A Loblaws customer in Toronto says they got tomatoes for free due to a pricing error, and now people are responding online to the discreet retail stipulation.
On Monday, a Reddit user said that Loblaws at Queen and Portland Streets was offering free Tomatoes due to a scanning mistake.
“The most useful thing I learned from this site is that if an item is ringed up at a higher price than what’s posted, you get that item for free. And tonight, Loblaws delivered,” the user wrote.
Since the post was shared, more than 60 people have commented either not knowing about the rule or elaborating on it.
Now Toronto reached out to Loblaws and the grocery chain confirmed that it does adhere to those rules, laid out in Canada’s Scanner Price Accuracy Voluntary Code.
The code says customers who pick up mislabeled goods at participating grocery stores are entitled to receive them for free or at a reduced cost under certain conditions.
Charging more than the advertised price for an item violates Canada’s Competition Act, meaning when the scanned price of products without a price tag is higher than the advertised price, customers are entitled to take home the item for free if it costs less than $10.
If the correct price is more than $10 the store should provide a $10 reduction.
Retailers are not obliged to comply with the code, according to the Competition Bureau, but “scanner price accuracy is an important element of maintaining consumer confidence.”
The Retail Council of Canada (RCC) oversees the code, which evolved from the collaborative efforts of the RCC, the Neighbourhood Pharmacy Association of Canada and the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers (CFIG), the RCC website says.
According to the RCC, the purpose of the code is to demonstrate retailer commitment to scanner price accuracy, to provide retailers with a consistent national framework for dealing with scanner price accuracy issues, and to provide a streamlined mechanism for handling consumer redress in scanner price accuracy cases.
“The Code applies to all scanned Universal Product Code (UPC), bar coded, and or Price Look Up (PLU) merchandise sold in stores, with the exception of goods not easily accessible to the public (e.g. prescription drugs and behind-the-counter cosmetics), and individually price-ticketed items,” RCC’s website says.
