I Love Petsmart!

[madgap]

The title of this thread just says it all, to me. And that is, you're taking the urine out of someone's lcak of understanding. That employee will be a guy with no money looking for anywhere that will employ him whilst he does his studies. It could quite easily have been any one of us, on a rough, bad day.
This thread title just sums you up to me.

 

[Maximus]

Just another way of looking at it;

If there are multiple species of fish in a tank, and they are all individually labelled, technically you can only buy what is offered for sale, unless stated otherwise.

E.g, the males in a tank labelled "female guppys" are not for sale, again, unless stated otherwise.

Am I just talking complete rubbish here? Or is there an essence of truth to this?

 

[chrisdoesntmiss]

You realise that you have just done the same thing and are taking the piddle out of thread starter.

 

[Bignose]

You say it is a big difference between changing price tags and letting an employee through their ignorance mislabel a price, I say it is a teeny tiny difference. In both cases, you, the customer, know that it is the wrong price. In both cases, you knowingly do not pay the store what it is fairly owed. In both cases, you prey on the ignorance of the employee. I don't see it as a very large difference at all.

You cannot mix up two separate issues, here, Underwurlde. The issue you are bringing up is comparison shopping. That is, if the customer is willing to pay more at a certain store than for the same item at a different store, then that it the customer's choice. Many on here support their smaller family-owned LFSs rather than the chain stores.

A fairer comparison would be if an item were supposed to be $10 and the cashier rang it up for $20. If you were passing by and you saw that happening, it is completely right to point out that mistake.

Here is the exact same situation that this thread started about, just from a different point of view. I hope that this clinches my argument:

Is it okay for a store to label an item at a cost of $10, and then when the customer brings the item to the checkout counter, the store charges $12 if they think that the customer isn't paying close enough attention? I would very much hope that everyone will agree that it isn't right. In this case, the store would be preying on the ignorance of the customer. Or, is it okay for a store to not charge the discounted price if the customer was unaware that a sale was going on? No, again, the store is not allowed to prey on the ignorance of the customer.

How is the scenario I just outlined in the above paragraph any different than the scenario where you take advantage of a store's ignorant employee? In both cases, the ignorance of one party is being taken advantage of. I think it doesn't matter which side is getting the benefit, it is not fair. I am saying if it not right for a store to raise prices and hope that the customer doesn't notice, it is exactly as not right for a customer to knowingly pay less for an item and hope the store doesn't notice. Neither scenario is morally right. The customer doesn't get to be in the right unless you are also willing to say that it is right for a store to be able to prey on the ignorance of its customers.

 

[Gill]

Good example from this evening.

Just finished Dinner, we had Pizza takeout.
Ordered 4 Regular Pizzas with Stufed crusts and 2 Fries and 1 Wedges. Came to 22 Pounds.
Go to pick up my food and he only charges me 17 Quid. I Say "Are you Sure, i thought it came to 22". Pizza guy says no, 17Quid.

I pay 17 Quid and get home thinking they did not do stuffed crust as that would have made it 22.
Open the Boxes and all the pizzas are stuffed crust and they did not charge for it.

I am not gonna say anything as i saved a Fiver.

 

[Bignose]

Gill, the difference there is that you asked. That is not a good example. What I am talking about is if you had said nothing, knowing that they didn't charge you the fair price. You asked, you made sure, you didn't knowingly and willfully rip the pizza store off. I don't think that you did anything wrong. You would have been wrong, in my book, had you not asked. Had you taken advantage of a mistake and hoped that they didn't notice so you could save some money, then you are wrong.

Had the guy asked for 27, and hoped that you would pay 27 so he or the store could keep the extra 5, then that is equally as wrong. If he asked for 27, and then you asked "are you sure it isn't 22?" and then he realized his mistake, then charged you the 22, then it is just a mistake.

There is a significant difference between mistakes and willful taking advantage of a situation. You asked to make sure that you were paying what was correct, so you fulfilled your obligation to pay the fair price. You can't fix stupid. But, you can do the moral thing and make sure that you are paying the fair price.

 

[Gill]

Gill, the difference there is that you asked. That is not a good example. What I am talking about is if you had said nothing, knowing that they didn't charge you the fair price. You asked, you made sure, you didn't knowingly and willfully rip the pizza store off. I don't think that you did anything wrong. You would have been wrong, in my book, had you not asked. Had you taken advantage of a mistake and hoped that they didn't notice so you could save some money, then you are wrong.

Had the guy asked for 27, and hoped that you would pay 27 so he or the store could keep the extra 5, then that is equally as wrong. If he asked for 27, and then you asked "are you sure it isn't 22?" and then he realized his mistake, then charged you the 22, then it is just a mistake.

There is a significant difference between mistakes and willful taking advantage of a situation. You asked to make sure that you were paying what was correct, so you fulfilled your obligation to pay the fair price. You can't fix stupid. But, you can do the moral thing and make sure that you are paying the fair price.

Ok, see what you mean

 

[looby loo]

Both males & females are priced the same at both LFS that i use. However the bigger store i sometimes use sells them with a £1 difference. Its not the customers fault and chances are if they were told they have them wrongly priced or in the mixed tanks they wouldnt get charged any different, they would just shuffle a few fish around with new price tags.

 

[kribensis12]

All i knwo is that what i did can be rigth and wrong in many peoples eyes. I still think in the back of my mind that they shouldnt have misslabled it, and they cost me more money than i caused them( this isnt payback for anyone who thinks it is), they have repeatdley tested my water and told me it was perfect( they used liquid tests at ours), so i buy a mollie, put it in, and 4 days later i have a tank full of dead fish from bad water( i do not put the petstores water in my tank), becasue they didnt bother to give me the truth, and this has happend repeatdley). Enough said.

 

[andywg]

The instant that an item has been picked/chosen at the advertised set price the contract has been made.

Its the same with catalogues, the advertised price is what you pay. Same meat different gravy.

If the shop is advertising an item at a price you are entitiled to pay that price. If a business decides to charge a lower than average price that is there choice. without going into depth with the manager of the store if that is the price and you think your getting something even better than you expect, then good for you.

You are incorrect in your assertions. I have previously checked out the actual law on this. A price is an invitation to tender. That means the seller is merely saying this item is for sale and they would like to get this price. If the offer you make is the same as the card which is in error then you do not have any right to buy the item. The item is still the legal chattle of the vendor to do with as they see fit. Just because you have picked up the item, or the item is priced at a price, there is no obligation to sell at that price.

There is no contract until payment has been made, or until you draft up and sign an agreement stating an intention on the part of the purchaser to purchase at that price and on the vendor to sell at that price (very unlikely in a "normal" transaction).

As an example one only has to look at the companies that do not honour people buying products at incorrect prices on websites as there is no contract until an agreement has been reached (such as accepting payment).

 

[kribensis12]

Just to get some of theese british laws outta the way( no offense), im american.

 

[andywg]

Just to get some of theese british laws outta the way( no offense), im american.

I would be very surprised if US law was much different with regards to mistakenly priced items, though have no experience of US consumer law. Does anyone know what the law is like over there for this?

 

[looby loo]

what it is priced at it sells at !

 

[Bignose]

No lobby loo, it isn't. US Law is very similar to the UK law. Advertisements with mistakes in them don't have to be honored. A price tag on an item does not mean that that is what that item sells at. The law recognizes that mistakes can and do happen. I used to work in a retail store, and a few times a year they'd post a corrections sheet right inside the entraceway that basically said "We're sorry, but there was a mistake in last Sunday's ad. Here are the correct prices." This sometimes worked both ways. Sometimes the real sale price was actually lower than the mistakenly advertised price. Also, the law allows for people to accidentally mislabel items. I've seen this happen before too, when someone accidentally put the wrong tag on the wrong item. The store does not have to lose money due to a mistake.

Again, sometimes the store will honor the mistaken price to build good customer relationships. Sometimes it won't. But it isn't required to.

The US law also has provisions about bait and switch -- you can't advertise a low price on an object that you don't have with the hopes of enticing customers to come to your store, then trying to sell them a more expensive item. If the ad doesn't say something about limited quantities, then you are legally entitled to a rain check that the retailer must honor. If they don't have that object in stock at that price, then you can ask for a rain check so that when they get more, you still get them at the sale price. The U.S. law also has provisions that you can't just offer the discounted price to some people and not others. You can require a coupon or owning the store's credit card, or membership in a certain organization, but you can't just refuse to sell someone an object at a sale price because you don't want to.

But, an advertisement and/or a price tag is not a contract. An advertisement and/or a price tag is not a guarantee. The law acknowledges that often enough mistakes will be made and that the retailers do no have to sell their products at a mistaken price.

.............

Soooooo, all that said, does anyone want to step up and argue my point from earlier (from post #34)? Does anyone want to defend that it is okay for a store to prey on the ignorance of its customers if it okay for customers to prey on the ignorance of the store's employees? If someone has some good arguments to defend this, I would sincerely like to read them.

 

[Azaezl]

Soooooo, all that said, does anyone want to step up and argue my point from earlier (from post #34)? Does anyone want to defend that it is okay for a store to prey on the ignorance of its customers if it okay for customers to prey on the ignorance of the store's employees? If someone has some good arguments to defend this, I would sincerely like to read them.

OK here's something to think about regarding the above, the mark up price on items.

For example a store buys bikes from a supplier at £1 each and sells them on at £29.99 each, making more then enough to cover costs, salaries, shop upkeep etc but with a big fat wad of 'profit' now this profit could be seen as taking advantage of customers ignorance because the customer does not know how much the shop paid for it and what a ridiculous mark up it has but it's accepted anyway as the correct amount. Yes fair enough the shop is there to make a profit but on the whole it is at the advantage of the customers ignorance.

Another example is computers now if you go to a chain store like pc world and buy a pc, the shop will be making ALOT of profit (at least 10 times what it costs them) on it at the expense of the customers ignorance of how cheap and easy it can be to build it yourself.

So yes I'd say it is fair for shops to take advantage of customers ignorance, otherwise they wouldn't make the amount of profit they do.

Morals are like money and profit, everyone has a different amount which they percieve as acceptable or needed and have a different perception of what's acceptable to go through in order to get it.