The author of this article makes me laugh.

“I’ve done the scanning award quite a few times, and I’ve told people more than once they couldn’t have it because it wasn’t marked on the item.”

As far as I know everything should have a price tag on it with a few exceptions. I feel Meijer purposely doesn’t put price tags on items so they can avoid the scanning award. Meijer doesn’t care that they are not following the law by placing a price tag on the item.

Last Wednesday I went to the Warren Meijer to buy milk and juice. I noticed the Pepperidge Farm frozen cakes had a signs on the shelf stating it was $2.99. I decided to buy one. The cake rang up at $4.19 which I didn’t notice until I got home. I went back with receipt, package, and the tag from the shelf. The clerk gave me the $1.20 back. I asked for the scanning award. He said, “I don’t get one because “it wasn’t marked on the item.”

I talked to the manager and said this item is supposed to have a price tag on it. She said “Yes, it is.” (Like what are you going to do about it?) She gave me a $5.00 gift slip which forces me to shop there again. (Ugh, I hope I don’t lose the little slip of paper she gave me.) Makes me wonder how many other customers bought that cake and paid $4.19 instead of the $2.99.

“I’ve done price changes, but no scanning award, for people that made mistakes reading the sign, where it was slightly misleading.”

Slightly misleading! More like grossly misleading. This is one example of MANY Meijer’s “slightly misleading” signs. There was a large rack packed with swimsuits. On top of the rack was a sale sign. Well, the sign was for a certain brand which was stated in that fine print the author mentioned. On the large rack of packed swimsuits there were maybe three or four swimsuits that were the brand on sale. Most customers would assume the whole rack of swimsuits were on sale. I say assume because other stores have a sale sign on top of a rack, everything on that rack is on sale. Stores work that way. As a consumer who would think Meijer would be deceitful and NOT display their sale items like other stores. Made me wonder how many people bought swimsuits thinking they were on sale and they weren’t.

“I wasn’t so stupid as to just assume something was one price.”

What the heck does that mean? Shouldn’t items have one CLEARLY marked price?

“I have to say that most of the people that come to the desk for a price adjustment and scanning award bring up old signs, wrong signs…”

Why is that? Why would there be old signs left up? Why would they have wrong signs? How many times have I found sale tags on the shelf under an item that matches the large print but not the small print? Many, many times. One example, Dixie paper plates on sale. The sale tag was on the shelf and above was a large stack of Dixie plates. One would think those plates were on sale but “no”. The plates above the sale tag had 100 count. In the “fine print” the sale tag states 50 count. Is there a sale tag under the 50 count Dixie plates? NO! (I can’t believe there are customers going around switching sale tags. It seems Meijer is the one that has this problem so often.)

“I have never found an honest to goodness UPC error that we did not correct.”

Ya, right. At this Warren store, I bought hair coloring that scanned up wrong. The price on the shelf and the price on the box were the same price but it rang up at a higher price. I got the price difference and the scanning award. About four weeks later I purchased the same hair coloring. The price rang up at the same higher price as it did the last time. I got the price difference and the scanning award. I said okay, Meijer doesn’t want to correct the price; I came in two days later bought the same hair coloring, got the price difference and the scanning award.

“I think it’s high time that people begin looking a little closer at shelf tags, UPCs, and what an item is actually marked.”

Do you have any idea how long it would take to shop if people read a little closer at shelf tags, UPCs, and what an item is actually marked? Why does Meijer make it so difficult when other stores don’t? The author stated UPCs. The print is so small on the shelf tag most times you need a magnifying glass to read it. Customers are supposed to match the UPS on the shelf tag with the item above the shelf tag? Well, I’m one of those people that look a little closer at shelf tags, UPCs, and what an item is actually marked. What would have been 15 minute shopping turns into 45 minutes! Since Meijer makes so many mistakes, I don’t buy the item because I don’t want to deal with customer service or I do buy it and get the scanning award. Also, if people did begin looking a little closer at shelf tags, UPCs, and what an item is actually marked, they would find more of Meijer’s mistakes.

“In my tenure, it is exceedingly unlikely for any of us to find people come to us with scanning errors that are just complete errors in our system.”

That’s not my experience at Meijer.

“…because every customer that comes through expects us to memorize the entire store and know the price of all 250,000 items or so that we carry in the store at any given time.”

I find that hard to believe. There may be few that think that or you have a lot of stupid people in your area.

“One, you have to prove the error. It is on your shoulders to do that. Just because a sign is misleading doesn’t mean we have to honor it. If the UPC is different, if it is expired- we do not have to honor it. If the sticker on it says $2.00 and it’s an X-box, we do not have to honor it.” “The item was marked $3.99. But was ringing up $39.99. Which means someone misplaced a decimal.”

So the author is stating the store has no responsibility for their employees who misprice items, place things on the shelf in the wrong place, place sale tags in the wrong place or leave expired sale tags up? And that it’s okay to mislead customers? I believe the store should honor them. (I don’t believe customers do it. I’ve never seen anybody play with signs or move a stack of items to a different place on the shelf.) If there was more than one X-boxes priced $2.00 the store should honor it. (When it’s obvious the store mispriced the item not a customer placing a price tag on it.) When I happen to make mistakes at my work place the company pays for it. When Spirit Airline accidently listed flights to Orlando, Florida for $12.50 round trip they honored the price. To me it’s like saying the store can make all these mistakes and they are not responsible. That guy should have gotten that item for $3.99 since that someone that misplaced that decimal was probably an employee.

“But, even if you are right, and you come to me with an attitude, I’m going to painstakingly draw out the proceedure, leisurely walking through the store in search for the object, making sure to call every department and manager possible before giving you the adjustment.”

You $#%&@%! It’s obvious this author doesn’t care about people. How many of those customers have worked all day. Then shopped for two hours or more because they’ve spent most of their time carefully looking at shelf tags, sale tags, UPSs, price tags, reading small print, and expiration dates on food items, etc.

Then spent a long time in line because was only a few registers open. Or go to the self-serve to ring up, bag own items and not get paid for doing that. Only to find out AGAIN an item has rung up wrong. The customer is tired, back hurts and wants to go home but again is in that slow customer service line. Who wouldn’t be crabby or attitude? All that harassment this author just gave that customer, now for sure, has an attitude for the next time they need to go to customer service. Plus the customers behind that customer the author is harassing has to wait longer and they didn’t even do anything to warrant a longer wait.

“Again, a drop in the bucket for Meijer if 1000 people were to sue them tomorrow night.”

That is why Meijer doesn’t follow the law, grossly misleads the customers, doesn’t honor their employee mistakes, under pay their employees, and under staff their stores.

I have shopped at many different stores and Meijer is the worst to shop in. I’ve been to most in the Macomb area and they all operate the same though the Warren store is the worst of the worst. I now rarely shop at Meijer. I’ll just run in to get my juice only because they have the brand I like with the most variety.

You know the Michigan Scanner Law was created because many merchants were crooked. Meijer doesn’t follow the pricing laws, which is why this ra ra employee mentions signage so much. According to the scanner law only a certain classes of merchandise isn’t required by law to be priced.

I think every state should have a scanner law that is written much clearer than Michigan’s law. I’ve called and asked the attorney general for clairification of different portions of the law and he refused to give an opinion.

It’s only a matter of time before someone figures out the problem with the law and sues these huge stores that feel they are above the law. Meijer isn’t any better.

I’ve actually purchased items from Meijer, got my bounty for their error and went back the following day to do it again because their employees were too lazy to correct their error. One could do this everyday and make a nice living, without a great deal of effort and why shouldn’t they reap the benefits? Why should shoppers continue to get ripped off and the store management obviously doesn’t care.

I go late in the evening and the same ppl are there, one actually yelled at me once. There was a candle marked $5.99 on a clearance shelf, it rang for $10.00 and I said I didn’t want it b/c it’s on sale. She went and checked and she said it was an accident and wasn’t on sale and YELLED at me.

She said, “and we DON’T have to give it to you for that price.”

REALLY are you kidding me! I am a waitress and yes the customer is wrong A LOT, BUT if I acted like this, I would be FIRED, immediately. I am going in the store in the morning to talk to someone, b/c this is unacceptable. They have 10 ppl standing around talking, while I stand in line for 20 mins. and my ice cream melts. I know they don’t NEED my business, they will survive w/o me, but its still unacceptable!

That’s not the stupidest part though. The chick brought something else that was huge (maybe $150) GM item, and she handed me coupons for it. Not 1 coupon, coupons.

I basically spent a minute handing every single (5 or more) coupons to her saying you didn’t purchase this item, because she bought 1 item and each coupon was different.

I saw her later at the service desk and wanted to punch her in the ovaries. I’m not gonna say what she was, but if you work at my Meijer it’s the groups of sharp noses that always come in with their kids or 2 other family members to translate for them but they’re never alone.