Pricing "fraud"

I kid you not, TWICE in the last 2 days I have gone to a store, seen the price of the item I wish to purchase and proceeded to the checkout aisle only to find that the price they ring up is outrageously more than the price on the aisle where I picked it up!! Yesterday I went to Circuit City to buy a specific battery for our camera. The price very clearly said $9.99 and the sales associate was standing right there talking to me when I said "Wow, this is less than I thought it was going to be. This is great." He then walks around the corner, rings it up, and says, "Ok so that's 14.99 plus tax which makes it....16 something." I say that the sign we were just looking at says 9.99 and he peers around the corner and says "Hmm, yes it does." So he has to call someone to get a price override on the computer so I can get the correct price. Amazing. I thought it was fairly surprising but I shrugged it off by the end of the day.

Tonight I went to HEB to get our air filters since we are turning on the heater for the first time tonight. Again, I glance at the price, mostly because I am curious what air filters cost since I never buy them. I am buying 2 and I walk to the cash register vaguely remembering that they cost around $5 a piece. The lady rings them up and the total shows $15.11!!! I apologize to her and to the man in line behind me and kindly ask if she would mind checking the price since I really thought they were closer to 5 a piece. I mean, even if what I saw was 5.97 each, that still doesn't equal 15.11 so it is worth at least checking because something doesn't seem right. So she gets another lady to go to the aisle and check. The lady comes back and says they are 4.97 each! The barcode had rung up as 6.98 each. I ended up saving $5 at HEB by having them verify the price.

So either these companies have some issues with reconciling their barcodes with their advertised prices in the aisles, or they are seriously out to make some extra bucks!! I have been saying to Greg after each grocery run this month that I really feel bummed when the total has been rung up. I have been trying to aim for such and such a total and it keeps ending up higher than expected. I have chalked it up to inflation but maybe I really am getting scammed at the check out line!?! To have a $5 discrepancy when only purchasing 2 items could mean a huge difference when buying 25 items for the week.

Moral of the story: try to write down what you see the prices are of the things you buy and make sure the barcode rings up with the same!