irritable price checks

[HALFHUMANHALFZOMBIE]

Isn't the best thing about being a Cashier is doing price checks? Especially when they use the Price check machine and then they come up to you about the price being incorrect.And there are the ones who find a product put somewhere else and they wont leave until they get it for that price even though the merchandise is left out for customers to place them anywhere they want. I don't understand why they bother you for a price check on products that are less than 25 cents than what they are supposed to For example on chips the price scans at 1.83 and the customer bothers you for the price being 1.63, can you give them .20 out of your pocket wouldn't it be the same thing?

[Worker-Intellectual]

That is one of the things I hated most... and then the other departments would get pissed off at me for bothering them while they're working. Maybe if customers didn't make such a mess all the time (I swear, one day I had the exact same thing come through my till at least five times because it was the thing next to the thing on sale... come through, put it back, customer messes it up and puts it in wrong spot, comes back up to my till, wrong spot, goes back, comes up again...). I once had to do a price check for 10 measly cents and the department was pissed for wasting my time... my only other choice is override it and possibly get fired over 10 cents!

Hate... price... checks... so... much!

[Dave1982]

SKU checks are just as bad........especially when it's the LAST one of an item that is no longer in the planogram........

Once had to delay closing the store for TEN MINUTES because this woman HAD to have this item. "I'll wait" she said. In the end we broke down and used a "secret" open price SKU called "SKU Not Found" to sell her the item for a price we agreed on.

Dan: I wanted to strangle that woman.......
Me: We all did.

[darkcrimsongoth]

We had a manager go shopping with this one customer because he would get all these items, come up to the cash register at 5:04pm, when the store would close at 5:00pm and every item that the checkout person would put through, he would go: "Isn't this $*insert price here)?*

So the manager went shopping with him so he couldn't do it to us!!! One of the supervisors at the store absolutly loathes him.

[GayleShy]

I honestly don't mind price-checks when the customer is polite about, not grabbing prices out of thin air or going by what the price of the item next to it was and not a multi-offender. I'm not sure what brand of multi-offender pisses me off more, the one who seems to have every other item "ring up wrong" or the one who seems to have "pricing errors" every time they come in. The worst (and most common) ones are a combination of the two, however.

And Wal-Mart has the really stupid thing where if an item rings up wrong and it's somehow our fault, they get the item for three dollars off or free, if it's under three dollars. Sadly, SCs are the ones who take advantage of this the most. I had one customer start bitching at me and swearing that something was wrong, so I voided it and was going to ring it up for the price she said it was, just to get her away from me, but she demanded the three dollars off. I told her that I'd have to get someone to go check the price for me then, because I wasn't allowed to give her the three dollars without a real price check. She waited and was REALLY pissed off when the price it came up turned out to be the right one, so she had to pay full price for it. She should have taken what I offered her to start with.

[powerboy]

Where I work now, we use price stickers, on them. My idea. Plus, the manga's, has the price on them already

[Retail Associate]

I hate, hate, hate price checks. If it weren't for SCs, price checks would be number one on my list of things I hate most about retail. Some nights I have to carry three phones and 90% of the calls I get are from cashiers wanting a price check. Some nights it's so bad that it seems that's all I do...run around 7 depts checking on items the SC claims to be on sale.

For Pete's sake cashiers...if it's not in the ad...it's NOT on sale. I don't give a damn what the SC tells you. They're lying! Stop calling me.

Tonight, some SC tells her cashier that the pair of shoes she wants to buy are on sale for $19.00 (they were not on sale - not in the ad - and clearly marked at $39.99 in TWO places.). The SC tells the cashier that she JUST spoke to the gal that works that dept and was told those shoes were on sale for $19.00.

So of course the cashier calls me. There were only two of us working and I told the cashier that neither myself nor my co-worker has spoken to anyone about those shoes. I pointed out that those particular shoes are not the ones on sale for $19.00 and the ad clearly shows the ones that are on sale.

Me: "The SC isn't being truthful about speaking to us. The price of those shoes is $39.99."

Cashier: "So what do I do then?"

Me: "Charge her $39.99!"

[Demonoid Phenomenon]

My favorite price check scenario:
A customer would come up with an item without a price.
I call someone in that department.
They come up and check to see what it is.
They then head off to that department to find out if they don't know right off.
And the customer would say, "How long is this gonna take? I'm in hurry!"
This happened more than I care to say.

If you're in such a friggin' hurry, next time pick out something that DOES have a price, jackass. Coz if you're waiting for me to pull that Magic Price List outta my ass, that's gonna take even longer!

[greensinestro]

You all want to know something? I think this is why many grocery stores in Florida no longer have microphones at the cashier's stations. They must have removed them all as a way to deter customers from pulling crap like this. Now, the cashier has to send the bagger off to find the price, or the cashier has to flag down their manager to check the price. Meanwhile, yes, the customer is huffy and impatient, upset that their time is being wasted because the cashier simply won't let that customer have that $5 watermelon for $1.25.

[Simply Amazed]

This one is a touchy one for me as a customer. There was a grocery store I used to shop at that always had incorrect prices. I'm talking roughly $5 a week wrong. The cashiers would talk bad about the pricing lady with innuendo that I'd not repeat but they always honored the price. Usually what would happen is she'd forget to enter a sale into the computers so it would ring up the non sales price.

I am a very polite customer and I hated shopping there. It got to where I was afraid to shop since I'd either get overcharged to have to make everyone behind me upset while I had stuff price checked. It was very unpleasant but hey 5 to 10 bucks a week add up.

[Worker-Intellectual]

For Pete's sake cashiers...if it's not in the ad...it's NOT on sale. I don't give a damn what the SC tells you. They're lying! Stop calling me.

I know that and you know that, but what am I supposed to do about it? I can't call them on their BS by myself, I can't leave the till to show them they're wrong, and trust me, I would rather not have to bother you about it because I have to act as a proxy for the SC.

So now the other employee hates me for bothering them, the SC hates me for not giving them the price, all the other SCs hate me for taking too long, and management hates me for bothering them when one of the SCs gets pissed.

I don't know how I managed to last that long in retail without going insane... oh right, vodka.

[greensinestro]

This one is a touchy one for me as a customer. There was a grocery store I used to shop at that always had incorrect prices. I'm talking roughly $5 a week wrong. The cashiers would talk bad about the pricing lady with innuendo that I'd not repeat but they always honored the price. Usually what would happen is she'd forget to enter a sale into the computers so it would ring up the non sales price.

I am a very polite customer and I hated shopping there. It got to where I was afraid to shop since I'd either get overcharged to have to make everyone behind me upset while I had stuff price checked. It was very unpleasant but hey 5 to 10 bucks a week add up.

You're right about that, except you must not live in South Florida. Many customers that are not even native to the area are the ones who make up a sales price and hope to God the cashier won't check it, or will just give in and let them have it to get rid of them. It happens all the time in stores I've shopped in around here.

[Simply Amazed]

You're right about that, except you must not live in South Florida. Many customers that are not even native to the area are the ones who make up a sales price and hope to God the cashier won't check it, or will just give in and let them have it to get rid of them. It happens all the time in stores I've shopped in around here.

No, this didn't occure in South Florida. I am originally from Tampa and even though it's central Florida I know what you're talking about. I even worked at a grocery store in Tampa in high school so I can appreciate that side of the coin ( coupon scammers are worse though ).

No, this was in another state and the store was mostly shopped at by locals. How they allowed this situation to go on forever amazes me.

What I thought was funny was after a while the cashiers would make this woman exclusively do all the price checks but it didn't improve her work ethic.

[myswtghst]

What drives me nuts is that some cashiers end up so defensive/abused by SC's on these issues, that when something actually does pull up wrong, or one of my items gets double-rung, I get snapped at for pointing it out. And I'm usually very polite about it, pay attention while they ring me up, and don't ask unless I'm pretty darn sure. If you tell me I'm wrong, I'll generally just say ok and move on, and if I don't notice til I leave the store, well, too late, my fault for not noticing. *shrugs* And honestly, even if I am *positive* I'm right, I'll just laugh it off if you prove me wrong.

Also, if the only one in my size/color doesn't have a tag on it, I'll bring up on that does have a tag, just for reference, so you don't have to check for me. Just cuz I'm awesome like that.

And by awesome, I mean that I have common sense.

[Worker-Intellectual]

What drives me nuts is that some cashiers end up so defensive/abused by SC's on these issues, that when something actually does pull up wrong, or one of my items gets double-rung, I get snapped at for pointing it out. And I'm usually very polite about it, pay attention while they ring me up, and don't ask unless I'm pretty darn sure.

It should be easy for any cashier to notice if something is double rung, because the evidence should be right on the screen in front of them. It's probably just the fact that it is a pain in the ass to get a supervisor over to correct it, or management keeps track of the amount of times a cashier takes things off the bill or something like that that would make the cashier pissed off in general when that happens.


Sorry if I sound defensive on the topic of price checks, but it is one of the things that made me most dread going to work. I worked my ass off, but I would have managers breathing down my neck over me needing a void, and people from other departments pissed at me and calling me stupid behind my back because I needed to call them for price checks. Meanwhile the customer is always pissed at me. Thank god I found this site, it was like therapy for me.