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Originally Posted by warrrreagl
Baraka, you raise some very intriguing points, but I'm not going to respond to any of them. This thread was intended to be an opportunity to vent about consumer checkout issues, but apparently the way I've responded to specific items has turned the thread into a TFP vs Warrrreagl and Grancey. I'm not looking to "win" - only to raise some consumer concerns. If I'm way off base, then so be it. I assumed there were other TFPers who felt similarly to the way we did about consumer issues based on previous threads and posts, but due to the lack of diversity, I must have been mistaken.
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Whoa whoa whoa. No one is against you guys, I thought this thread was going very well. We are all learning some interesting things and I am glad you started it.
I asked about online because I am also frustrated with checkout experiences and I tend to be almost a full time online shopper because of it. I do enjoy the interaction with my community by patronizing the local stores but I am also suspicious of the checkout shenanigans like you mentioned. Then I wondered, holy crap, would it be possible for them to apply the "scam" to online shopping. Which would leave a poor sad jorgelito with no shopping safe haven.
Regarding shipping and handling, as long as the prices are disclosed, I don't worry too much because I know I can go elsewhere. When I comparison shopping, I always take into account the shipping and tax charges too. And if a site tries to be sheisty, I immediately go somewhere else. No way I am going to reward a merchant for trying to be sneaky.
The phone thing is a great example. Maybe we should open up another thread. What is up with all those charges?
Anyways, I think as we discover and share more experiences, and do some more research, we can find out if this is indeed a corporate policy or if it's just coincidence/human error. I seem to remember that Vons supermarket did something similar to your Target example and as a result, was embroiled in a class-action suit. Luckily, the consumer's won.
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Originally Posted by The_Jazz
Warrrreagl and Grancy - I can understand your frustration. But, as it was eloquently pointed out in another thread recently, corelation does not necessarily equal causation. I think I understand why you think there may be an over-arching conspiracy to defraud consumers, and I think that you make an interesting argument for it. That said, I don't think that your experiences provide enough data points to come to your conclusion. Now please note I am NOT saying you're wrong, just that you don't have the evidence to prove yourself right.
Given the scale of the conspiracy that you see, I think it would be fairly easy to prove - or disprove. You would only need to gather a sizeable group of shoppers to track a target set of chains and ask them to note price discrepancies over a set amount of time. Using informed shoppers tracking hard results, you could figure it out fairly quickly.
That said, I am disinclined to believe in this kind of thing. Personally I think its more likely to be poor employees, poor management or poor data entry skills responsible - or some combination thereof. I think that the large data set would reveal that some stores are better than others and that results would vary based on personnel assignments.
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Your logic is sound and reasonable, which is why when these things happen it can be shocking. However, in the Von's case, it was deliberate. Very similar to the Target circumstances. I think there is a good possibility that warrrreagle may be right in his theory.