Another rant this time about the South Brunswick Saker ShopRite supermarket. Bottom line, their checkers should ring up sale prices correctly. If they don't and this is later called to their attention they should cheerfully issue a refund for the difference. Fortunately if they don't and you paid by credit card you may still have recourse.
After a long permitting and construction process a new Saker ShopRite supermarket opened a couple of years ago in Heritage Plaza (adjacent to Heritage Square) along Route 1. ShopRite is a cooperative supermarket chain with stores in New Jersey and some nearby states. Saker is their biggest operator with 39 stores many in central New Jersey.
The pandemic has made me reluctant to eat out and the new store is fairly convenient for me to get to so I have been shopping there sometimes. Just before Christmas I bought a prime rib roast on sale for $4.79 per pound as advertised in their weekly mailed circular. The shelf markings were not clear so I showed the ad to the checker to make sure I would get the sales price. I was assured that I would. I checked the receipt and saw I had received a discount but didn't notice until I got home that it wasn't sufficient to bring the price down to $4.79 per pound. Apparently the checker should have scanned the ad in to get the full discount. As it was I was overcharged by $14.83.
When I returned to the store a week or two later I complained to the service desk about being overcharged. I expected them to refund me the difference but they somewhat rudely refused to do so. Although they accepted my version of events they claimed it was my responsibility to see that the sales price was rung up correctly. Needless to say I disagree.
Fortunately since I had paid by credit card I had some recourse. I challenged the charge with my credit card provider and yesterday they credited me with the $14.83. It is unclear to me if my claim was actually adjudicated in any way (I was not asked for and didn't provide any details) or if the amount was too small for ShopRite to bother disputing. Anyway I got my money.
It is somewhat baffling to me why ShopRite refused to refund the overcharge. This was an advertised sales price which they should have expected to attract buyers. Why incur ill will by trying to benefit from their checker's error? Anyway I will be even more careful in the future.
Good description of what happened! What you did was a 'chargeback'. I believe that chargebacks which aren't obviously fraudulent in the judgement of the card issuer result in an immediate refund to the cardholder (which you saw) and a corresponding debit to the merchant account. At that point merchant may let it sit, or submit evidence that the charge was legit (the nature of which depends on the specifics of the chargeback claim and of what actually occurred). If issuer accepts this, they issue a 'chargeback reversal' by crediting the disputed amount back to the merchant account and (I think) debiting the cardholder account accordingly. At that point cardholder can initiate a '2nd chargeback' providing refuting evidence, which if accepted just replays the initial chargeback.
ReplyDeleteIn your case, unless something truly wierd is going on, I expect your chargeback to stick. Hope you enjoyed the roast!
My post was a little unclear, I had just received a letter saying that the dispute had been resolved in my favor. As you say I had earlier received a tentative credit for the disputed amount immediately after submitting the complaint.
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