Final Word from Tuesday, March 28, 2023

A woman walks into Billa in Prague, sees oranges advertised with a 60% discount and proceeds to pick out four or five. When she weighs them on the self-service scales, she's surprised to find that there isn't a price reduction at all. Angered, she turns to the stock boy to complain. He initially accuses her of choosing from the items that aren't on sale but soon relents and rushes off, promising to fix the problem. "It's a lot of money," the woman lets everyone know as she watches the young man leave. Fifteen minutes later no price correction has been made, so she abandons the oranges and huffs off. This is just one scene from daily life, but it's one that is occurring in one form or another more often. Mispricing of items on the shelves at Czech retailers was a big issue 10-20 years ago but faded away after the ČOI inspectorate imposed some petty fines. Supermarkets always blamed the overcharging on employee error. Curiously, the errors always seem to be to the benefit of the retailer. [ Czech Republic store misprice overcharge ]