What would you do?

Here's the scenario:
Customer has been browsing through the older Bordeaux section of the temperature controlled wine room at a retailer a couple of times over a period of a few days. Always during the day when the more knowledgeable staff is working. Doesn't buy anything/doesn't ask any questions. He subsequently returns in the evening when the "beer and liquor guys" are on duty and walks up to the register with 2 bottles of 1982 Ch Lafite Rothschild (Retail cost over $1,000 ea.) The price tag is marred (customer may or may not have tampered with it) The clerk has to look it up in the computer. Well, the clerk grabbed the first Lafite listed and charged the customer ~$350. Customer pays with cash

What would you have done as customer (acknowledging that no one here would tamper with a price tag)? Would you accept the obvious pricing error? Call it to the clerks attention?

Is the retailer's management without fault here?

What would you do if the customer shows up in the store again?

Just curious.

Curious Wm.

...or you are a thief.

To me, it's easy, I would tell them. To not do so, assuming you knew of their error, is stealing.

Glenn

Hmmmmmm? Two scenarios:

1. Take them home, fill them into a magnum bottle, refill with corked Two Buck Chuck, and return them for a refund!

2. Since my wine-geekiness is not so extreme that I'd even consider laying down a grand for a bottle, I'd probably not find myself in that situation, but if I did, then honesty is the best policy. (He says destroying the last scintilla of Frank-Abagnale-Jr.-ness which he may have possessed.)

Greetings from a hotspot in Sacramento International Airport!

Well, customer should always tell if price is incorrect.

It does seem suspicious with reported sequence. Did customer say "hey, this tag is not readable, how much is this wine?" If he did and was told $350, I guess it's possible it was an honest mistake - just because you and I know what '82 Firsts cost, $350 is an awful lot of money. But overall it sounds planned.

I'd say that management is not without fault. Relying on bottle tags is pretty lazy these days. Not impressing on beer/liquor guys that vintage matters in fine wine is pretty stupid if they're going to be ringing up a bunch. And maybe you need cameras in the fine wine room (a video of a thumbnail going over a pricetag would be nice).

Sorry for the loss.

if intentional, let's hope it's corked!

The first thing I'd do, 'winger, is to take all employees aside, inform them of a potential scammer afoot, alert them to the nature of the scam and tell them that future errors of that sort are coming out of their paychecks. I'd also not discount collusion with an employee as the modus operandi.

Mark Hardass Lipton

The first thing I'd do, 'winger, is to take all employees aside, inform them of a potential scammer afoot, alert them to the nature of the scam and tell them that future errors of that sort are coming out of their paychecks. I'd also not discount collusion with an employee as the modus operandi.

Mark Hardass Lipton

Damn!! Those black helicopters strafing your lab again?
'Winger

As an amatuer Buddhist, I believe that stealing is wrong, but wine karma is sacred...even more so than golf karma.

That guy is in for it...

Couple of thoughts -- assuming the staff is considered reliable by management -- always a big assumption, of course.

I find it very odd that two labels would be marred -- that alone should set off alarm bells. I would look very carefully at the bar coding on all of the stock to see how easy it would be to alter or mar. I'm not up on bar code security, but I've seen an article in the Wall Street Journal recently on the subject. I'll dig it out, if it might be of interest.

I think you should also consider making the manual look up book user friendly. The first item should be the highest priced item -- not a lower priced item. That way if a mistake is made, it will be made in the store's favor, and you can be sure at this price point the customer will call it to the attention of the clerk. Sort by brand and then by price, highest price first.

It's up to management to find reliable employees and train employees to sell high priced items carefully. I'd fault management 100% in this case.

Regards, Bob

This sounds like a deliberate scam, so the guy is obviously a thief.

Something remotely similar actually occurred to me-although I was not scamming by any means. Brand new 2004 Chateau Gruaud Larose. No price tag on the bottle, nothing in the computer, and the SKU comes up wierd. $26. I offer to come back at a later time, but they say no...we'll just use the SKU price. meanwhile, there are four Vacaville Police Cars driving by in full siren and flashing lights mode, and a shoplifter/thief running down the sidewalk. It's 5 minutes before 9:00 p.m. So, they make the sale, and I get a great bargain

Of course, we are talking $23 between my price and retail, not several hundred bucks. My main point of guilt is opening up my darn yapper about it to the wine department manager. I don't know why I said something, as I might get the employees in trouble. So, I'm feeling major guilty about THAT.

I'd like to think that I would tell the truth, and correct the clerk. It's the right thing to do.

Just last weekend I was in the local market, and I was in the mood for a sparkler, but didn't want to break out anything from the cellar, so on a whim I decided to buy a Nicolas Feuillate NV - they had it priced at around $28.

When I got to the checkout counter, the clerk (one who is familiar to me and with whom I always joke around) scanned my other items, and when she got to the wine, she asked me, "do you know how much this is?" Without missing a beat, I replied, "three bucks" thinking she would surely know I was yanking her chain. Instead, she punched in three dollars and continued with my other items! "No, no, I was only kidding," I told her, and furnished her with the correct price.
I could have gotten it for three bucks, but I wouldn't have slept well that night.

I answered your question about who is at fault.

On the personal level, I have invariably brought what I thought were pricing errors to the clerk's attention. If they say the price is correct, it's one strike and I'm out of there with the wine.

It's never happened above $50 price points -- I'm pretty sure I would give the store a second chance at the price point you are describing -- particularly since I want the stores I shop at to stay in business.

If I did under pay so much for a wine, I hope the retailer would raise the issue with me when I returned to the store. Sometimes both sides of transaction make mistakes and I would want to make the error right.

If this is a scam, management should be sure all employees are on alert and do raise the issue if the customer returns. Also, it sounds like a number of people could describe this customer. Consider putting together a composite description and ask the local police if there are similar incidents in the area.

Regards, Bob

Good for you John. Stand up guy.

If I knew how much the bottle cost, I would have spoken up...otherwise it's stealing in my eyes. If they overcharged him, I am sure (if he knew how much it cost) he would have spoken up.

I agree with some others...sounds like a scam to me. That person sounds like a thief since you said he went in a few times and spoke to knowledgeable staff. That leads me to believe he had prior knowledge of the correct price and therefore he must have pulled some kind of scam or, if there was an honest mistake on the staff's part, then he should have been good enough to pay the correct amount (and is therefore a thief in my eyes).

On the personal level, I have invariably brought what I thought were pricing errors to the clerk's attention. If they say the price is correct, it's one strike and I'm out of there with the wine.

I agree with that. and would like to relate a couple of incidents that happened to me.

1. Clerk rang up a David Arthur Elevation 1147 for me a few years ago for $14.98. I asked politely if that was the correct price. I guess she thought I was giving her a hard time, and shot back a snotty/sarcastic "Yes, it is the correct price". Fine, I'll take it. I've almost justified this in my mind, but I'm not sure I'm totally comfortable on how I handled it.

2. I happened to stop in an out-of-state retailer's store who I had done a small bit of business with in the past. It was obvious the clerk was not a wine person, and none of the folks I usually dealt with were in the store. She offered to sell me a bottle of Ogier belle Helene Cote Rotie for the price of the regular bottling. I couldn't do it and when I arrived at home I made a call to the wine director at the store and told him about it. Result: A few days later a bottle of Belle Helene arrived unannounced on my doorstep.
Bill

"I've almost justified this in my mind, but I'm not sure I'm totally comfortable on how I handled it."

That used to happen quite a bit at the store the Chamber Street's folks worked at -- on the east side near Hunter College. I'm forgetting the name, but the Chamber Street folks and Robert Callahan and other New York wine geeks worked and shopped there.

The checkout folks were invariably nasty or preoccupied, and errors did occur in customer's favor. I'd ask the clerk to double check the prices in case of doubt -- and took whatever they charged as "correct".

We talked about this on WLDG a few years ago -- folks thought that since it happened so often that it was part of the store's marketing.

Like you, though, I didn't like the way I felt after leaving the store and stopped shopping there as soon as Chambers opened.

First, the idea that the clerk and customer are working the scam together should not be ignored. Deliberately undercharging a friend/partner-in-crime is a common retail scam.

Second, such a customer can (and probably should) be banned from the store, with the threat of prosecution for criminal trespass if he/she comes back. Anyone who browses the "Adult" section of a wine shop knows a ballpark figure of what the price should be. A $100 difference, and the customer may not have noticed, but $650+, come on!

Third, I always point out pricing errors in any type of store, unless it balances out other pricing errors against me that I didn't get refunded. However, there are cases where clerks are too lazy to get the right price even when the error is pointed out.

I was just at a wine store on Sunday getting a refund for two items where I was overcharged (the barcode stickers attached to both wines were for more expensive wines from the same producer). I pointed out to the clerk that because I purchased the item during a 15% off sale, he should take 15% off both the refunds and the correct purchase. Instead he just ignored me and refunded the full price of the wrong items and re-rang the full price of the correct items. At that point, the extra 15% refund is the store management's problem; I did my part. If they've decided it's better to suffer extra shrinkage than pay enough to hire competant staff, that's their choice.

All we know without any doubt is that the clerk charged the wrong price. Fix that and the problem goes away and so does this customer.
I am curious, though, if there were any other incidences like this in the area. That would be worth finding out and calling the police in to set something up, like a sting. After all - there's a warning that it's going to happen later in the day, after the guy shows up to do his research. What I'm not sure about is what the crime is, unless you catch him smudging the price tag.
Myself, I would have brought the error to the attention of the clerk. I generally am buying from the owner, too, and I would tell him as well.
JP

on the east side near Hunter College. I'm forgetting the name, but the Chamber Street folks and Robert Callahan and other New York wine geeks worked and shopped there.

Garnet?

1. I would assume the shop was a victim of a thief. I've been the victim of such a thief before. I've also apprehended such before, and had them arrested. It's pretty common, actually.

2. Unless there was a specific policy/procedure in place by management in how to handle this situation, you can't penalize the clerk. If management hasn't alerted and councelled on what to do in this instance, you can't very well punish anyone. I would however, take the opportunity to establish a clear policy/procedure, and I would also take the opportunity to take the clerk aside and explain using common sense and paying attention to the possibility of such scams.

If I was suspicious of said employee, and suspected him of being in collusion, I'd either watch him closely in the future, or plan on having him leave, realizing that he may be innocent of any wrongdoing and his departure is my fault for being a poor manager (thus motivating me to be a better manager in future).

Even in the most rudimentary pricing systems, it is very, very easy to set up a simple system to identify price tags that might be tampered with. For instance, in one store I supervised (years ago), when we used simple stick on price tags, for the special and high priced bottles I simply marked a yellow hi-liter mark across the price---that was the signal to the employee to pay special attention to be extra alert to the price point and to carefully check the item when ringing it up. I also had a print out of the entire inventory (with vintages and prices) on hand for the emplyees to check. If the clerk saw a bottle with a price point over a certain amount without a yellow hi-lite mark, they had to check the price (to help deal with sticker changing, another common tactic for thieves).

Wasn't foolproof, by any means, but it lessened the impat of theft, which is pretty much all you can do in retail.

What I'm not sure about is what the crime is, unless you catch him smudging the price tag.

Not quite right, Jon: you know exactly what the crime is. You might have a hard time proving it and prosecuting it, but you know what the crime is.

"Garnet?"

Garnet. Thanks.

Well...I have to confess that I did not know the proper price (and surfing the web doesn't help really determine a retail price). I had been talking about the wine with a manager-he showed me the unpriced bottle in the back of the store a couple of weeks later, and he hadn't priced it yet. I was eager to purchase it for my...COLLECTION , so I came back a week later and found it on the shelf.

I did offer to come back another time. The clerks were simply being both helpful (going the extra mile, actually, to make a purchase possible-despite the fact that the company "system" had broken down-no price tag, sku wrong AND no price in the computer inventory)

- and in a hurry (closing time + outside excitement from the "police activity.)

Simply a case of a system breaking down. I honestly thought I may have gotten a good deal by $5 or so-I was shocked two weeks later to see a $23 difference.