What say the Peas???

I’m not as angelic as some peas who, on past similar threads, have said they would return to a store to pay for a missed item….once I’m home I’m far too lazy to go back and fix someone else’s error 🤷🏻‍♀️ But when I still at the counter? I wouldn’t bat an eye at pulling my credit card back out.

I used to sell online on Etsy and Amazon and if I’d made an error I’d also tell the buyer to keep the item in the name of customer service. But that was mostly because I didn’t want to inconvenience the customer to have them return it, even if it only meant going a few blocks to a post office. If I could have received the item back without making the customer go out of their way to do so I would have.

The two situations are apples to oranges.

This is what I've experienced in grocery stores. 
So I can understand zztopp11 being bummed out that you went to a place that doesn't do that after having that as the standard in your life elsewhere. 
You paid for the items, so being disappointed doesn't mean you have bad character as suggested up thread. It means you're human. 

If I were still standing there? No, I would not at all resent having to pay for my items - minus the coupon savings, of course.

Regarding regionality: I can easily imagine 3-4 different solutions happening at 3-4 different stores here in Chicago. It would depend on so many different variables: size, independent v. corporate, policy, lack of policy, rank of employee, financial health. I believe regional differences/trends can exist, but I’d be surprised if it’s as cut and dry as “This would never ever happen in Baltimore” or “This indicates this will always happen here.” 

Happy grilling.

This sums up my thoughts, although if I’m being completely transparent, I would’ve never noticed if the coupon/discount was applied or if the sum made sense.  I don’t pay attention and then I just pay.  

If I was going to be upset my $4 coupon wasn’t subtracted, I’d certainly understand a store wanting their $20 meat paid for.

Lunds and Byerly’s is a big chain, not a little gourmet grocery. So, no way would I expect the steaks for free. I’d be highly annoyed with the cashier, but would not be upset they asked me to pay what I owed.

Yeah. If it rings up incorrectly. Not if they don't ring it up in the first place.

But what went wrong here was that they neglected to charge you for the steaks.  So righting that wrong would be charging you the proper price for the steaks, taking your coupons into account, wouldn't it?   I mean, that would have been the "right" thing since neglecting to charge you for them was the "wrong" thing.  If they gave them to you for free, then nothing would have changed from the "wrong" situation as far as I can tell.  It would be like they said "Oh we messed up.  Let's just keep things messed up."

I would never have expected the steaks to be free.  But then I am the type of person who would drive back to the store, or at least notify them on my next visit, that they had undercharged me on something and then would pay what I owe.  I'm a big believer in karma and I don't want something held over my head, even if I am the only one doing the holding.  The bottom line is that my getting away with $20 could impact the staff and owners of the establishment.  Sure people justify it if it is a large chain store, but many stores are independently franchised and the owner has a family to support and staff to pay.  I consider it like a theft. Not intentional on my part and I only feel culpable when I realize I wasn't charged.  When I would notify a manager, I always received a big thank you, which is sad to me.  It is the right thing to do and should be expected, not thanked.

We had a K-Mart in the area that was notorious for incorrect charges at the register.  I had to watch very carefully as I was being rung up.  You had to know the prices of everything and whether or not it was supposed to be on sale.  The item would be advertised as on sale for a reduced price, the cashier would run it through the scanner, and the price was never altered in the main system so that I would be paying normal price, not the sale price.  It wasn't the cashier's fault, it was whoever was supposed to alter it in their system.  

I did notice that after this store had been open for about a year, they put up signs that if this occurred to you, they would correct the mistake and give you a $5 gift certificate.  I am pretty sure they were forced to issue the $5 because of the number of times that the computer was not matching either the shelf price or the advertised price.  I found it stressful to have to watch every item being slid across the scanner and having to remember the pricing so I quit shopping there.  Also, I was dating a guy whose son got a job at that particular K-Mart.  He told me never to purchase anything that was supposed to be refrigerated because they would frequently leave things like milk on the loading dock for hours before eventually bringing it into the refrigerator area.  I had noticed that milk would spoil awfully quickly and had already stopped purchasing it there just because I was tired of having to run out and buy it again somewhere else.  I no longer drink milk, but when I did, and mainly when I gave it to my son, I was super picky about the freshness of it.

You’re cruisin for a bruisin asking this question of the peas!

My response: I would have checked that receipt more carefully before asking if I’d received the discount. And being the Pollyanna that I am, I would then have told her she didn’t ring up the steaks. Because karma.

Right?!? What an interesting sense of right and wrong. You make a mistake in my favor, no big deal, “I’m good to go without paying what I owe.” But if you make a mistake in the store’s favor, “I’m going to make doubly sure THAT doesn’t happen.”

There have often been times things get missed on my cart in grocery store--cases of water on the bottom of the cart, etc. It never occurred to me to think that because a cashier missed ringing something up that I should get it for free.

I wonder if the cashier scanned them and it didn't work right if they were on sale?  I am not sure if this is the situation, but sometimes stores will put a different tag and bar code on the meat if it needs to be sold that day.  I have had times where that code didn't work when I was using self checkout.  But, I definitely would have double checked the receipt to make sure I wasn't charged twice.

It happens. Last year I found a sweet deal on a cordless vacuum at Target, on clearance. It was a $200 item and it was in a BIG box in my cart full of other items. I watched the cashier physically scan it and take the security thing off of the box. I paid the bill, moved out of the cashier lane then thought, “Whoa, that total didn’t seem like enough.” Looked at the receipt and sure enough the vacuum didn’t scan. My kid was with me at the time and I thought it was a perfect opportunity to model doing the right thing. I went up to customer service and explained what happened and I was properly charged for the vacuum that I had fully intended on paying for in the first place because as I said, it was already on clearance for a killer deal.

So to answer the original question, yes, I would expect to pay for my items but I would also expect that my coupon would be honored so I was paying the discounted price. It’s one thing for there to be a computer error when something is rung up and another thing entirely for the item to never be rung up in the first place.