Overcharges

One of my biggest pet peeves is being overcharged at the grocery store. I try to be patient with cashiers, recognizing that they're juggling a lot—handling a steady stream of customers, working fast and efficiently, and dealing with the inevitable hiccups that come with the job. Nobody's perfect, and I get that. But when it happens? It really gets under my skin. And lately, it’s happened twice in one week.

Joe usually does the grocery shopping, and while I'm grateful for that, it can be frustrating. He doesn’t always check the receipt or pay much attention to the scanning process—he’s typically busy unloading the cart or bagging the items. I get it, but it means I’m the one who notices these things.

Today, for example, he bought a cucumber. The store charged us for three cucumbers instead of one. So instead of paying $.89, we were charged $2.67. We’ll get that difference back the next time we go to the store in Albertville, but I really didn’t want to make a special trip just for that. So I called, explained the mistake, and asked if they could talk to the cashier to ensure they’re hitting the right button when scanning cucumbers.

But the one that’s really driving me crazy is the corned beef situation. Joe went through self-checkout and realized he wasn’t charged the sale price. The kind clerk overseeing self-checkout reassured him that they’d fix it. Well, they didn’t. Instead of fixing the price, we were charged double. So I sent Joe back to the store—it's only a few blocks away—to show customer service the receipts and get the refund we were owed.

Unfortunately, the person handling it wasn’t a manager or even someone with bookkeeping experience (and neither was Joe). I get that this is on me—I should have gone in myself to talk to a manager or a bookkeeper. They would’ve understood the issue right away. But the customer service rep convinced Joe that everything had been entered correctly, which it hadn’t. Anyone with the right background would know that if we originally paid $18.87 and the sale price was $15.72, we'd be owed a $3.15 credit. Instead, they processed the return as $18.87, then added the brisket back at full price, and gave a $3.15 discount. You might think that would give us the correct credit, but when you look at the receipt, it shows we tendered $15.72, and my credit card statement shows two separate charges: $18.87 and $15.72.

So I waited for six days, hoping a credit would come through, but it hasn’t. I just got off the phone with customer service again, and they advised me to bring in the receipts when both the store manager and the bookkeeper are in.

The thing is, neither of these charges are going to break the bank, but it’s more about the principle of paying the wrong price for something. It makes me wonder—do other people check their receipts, or am I just hyper-aware of this kind of thing? I’ve spent fifty years in a career that involved accounting, so maybe I’m just wired to spot errors.

Anyone else get cranky when they’ve been overcharged?