Twice in the last two days I’ve caught programmed cash registers scanning a different price than was clearly advertised. Once was in a fairly nice restaurant that added $2 to the price of a glass of Bourbon; once was in a sporting goods store that added a $1 to the price of a pair of rubber boots. <\/p>\n
Maybe it’s just a fluke, and I only took note because it happened to me so close together in time; but maybe it’s an increasing problem as more pricing gets automated without effective checks and balances; and just maybe it’s not a mistake at all but a deliberate and dishonest way to raise prices.
\n
\nAt least the boots had a clearly marked price tag I could point to at the cash register. However the bourbon was particularly insidious. If I hadn’t carefully compared and thought about all nine different bourbons and their proofs and prices at the start of the meal (yes, I’m a bit of a bourbon nut) I wouldn’t have noticed the pricing error at the end. Even then, I had to ask for the bar menu again to check my recollection. <\/p>\n
Supermarkets are notorious for charging different prices at the register than you find on store shelves. I’d hate to see this nefarious practice spreading, but it may be inevitable as automated payment systems, debit cards, and scanners make it easier than ever to hide what yolu’re really paying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Twice in the last two days I’ve caught programmed cash registers scanning a different price than was clearly advertised. Once was in a fairly nice restaurant that added $2 to the price of a glass of Bourbon; once was in a sporting goods store that added a $1 to the price of a pair of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[410],"class_list":["post-133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finance","tag-flash"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elharo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elharo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elharo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elharo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elharo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.elharo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elharo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elharo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elharo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}