I arrived at the customer service desk at our Kaneohe Safeway store early Sunday evening to request a refund after (again) being charged more than the advertised price for what was supposed to be a specially priced item. A woman ahead of me in line was also requesting a refund on a different item.
We got to talking when the clerk stepped away on some unknown errand as part of the mysterious refund process. There we were, spending our time to return to the store, wait for service, and hopefully at the end get back anywhere from a few cents to several dollars. We both acknowledged the mental calculation you have to go through when you examine a receipt and discover a pricing error. Is this overcharge worth complaining about? If so, you schlep back to the store. If not, you wince and forget it.
“They should pay us for this, shouldn’t they?” she said with a smile.
Well, it turns out that is exactly right.
Safeway apparently has a pricing policy that guarantees its advertised special. But it looks a lot like a secret policy.
“We post our pricing policy (at) all checkout lanes, and we train and empower our staff to meet the provisions of the policy,” Keith Turner, Safeway’s director of public and government affairs for the Northern California division (which includes Hawaii), said in an email last month.
![[text]](http://ilind.net/images_2013/promise.jpg)
That may be, as Turner later emailed a blurry photo of what he said is the policy posted at each checkout. Turner did not, however, respond to my direct requests for either a written copy of the policy or where it can be found on the Safeway.com website.
Still trying to confirm the policy, I called Safeway’s toll-free customer service number.
The helpful service agent referred me to the Safeway.com website.
“I think you’ll find it down at the bottom of the page under ‘coupon policy,'” she said hopefully.
I had already looked there, and it did not include the general pricing policy.
The helpful Safeway staffer quickly discovered the same thing.
“That’s interesting,” she said, after failing to find it.
“Well, I can read it to you.”
And the policy goes something like this.
According to the Safeway policy, you are due more than a simple refund of the difference between the price you were charged and the lower, advertised price.
Instead, if the item in question costs less than $5, then you should be refunded the full price you paid. Translation: You get the item for free, and the entire price you paid should be returned.
If the item costs more than $5, you should receive a refund of the difference between the advertised price and what you paid, plus a $5 gift card.
If there are multiples of the same item, you should get the full refund or $5 gift card on the first one, and then get charged the discounted price for additional items.
Since my column on Safeway’s overcharges appeared on Civil Beat last month, the store manager in Kaneohe has, without comment, been following this policy. In the past three weeks, I’ve received a $5 gift card, $5 in cash in lieu of a gift card, several free items, and bits of cash.
I’m still trying to get a copy of the policy so that I can share it with others and, more importantly, with store clerks or managers who aren’t familiar with it. If it is in fact posted at checkouts, I’ll get a clear photo later today.
Mountain out of a molehill?
Guess again. On Monday, we picked up a variety of things at our regular Kaneohe store. The bill came to $46, including $2 of tax. But after checking the receipt, it turns out we failed to get three advertised discounts.
A loaf of sourdough bread rang up at $2.79 instead of the advertised $1.49. Overcharge: $1.30
Approximately 1/2 pound of ahi poke rang up at the regular $14.99 per pound price instead of the advertised $11.99. Overcharge: $1.68
1.73 pounds of navel oranges rang up at $1.49 a pound instead of the advertised $.99 per pound. Overcharge: $.68.
Total overcharge for the trip: $3.66.
That’s 8.3 percent of the total price we paid on this visit to Safeway.
Oh, you’ll notice that the “mistakes” all favor Safeway. Errors rarely if ever go the other way.
Yesterday I contained Mr. Turner again at his California office and asked his assistance in obtaining a copy of the company’s “price guarantee.”
“I’ll look in to this and get back to you asap,” he responded.
While I’m waiting for his substantive reply, I’ll be back in Kaneohe this afternoon to request the various refunds.
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We “empower our staff to meet the provisions of the policy”?
“Empower”? What kind of Orwellian bullshit is that? You don’t “empower” your employees to do their job, sir — you pay them, and they do it. It’s a contract.
At least he didn’t use the terms “negatively impact” or “paradigm shift.”
Shop at Foodland!
Great work, Ian. Few of us have the time/patience to pick a battle like this. You are serving as a private attorney general. Thank you.
I have written before about similar issues at the Manoa Safeway, my go-to store because of location. But the far more frequent problem I confront is product for sale beyond the expiration date. It is commonplace at Manoa, particularly in the dairy department (yogurt). Let us know if you see the same thing in Kaneohe.
I’ve NEVER been overcharged for anything at Tamura’s. (I am not connected with them in any way, just lucky to live near one.)
Not only have I never been overcharged at Tamura’s but their prices beat everyone else on just about everything.
My life is apparently more complicated than yours so I simply avoid Safeway in favor of Times. Seriously, why shop at Safeway? If your 8% overcharge is typical, they’re knowingly making serious money in a business with traditionally low margins. It is likely a strategic move on their part which was thought through at the highest corporate levels.
I agree that the constant repeated overcharging is a feature, not a bug.
I’ve also given up on Safeway and now shop exclusively at Times. It’s simply just easier to not have to deal with the club-card, and to have to keep incessantly checking website for personal deals and coupons. Also Times has a “local grocery store” feel that Safeway simply lacks.
Ian, has anyone yet called you a twit, a curmudgeon, perhaps a sad and lonely old man? If so, welcome to the club. And thanks for pursuing a very valid complaint. One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. There must be thousands of people getting screwed, even when they’re buying things other than screws. E onipa’a! (persevere)
Thanx for bird-dogging this, Ian. Like Otis, I also use the Manoa Safeway and find the employees as exasperated at their employer as they are with me when I press them on this stuff.
I’ve even had one cashier cheer me on when I caught an error in pricing that was attributable to their HAL 2000 computer, not the employee. Examples include beverage containers not marked HI5 (and therefore not redeemable) for which I was assessed the redemption/handling fee.
It’s like we’re both battling the same Corporate Death Star, me as customer, them as indentured servants — or at least definitely NOT empowered employees.
Ian, crooks seldom err on the side of client or customer.
Ian,
I hate to say this, but why don’t you just stop shopping at Safeway? I quit going there on a regular basis years ago.
Like I’ve said before, we shop there because it is a convenient location, they have the best prices or quality on certain classes of items, and their specials can be very good. We find Deal Match to also be very convenient and cuts down our other stops. We don’t shop there exclusively, but instead watch prices pretty carefully. Before these discount plans, I considered Safeway the highest priced of the four places we shop relatively regularly. No longer. Oh, and we do support their unionized employees.
This is HUGE! Almost every week I find mistakes. They did have a similar policy quite a while ago (without the $5 limits as I recall). I just figured it had become too costly to continue.
I find it helpful to remain at the cash register while I go over my receipt. Never leaving the store without the corrected amount. However, I am glad that policy for Safeway indicates the item can be free for incorrect store markings…thanks, Ian.
Ever since Ian started to raise this Safeway pricing issue in his blog my wife and I have been very conscientious about carefully going over the receipt from our purchases at Manoa Safeway. We have found very few errors. Between the Club Card prices and the Just for You discounts we usually save close to 30%. That is my biggest gripe.
As regular customers we have to jump through hoops, cards, visiting web sites etc., to get decent prices. And then what about the poor schmucks who wander in off the street who have no web access or no time to search out the discounts? Many of the shoppers at Manoa Safeway are college students who may not have a regular phone number or because of their transient nature don’t have a card. These folks are paying through the nose. It outrages my personal sense of fairness that some customers (maybe those that can least afford it) are paying higher prices. My preference is for a business which treats all customers equally and which gives the lowest possible prices to all. That reduces complexity and the chances for error since there is only one price for any item.
So, why do we continue to shop at Safeway? As Ian states, convenience since it is closest by far and on the way in and out of the valley. Also, since my wife is disabled, there are accessibility issues to consider.
R Ferdun, you make a lot of good points, and you’re obviously an egalitarian. But if everybody gets the same price, is there no reward for “loyalty”?
Well maybe I am naïve and a bit old fashioned but my thought is that if a business has a good location, good service, quality goods and fair prices, people will willingly come back. There would be no need to buy loyalty with gimmicks.
I will give you my favorite example, City Mill. When Home Depot opened, the City Mill, Iwalei parking lot was a ghost town, maybe two or three cars. I figured they were doomed. But, they dug in, refocused and survived. I don’t know what their balance sheet looks like, but the parking lot test, full, would seem to indicate that they are doing well enough. There are other examples.
@ R. Ferdun re City Mill: I live almost next door to City Mill (Kane’ohe). The first time I ever got a “senior discount” was there. I thought “Wow, I’ve arrived!” But not too long after that they changed their policy to “priced right every day” with no more senior discounts and no more special bargain days. Ooh, I was soooo disappointed to lose my special privilege. But their policy seems to be successful, and their prices do seem to be right. As a matter of policy I wish businesses would not give senior discounts, since most seniors are no different from most juniors and can afford regular prices; and I think everyone should be treated equally. But whenever someplace offers a senior discount, I have no qualms about taking it (and I bow to the low-income young Mom who’s standing in line behind me and pays a higher price to subsidize me even though I don’t need it).
“. . . what about the poor schmucks who wander in off the street. . .” Safeway has a guest card for people who don’t have a regular card. In Hawaii Kai they also have a laptop available for customers to check for coupons and deals.
How do we get them to do this if we can’t even find it in writing (from Safeway?)
I am so glad that there are others tired of this and Safeway is not the only place it seems almost everytime and every place has this over charge
Aloha Ian, thanks for the post, I just discovered this. Has Safeway changed their policy or is this now in writing? Thanks.
This policy is posted in large font, hanging from the ceiling at the Safeway in my town. It’s clearly visible to everyone. Maybe they’ve gotten enough complaints about it that they decided to stop keeping it a well-hidden secret. 😛