The Price is Right: Few mistakes have scanners high on customer’s shopping list

Laura Meckler

Wednesday, Oct. 23, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- There's some surprising news for shoppers who don't trust those computer price scanners found at checkout counters all over town.

The prices are nearly always accurate and when there's a mistake, the customer usually comes out on top, according to a Federal Trade Commission report.

FTC inspectors made purchases at 294 food, discount, home, drug and department stores over a year and a half. They found they were overcharged 2.24 percent of the time and undercharged 2.58 percent of the time.

"Overall, most stores didn't do badly," said FTC spokeswoman Bonnie Jansen. "To the extent that there are errors, they are more result of carelessness and inattentiveness rather than willfulness."

In total, there were errors in 4.82 percent of the purchases. The FTC is not releasing figures for individual stores.

Undercharges outnumbering overcharges was good news to John Motley, senior vice president for the National Retail Federation, which represents department stores and, to a lesser extent, grocery and drug stores.

"From our standpoint, we would much prefer to make mistakes on behalf of the consumer. That eliminates anybody's inclination to say this is on purpose and we're being unfair," Motley said.

Still, stores lose money on every undercharge and are looking for ways to make the system more accurate.

"It is an ongoing problem within the industry," he said.

While department stores had the highest total error rate, with mistakes in 9.15 percent of purchases, just 3.25 percent of items were overcharged.

Scanners have been an industry concern for many years, Motley said, pointing to past accusations of foul play.

"There were concerns raised by the government that this was a not-too-subtle attempt at consumer fraud," Motley said.

Jansen noted that several states have statutes regulating scanners, ranging from a requirement that stores include prices on individual items to a guarantee that a customer who finds an error will get the item for free.

Several retailers have paid large fines after their scanners were found to be inaccurate, the FTC added.

Scanners allow a computer to read a black-and-white bar code that indicates the item's price. They largely eliminate the days when customers stood in line while a cashier yelled "price check!" and waited for the answer.

The scanners also help stores keep track of inventory and conduct market research and they save time and money by eliminating price tags on individual items.

Consumers benefit from faster checkout times and detailed cash register receipts, the FTC said.

Most mistakes come when the price on the shelf is not changed to match the price in the computer or prices in the computer are not updated, the agency said.

Grocery stores, which pioneered scanners more than two decades ago, did the best in the FTC survey, with errors just 3.47 percent of the time.

Barry Scher, spokesman for Giant Food Inc., remembers when scanners were introduced.

"Initially in the '70s, it was a very hard sell because there was a lot of doubt," he said.

Giant began using scanners in all of its stores in 1975 after an internal study found that they saved money and improved accuracy. Now, Giant has a team that does nothing but work on scanner accuracy, Scher said.

"Today you have a system that's extremely accurate, especially when compared to the older system," he said.

The FTC study, conducted in Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Tennessee, Vermont and Wisconsin, also found:

* Food stores overcharged researchers on 1.92 percent of items and undercharged them on 1.55 percent.

* Discount stores: 1.87 percent overcharged, 2.68 percent undercharged.

* Home stores: 2.52 percent overcharged, 2.84 percent undercharged.

* Drug stores: 3.56 percent overcharged, 2.75 percent undercharged.

archive