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510 points bookofjoe | 7 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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securingsincity ◴[] No.46184916[source]
Massachusetts has a quite prominent law against this.

"When buying groceries—food and non-alcoholic beverages, pet food or supplies, disposable paper or plastic products, soap, household cleaners, laundry products, or light bulbs—you must be charged the lowest displayed price, whether on the sticker, scanner, website, or app.

If the lowest price you saw for an item is $10 or less, and that lowest price is not what you were charged or not what appeared on the in-aisle price scanner, the first item should be FREE. If the lowest price you saw for an item is more than $10, and that lowest price is not what you were charged or not what appeared on the in-aisle price scanner, you should receive $10.00 off the first item."

https://www.mass.gov/info-details/consumer-pricing-accuracy-...

Not to say it's not happening in a Mass based Dollar Stores but you could be walking away with a lot of free stuff and it would be enough of a deterrent to stomp out the practice. I've had it happen at grocery stores usually at their suggesting.

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hippo22 ◴[] No.46185136[source]
Unfortunately, this type of conflict can only be adjudicated by courts, which low-income people don't have the time and money for. You couldn't just walk out of the store with the items. You'd need to either:

1. Buy the items and sue.

2. Take the items without paying, likely get the police called on you, and defend yourself in criminal and civil court.

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jkaplowitz ◴[] No.46185814[source]
Theoretically there is a third option, stay in the store near the cash register and call the police to come deal with it on the spot before the purchase. The problem is that they probably won't bother coming, and if they do, they won't come quickly enough to make it worth waiting for them given the amount of money at stake.

Edit: Yeah, I did say before the purchase, but I should have said after the purchase when they pay the legally correct price but the store accuses them of shoplifting and tries to detain them. And I know it's often infeasibly hard to pay the legally correct price from a logistical perspective without the cashier's cooperator, especially if you want to pay with a card. It is clearly possible to put at least the right amount of cash on the counter, ask for the change, and attempt to leave if they refuse, but that doesn't guarantee ever getting the change. Anyway, I did list this option as (purely) theoretical and not as actually practical.

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1. sejje ◴[] No.46185967[source]
Call the police to come deal with...mispriced items? That's not the job of police, sorry. Not in the US anyway.
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2. jkaplowitz ◴[] No.46186249[source]
Call the police to stop a store from criminally restraining the freedom of a customer to leave with their purchase after the customer pays the legally mandated maximum price which is often the lower of shelf and scanner price, yes. That's not going to be a high enforcement priority for the police, but it's absolutely a crime if the store does that.
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3. gruez ◴[] No.46186307[source]
>Call the police to stop a store from criminally restraining the freedom of a customer [...]

Realistically no store is going chase after the customer for that, but that doesn't mean the average shopper is going to risk arrest/banned (for what the store essentially sees as shoplifting) to send a $2 message over the price difference. And all of this assumes your novel legal theory is actually correct.

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4. jkaplowitz ◴[] No.46186322{3}[source]
It's not a novel legal theory, But yeah, I did call it a theoretical option, not a practical one. I don't pretend that it's practical.
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5. gruez ◴[] No.46186479{4}[source]
Your original idea of "paying the marked (lower) price, walking away, even if the cashier corrected you with the higher price" certainly is novel. Otherwise can you link any sort of judicial ruling or even a random lawyer that agrees with you?Otherwise this looks suspiciously similar to all the spurious legal theories that sovereign citizens have, about how they don't need a drivers license because they're "traveling" or whatever.
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6. jkaplowitz ◴[] No.46186547{5}[source]
I said the legally maximum price is often the lower price. NYC is an example with a law about this:

https://www.nyc.gov/site/dca/consumers/10-things-consumer.pa...

Similar laws exist at the state level in NY, in other NY counties, and in several other states and subdivisions of other states across the country.

In that case, the higher charge is clearly illegal (no novel theory needed), so standard contract law theory could consider the terms of the buyer's offer to purchase to be the terms of the invitation to treat in the absence of legal contrary terms offered at checkout. I guess it's possible that the court would say that the store never agreed to sell the item at all by demanding an illegal price instead of being considered to have accepted the buyer's offer on the posted terms, but there's only so much tolerance a judge would have for that kind of defense by the store - after all, it's very likely that the customer would have an unjust enrichment claim against the store for the amount of the overcharge if they were to pay the illegal higher price, and that wouldn't be true if the illegal contract term were valid.

The precise answer may vary by state based on judicial precedents about illegal terms in contractual counteroffers following an offer to buy made pursuant to an invitation to treat.

None of this is practical for almost any chain dollar store overpricing victim to pursue, but I am just talking theoretically here.

7. LorenPechtel ◴[] No.46186550[source]
Call the cops to come deal with someone threatening to make a false police report about you.