Eyes on the Prize

For the first time this year I have had the opportunity to invoke the Scanning Code of Conduct on a retailer. Over the past couple of years, I've experienced more than a few instances where the price of an item was incorrectly advertised (either at the store or the flyer-price level). In these cases, the method of remedy that I usually pursue is to request that the item be free because it has been improperly priced (the code does not discriminate as to whether the scanned price is higher or lower than the advertised price). A list of major companies who subscribe to the Scanning Code of Practice can be found here.

My reasoning for paying attention to price-scanning (along with money saving potential) is that it serves to increase diligence and expedience on the part of the store. If this money were coming out of an individuals pocket, or resulted in some type of tangible hardship to a person, I would be quite reluctant to call them on it. I don't mind taking a large company to task though; as, unlike the laws of certain countries, I do not consider corporations to be persons or even pseudo-people. Yes, people count on the share-performance of a company to create wealth for themselves, but I have been purchasing groceries for years and god-willing, I fully intend to continue this trend. An old saying goes: "the house always wins." I'm more than certain that in this case, the house of Loblaw has won back its losses - thousands of times over. I'm sure that the number of people who pay attention to their thrift is certain to increase mani-fold as the economy continues its unyielding march toward the pits of hell.

Some retail institutions/cashiers have a habit of turning the display away from the customer while inputting prices, which occasionally results in some neck-craning or manoeuvering to have a clear line of sight to the display. In some cases this is probably for viewability/ergo. In the back of my mind I imagine a morning meeting where the Store Manager, after telling his Cashiers "really push the reward-points credit card today, guys", reminds everyone to "keep the Code claims to a minimum - we got eaten alive last quarter.."


This is some of what our friend, the Competition Bureau has to say about the Code:

"There is no federal legislation governing the question of price scanning accuracy per se. However, some types of price representations that result in overcharges to consumers may be examined under the Competition Act. In addition, it should be noted that the Bureau has endorsed the Scanner Price Accuracy Voluntary Code, which provides participating retailers of four major associations with a mechanism to provide redress to consumers when there is a scanner error. When the scanned price of an item without a price tag is higher than the shelf price, or any other displayed price, the customer is entitled to receive the item free when it is worth less than $10, or receive a $10 reduction for more expensive items. The Bureau regards scanner price accuracy as an important element of maintaining consumer confidence."