THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE NON-EXISTANT DRAGON-FRUIT RANT

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU ACTUALLY CHECKED YOUR SUPERMARKET RECEIPT?

Did you even bother to take it?

The reason I ask this probing question, is because, for the past year or more, I have been regularly checking and have been, rather alarmingly, finding frequent errors.

Don’t stop reading! This is going to amaze you, and, I guarantee SAVE YOU A WHOLE BUNCH OF MONEY by making sure that you do, hereafter, scrutinise those purchases.

I’ll not name the supermarket, but will say only that they are identifiable by their orange coloured plastic  carrier bags. (Oops!)

The way that supermarkets try and con you while you are sleep-walking around their aisles are myriad, but some of the most frequent include (but are not limited to) those ‘buy two, get one free’ so-called ‘deals’. (I am penalised if I have the temerity to only want to buy one!) Often, because the staff who should be pricing the products forget, or have not been told to apply the offers, or (more likely still) have failed to enter the ‘deals’ into the store’s computer (linked to the check-out tills). Chances are, that you’ll actually be paying full whack for all three!  And chances are too that multiply these incidences by 'n' and you can understand why shareholders love supermarkets in their portfolios!

A recent trip to buy a few bits of fruit and veg found me looking amazed that I had been charged for two dragon fruits. Now, up until this time, I didn’t actually know what a dragon fruit was! I had another peek in the bag. Nope! No dragon fruit. I caught a passing ‘staff member'’ and challenged him. I explained that they didn’t even stock dragon fruit!  Store manager was called. “Dunno, mate.” This is the well-known British response to anyone not having the faintest idea, or can even be bothered to find out what is actually occurring. I was then told to go to the back of the store to “Customer Service” I explained that that was precisely what I expected to get throughout the whole store anyway, and under no circumstances was I going to trek back there. Just give me a refund from that till where you took my money! Seeing that I was getting truculent, he obliged.

I wrote to “Head Office” with a copy of the till receipt asking for an explanation. Two weeks later, a fob-off letter and ten pound store voucher card arrived. They were unable to offer an explanation, and said that they had contacted the manager who was equally baffled, but had promised to make sure that all prices and products in store were kept up to date.

Now, I could rant on for the rest of this page about the cunning and often downright stealthy means by which the supermarkets are out for your change knowing full well that you’re just too busy to take the trouble to look at your till receipt. But CAVEAT EMPTOR! Buyer beware! They ARE out to do just that.! I did a conservative calculation on the “mistakes” they had made in the past year, and reckon that if I hadn’t bothered, they’d have had nearly 150 Pounds of my well-earned cash. And if *I* am being ripped off, multiply that by the many millions of shopping trippers who march through their doors and don’t even know they’ve been shafted!  It’s true, all they’re really concerned with are the shareholders and “performance targets” whereby the directors line their pockets with your dough!  If you think I’m making all this up, just check your till receipts for a couple of weeks. A 10 pound supermarket (of your choice) voucher for anybody who proves me right!

I’ll return to this theme again, targeting the fruit section and the “convenience” of fruit bagged ready for you (clue: it’s at least 25% dearer than  you picking your own loose version of the identical stuff!)