrong location on the shelf), we give the customer the item for the price they say it is, and then fix whatever the problem was so the issue doesn't come up again.

This generally works well. We don't have a lot of angry customers, and we only have to give the lower price once.

[Customer Beating Robot]

If you are the manager, then why is your coworker butting in?

If you are given the disgression to handle situations as you see fit, I probably would have given it to him for the price. I suspect that you were concerned about corporate wanting to know why a $15.99 was sold for $5.99. I understand you would want to head off any higher-ups leaning on you.

[pbmods]

I suspect that you were concerned about corporate wanting to know why a $15.99 was sold for $5.99. I understand you would want to head off any higher-ups leaning on you.

Independent retailer; no corporate in this case.

[Cvstos]

The best method to prevent this is to put item labels on all price tags. If it says "Halo 2 - $29.99" and someone puts "Fruzion Frenzy - $9.99" on it, there's no way they can claim the lower price. It's obviously the wrong label. The other step is to always take discounts at the register and put the fine print on all the marketing. If they complain, too bad, a lack of reading on their part does not create a need for me to alter the price.

[One-Fang]

In my experience as a customer, if there's a genuine error on the price tag, you ain't getting the cheaper price. Case in point, I found two nice photo albums marked $0.00. This is obviously wrong, I knew it was wrong, but I queried them anway "What is your policy on incorrectly marked price tags?" They said it largely depends on the individual errors, and that these were $5.99 each, not free. Which I happily paid - they were nice albums.

I think you're not after the legal point of view, are you? You've already researched that. You're after opinion. In mine, you did right. If the game was only a few dollars different, it wouldn't have been an issue, but $10 is quite a lot.

Did you have other copies in store to check? Were they all marked wrong?

In most cases, I would simply say to the customer "That's a pricing error. Thank you for bringing it to our attention. We will correct it now.", and not give them the cheaper price.