Rye supermarket sorryfor overcharging shopper

Lesley Taylor, of Ropewalk, wanted to take advantage of special offers when she shopped at the Station Approach store on May 20.

She said: “I purchased 10 items, two of which had promotional offers on them and huge signs advertising these promotions.

I rarely check my receipts but one of the promotions was extremely good value and I particularly wanted to show this to my daughter and so kept and checked the receipt.

“I found that this item had actually been charged at the full price despite the big campaign within the store. I then decided to check the entire receipt of 10 items another one of which had not been charged correctly.

This has happened to me previously but for smaller sums and I just could not be bothered to go all the way back and make a fuss about a few pence. This time the overcharge was £4.23 on a bill of £7.44!

“I returned to the store and the manager was very apologetic and polite and refunded immediately. No complaints with him or his service at all.

“I am, though, seriously concerned that promotions are being shown in the store but not coming through at the till when payment is made. I went into the store at 4pm and I cannot believe I was the first person to make these same purchases given the advertising of these special offers. That means that many shoppers could have been duped into receiving a bargain offer but actually paid the full price of the item

There has been a big promotion within this store with a promotion called price checker where Jempsons/Budgens say that they match or are lower on price than the big supermarkets, but are they? If the promotions are only advertised but do not go though at the till this is a false claim.

“Mistakes do happen but this is not the first time and once it has been drawn to their attention, it should never happen again. I shall always check my receipts now and suggest that everyone else who shops there does so.”

Stephen Jempson said the error was a one-off blip.

He said: “We can confirm that there was an overcharge but it was the only one, every other transaction for those two products went through at the correct price.

“We have been supplied with the audit for both these lines and can confirm that this is so. These can be provided if requested.

“We apologise for the error, the down load came from head office at 14.45. The customer purchase was at 14.50 and it was corrected immediately afterwards as the next transaction went through at 15.39 at the correct price.

“It is disappointing when things like this happen as we are continuing to strive to bring special additional promotions to our customers. We do have stringent controls in place where the store is regularly price checked.”