If I’m a store manager making $30 an hour and it would take me 15 minutes to override the system to increase a price that rang up incorrectly, it’s not worth my time unless it’s a difference of more than $7.50. As long as you’ve brought it to the cashier’s attention, you’ve done everything you can.

Now, if you are given too much change, you should make a much bigger deal of making 100% sure you give back the overage. A cashier may have her pay docked, or even be fired, if her drawer comes up short at the end of the day. And unfortunately, some cashiers are not the best at counting change.

The customer ALWAYS gets the better of the two prices.

I suspect most chains have the same policy, if not better.

Here’s the “But”:

If it is a small business, I may be more inclined to say something but with a large chain I would not mention a thing since they have enough money to develop a completely accurate pricing system.

Honestly, can you imagine some one calling from your local grocery store to tell you that they overcharged you $3 on an item?

Take advantage of whatever you can, companies, corporations, whatever, don’t care about you, no matter how much they tell you otherwise.

Even after all that, it still bothered my that I didn’t pay for that part.

But the other thing, semi related, is called “invitation to treat”. DISCLAIMER: I’m in Britain, don’t know about US laws.

But it basically says that the store always has the option to turn down the sale. Which they need for things like, underage buyers, not getting sued for running out of stock, etc etc. So. Flyers, price tickets, promotions, etc. All the things provided by the store that says the price of the item. ***NONE of these are LEGALLY BINDING***. It is only legally binding AT THE CHECKOUT. The flyers, price tickets etc are the “invitation to treat”. The store is inviting you to make a purchase. If you accept the invitation, you take the items to the checkout and make them an OFFER. IE, you OFFER to pay them the amount that they say it is worth. Technically speaking, you could offer a different price if you wanted to (haggle), but cashiers very often do not have the authority to change these things and it’s unlikely managers will side with you either if you just arbitarily reduce the overall total for your goods. Now the store can either accept your offer, or not. They may say they will only accept the price they think is fair for the goods they are selling. Or, they may accept your “lower offer” when goods are ‘overcharged’ by the scanning machine (but really, it isn’t ‘overcharging’ because YOU are the one making the offer!) And when in business (in BtoB transactions) does the business ever make a higher offer than the first business is asking for it?

But having said that, I too would have pointed out both ;-)

The grocery store I shop at is always pretty busy, they don’t have a customer service desk, and they are not very good about having correct labels on things (you always have to be super-careful, because the stuff stacked above the “ON SALE” sign is often not the brand or size or flavor that’s actually on sale). The cashiers are all apathetic and sometimes rude. If I get overcharged, yeah, I’ll hold up the line getting them to correct the mistake (for the benefit of myself and future customers)… but if they undercharge me, I figure it’s their problem and not mine. Maybe someday they’ll lose enough that they’ll get motivated to get their scan prices right. But I expect they more than make it back on people they overcharge who don’t notice.

However, If a cashier hands me back too much change, assuming I noticed, I would correct the mistake. If they have the wrong amount in their drawer at the end of the day, they get in trouble. I’ve worked as a cashier and had to make up mistakes out of my own pocket, so I’m sympathetic to that. That being said, I NEVER actually count my change, just shove it in a pocket. So I probably wouldn’t notice if I got shortchanged, OR if they gave me too much. One of many reasons I almost always pay with a debit card.

As for the person who had problems at Kroger…take your misrung items to customer service! When the computer bills you a price more than what’s marked on the shelf, they give you the item FOR FREE. Yeah. FOR FREE. It happened to me once and I decided to stick it to the man to save .50 cents on some yogurt that I felt I was entitled to…and the girl gave me four or five bucks back. I looked at her like she had two heads, and she pointed to the sign hanging in customer service that clearly said, “If our price is wrong, the item is FREE!”

How lovely to overcharge us then blame us for the mistake. Keeping an eye on the lit up price scan or analyzing receipts is not as easy as it sounds when you’re flustered or tired with aching feet.

For this reason and as “retributution” for various items left behind on their confusing carousel bagging system, we don’t always fret about pointing out if we get a barcode bargain. We figure it probably evens out for times we were ripped off but didn’t notice it.

Most stores can afford to lose a few bucks more than most individuals. So don’t sweat it, Trent, just pocket the savings as insurance against the next time they scam you.