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Lidl France = dodgy practices?


Evianers
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We tend to shop in Lidl because of value for money, as well as high turnover, meaning fresh.

But after repeatedly warning other forum members to be careful and check their receipts, we had yet another nasty experience yesterday.

Bought 12 items with TWO mistakes [in their favour of course] in the bill :

on special offer 1 kg Lasagne = normal price €2.45, special offer €2,39 - so far, so good.

But upon checking the bill, price was put through at €2.75.

Another item on the same bill was put through the till at €1.69 whereas it should have been €1.59.

So not the end of the world for 46cents in total, but it is the principle bearing in mind that this happens time after time after time, in fact, in almost every bill.

It has now occured to us to question whether this is in fact fraud by Lidl, who hope that customers are either too distracted or too idle to carefully note what is being charged. Who puts the prices into the computer anyway? How does the price on the shelf ticket - especially those marked "Special Offer" tally with what is charged at the till?

Has anyone else had this experience?

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I always check every bill in every shop in France before leaving, around here at least where everyone would rob their own granny Lidl are by far the best, I have queried many a bill and in all but one case I was wrong and completely out of character for these parts they were always polite in accepting my apology, the one time I was overcharged was where the special offer had expired the day before and the ticket had not been taken down, they did so immediately, apologised (something else that never happens here) and refunded me the (not) overcharge which I was not enitled to, in any other shop they would have been crowing in triumph and putting me down in a loud voice for the benefit of the other shoppers.

 

I love the staff in my Lidl here, I put their behaviour down to the fact that they are overworked as opposed to underemployed in the other stores.

 

I have signalled mistakes in Tescos, of course they are always recieved with good grace, one cashier said I have been passing that item through all my shift and you are the first person to notice, everyone was buying the fruit because it was a very good price on the shelf but no-one except me had checked their bill.

 

So I think customers in the UK are too idle and maybe in France too intimidated to question.

 

I think the mistakes in all the other shops are indeed deliberate by the way they react when challenged, the very few in Lidl I think are just human error.

 

One shop has electronic price tags and during busy periods the manager puts all the prices up by sometimes 30% with a few keystrokes on the computer, they have even gone up between me picking up the item and getting to the till.

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One shop has electronic price tags and during busy periods the manager

puts all the prices up by sometimes 30% with a few keystrokes on the

computer, they have even gone up between me picking up the item and

getting to the till.

I should imagine that this above practice would be absolutely illegal!

Yes, we have to admit that Lidl are not alone in "mistaking" the prices.

Cora around here do it habitually as well. Name 'em and shame 'em is now our motto as we are becoming utterly fed-up with this continual overcharging.

Wonder whether a missive to Lidl Head Office in Deutschland would do any good - probably not!

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Hats off. I honestly can't even begin to memorise the prices of my weekly shop between picking stuff off the shelf and getting to the till. Unless I've bought a big ticket item, something drastically reduced or only a couple of things in total, I wouldn't have a clue.
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Time then, to start checking on a regular basis probably.

We felt obliged to start this business as once having bought 5 items in Lidl the bill came to an astronical amount. Checking the receipt carefully, we found that we had been charged €14.50 for a round cheese instead of €1.45. The woman behind us in the queue at the till could not believe it when she noticed the cashier having to refund more than €13.--!!! Since that time, we are mega-careful, and unfortunately we have to say that [probably because we shop there more often] Lidl are the worst offenders. Take Care

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I haven't experienced the problem you had with Lidl, but we used to have a "cheapo" store which sold all sorts of bargains, from clothing to paint to electrical parts, furnishings etc; no food.

The items were priced on display, but when you got to the till you found out those prices were hors taxe, and they then added on the VAT. [:@]

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Until I came to France I would never know how much my bill was likely to be or whether I had been overcharged, then came the very lean years living on a fraction of what the misguided French believe to be the poverty line, lots of things had to change including keeping a tally of my cheque book for the first time ever, also knowing how much my shopping was before getting to the till, its embarrassing enough to not have enough money but with the load narrow minded people around hear tut tutting and oh-la-lahing very loud so that everyone can see it was to be avoided.

By comparison I am absolutely minted now but old habits die hard, I dont keep a tally but have an uncanny ability to estimate my bagload(s) of shopping t within an euro or so not that it matters, there is always enough now to cover it, if the till rings up a haigher price I will know one of the items is wrong, in any case I check the whole bill before leaving, another old habit.

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I would love to 'know' the price of everything, but often it is not 'clear'. And simply when I go for a big shop, how could I remember??? No idea how anyone would do it in a supermarket.

 I thought I had not been given an offer in Morrisons last week and simply asked for my money back.

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Many supermarkets here have started to offer those self scanning devices that you take with you and scan the items as you put them in your basket. Seems like they would be a good idea as then you can make sure that what you are buying is at the correct price. Our inter and Le Clerc have them. I might give them a try next time I go.
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Just b efore Christmas our local Leclerc had cherries with a big sign at 14.95/kilo. Oh they were lovely .... big and plump and juicy and a real treat and I bought some. At the till they were scanned through at 19.95/k and I complained, and they were reduced. A few days later I went back to get some more and, again they were put through at 19.95/k and again I complained and showed them the sign. The manager said that 19.95 was on 'the system' but they would correct it 'on the system' ..... as I walked away I saw them doing the correction - a marker pen crossing out the lower price on the sign and writing up the higher price!

By contract I have a self-scanner with Auchan and always check the prices ... sometimes they're a few cents cheaper on the scanner than the price shown on the shelves. But at least I can check the price at my own pace rather than, say, Lidls where they seem to be competing for an Olympic speed record in whizzing through the goods!
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I feel sorry for them in that respect, the tills compute the scanning times of each operator and they are assessed on how fast they scan and I think indirectly it affects their wages, they are certainly hauled over the coals.

 

Look carefully and you will see that they are really relaxed while you put your stuff on the tapis roulant, you can take all day, its the only break they get from stacking shelves, ditto once they have hit the total key, you can wait ages while they exchange pleasantaries with the Customer before you, but when it comes to scanning they have to work at light speed.

 

Its taken me years to realise that we were both giving each other a problem, I wont use a trolley, I empty my one or two bags on the conveyor and can never get round wuick enough to place the first one on the tiny outfeed counter which is designed for trolleys, I am usually baulked by the previous Customer and within seconds it is covered with scanned goods, if I get my bag on there it slows down the cashier as she gets baulked by the build up of stuff.

 

I have found a solution that now we are all pleased with, I place my bags on the floor and get in a session of squats whilst loading them, the cashier now has a free run to go for her personal best scanning time.

 

What gets me are the cashiers that take pleasure in bouncing your fruit and veg and other délicates off the scanner and onto the outfeed table, there is only one that does it in Lidl, a Young girl and she is particularly savage, its a common practice in the other stores with the bored underemployed staff.

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It is true that the likes of Lidl and Aldi have fast cashiers in both countries. In fact most of the supermarkets here are pretty quick IMO. In say Super U or Carrefour, I find them sluggish, in their own sweet time........[Www]

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I think being a cashier in any supermarket is a really sh1t job, so I'm as nice as I can possibly be to all of them. So there [:D]

And I think that anyone who subscribes to conspiracy theories about supermarket pricing must be seriously paranoid[:D]

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[quote user="nomoss"][quote user="mint"]I agree, nomoss, I do that too.  OH goes one step further, he addresses them by name if they have a name badge on![:-))]

[/quote]

I thought that was the whole idea of the badge.

[/quote]

Oh dear, I thought it was for naming and shaming if you did want to complain about someone[;-)]?

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Life is too short for that sort of thing.

Last time I noticed a price discrepency was at Auchan and I only noticed it because it was the only item I was buying. The difference was about 4 or 5 euros I think. I queried the cashier and the false cheery attitude they have vanished and I was told either leave it or buy it at the till price and query it at the service desk.

At the service desk I had to wait several minutes while the two staff there finished their conversation. I explained the situation and was told I was wrong. Apparently it is impossible for there to be a difference between shelf price ticket and till.

After insistaing a while they changed tack and accused me of being stupid - I must have been looking at the wrong ticket.

After further insistance they changed tack again and accused me of theft - trying to scam the lower price by swapping tickets.

Eventually they agreed to check the price so one of them stomped across the shop with much huffing and tutting to find that I was right after all. More stomping huffing and tutting back to the service desk where I couldnt just be given the difference, they had to refund the whole sale and re-sell it at the lower price.

Well, debits are immediate, but refunds take two weeks - funny how even that is in their favour too!

Thge whole situation took a long time and while I was "right", being treated like dirt for half an hour for the sake of a fiver is frankly a poor use of my time.

So now I dont bother any more. I am far from wealthy, but its a balance I am willing to accept.

Same goes for warranty issues. Having had the runnaround from a few different places for replacement of electrical stuff under the years guarantee, sometimes dragging on for months leaving me without the item during that time I now either fix it myself or bin it an buy a new one.

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This has happened to us too, in Cora, when after we also kicked up a fuss, the shop admitted liability and as this had happened numerous times before, they gave us a free bottle of Champagne.

However, regarding the "life is too short" policy, we are beginning to think this is what supermarket hope, in that if you give in halfway through the fight, they get away with their higher pricing abuse. Although it always a great deal of time [and energy], having found numerous mistakes, always in their favour, our resolve is now to "screw our courage to the sticking place". It always pays off eventually.

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Oh, its exactly what they hope for and preventing people calling out their scam is a useful by-product of their terrible service.

Whilst I detest being ripped off, I value my time and sanity over a few euros on the shopping bill. Me having to put up with either some smugly arrogant jobsworth or disinterested freewheeler who both know that once they have signed a CDI they are pretty much un-fireable is likely to end in violence.

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And the worst scam of all, in my opinion, is when they sell out of date food.

Our local Intermarche was terrible for that. I know that as a customer one has to check all the dates, but when doing a big shop or buying several of one  item, it is easy to pick up those that should not be there in the first place.

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We get flyers from all our local supermarkets and with very few exceptions Lidl are more expensive on the headline items particularly meats, but they hide it by having unusual pack sizes and showing the per kg price in small print.

Steve

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