In October, CHOICE made a complaint to the ACCC regarding Coles pricing practices that we felt were against the law. Today we found out that thousands of consumers will now receive refunds due to dodgy pricing practices.
From the article:
“If CHOICE hadn’t picked up on this significant error, it’s possible thousands of people would still be out of pocket without even realising.”
“CHOICE will continue to call out retailers who do the wrong thing by consumers, and other supermarkets should be on notice that they will not get away with any kind of bad behaviour,” says Kelly.
Still more work to be done, but this is a good win for consumers! If you shop at Coles and notice confusing or unfair pricing, please drop a comment below.
I confess I have not noticed but I don’t look for it. Perhaps I will from now on. The thing I have noticed in comparing online shopping between Coles and Woolworths, is that when you buy items which are priced by weight, Woolies will go under the weight or bang on, rather than over it, but Coles always goes over. The result being that one often gets a refund from Woolworths, but never from Coles… and most times there is an increase applied to your final cost.
It is a very shonky practice and could easily win a Shonky in itself. The misleading practices of Coles is a very different issue to the decision Choice made to issue them a shonky this year. Possibly Coles qualifies more for a 2024 Shonky with this practice.
Coles has been successful with its ‘Down, down, down’ marketing strategy. Now the are silent with the sly ‘Up up, up’ practices.
I wonder how Coles plans to compensate those which were misled. Not every shopper uses Flybuys where impacted shoppers can be easily identified.
Looks like there is an opening for a new consumer product -“Trolley Cam”. Take it with you to the supermarket and clip it to your choice of trolley. Use it to record as you go the shelf labels of all your purchases, a pack shot or two, and finally record a copy of the shopping docket after check out.
Todays AI should be able to provide an add on App to reconcile pricing errors, checkout failings, and over time shrinkflation. It might also offer real-time advice on certain choices to suggest they are cheaper at Aldi, or to select a different size or brand for better value. For those with personal needs to lower carbs, less sugar etc, an add on that speaks loudly in your GP’s least consoling voice might also respond when a choice is not so smart.
We’re all very busy people. Way waste time in the aisles trying to read all the packet fine print to help make a better choice.
P.S.
I’m with @phb wondering how Coles customers who cannot be identified need to proceed. We don’t all keep shopping dockets for many months. Some don’t take a docket. Although supposedly the store can recover a purchase if paid by card if you provide the card details.
Is there a list of the 20+ products the ACCC identified? It might help those who do not use flybuys decide if they can make a claim.
There are details of the relevant items and dates listed on the Coles website. For some reason Choice has not considered this information to be important when reporting on the issue
This is a problem. Hopefully if a customer carrying evidence that they needed a pregnancy test kit after September 20th will receive a refund without having to produce a receipt.
