San Diego County Retailers Busted For Overcharging Customers

This is KPBS midday edition Maureen Cavanaugh. Suppose you bought in item price of $10 on the shelf in the register's gambit at $10.50. You may not even notice it but that kind of overtaking is happening in San Diego according to county a goal --. A list of stores found to be -- found to overcharge most frequently was compiled by my guest Lauryn Schroeder. Lauren welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Gathers together this data? County inspectors so they go out and inspect stores. They are required by law to inspect a certain store every 3.3 years. Their undercover right-click Yes they going in on amount -- on an ominously -- and anonymously. Random items from certain areas of the store, and it's not until the final amount of purchases is confirmed that they tell the cashier or supervisor that they are a county inspector and what the purpose is for. What constitutes overcharging? If the register price says it's only one cent above the price of the label is that overcharging? Yes that is considered an overcharge. That is interesting. How does that happen? Is it a one had not telling the other what they're doing in the stores? For the prices or labels not being updated? I think it's a little bit of both. It's a variety of things that can happen. A lot of it is human error. Someone that is in charge to going into the system and changing a price in saying that the item's best be on sale for week they accidentally change a different item or make it for six days instead of seven and that's what consumers would assume and they purchase the item and then discharge the full price instead of the sale price. How did you conduct your analysis of this data? What did you look at? I collected all inspections from 2012 to 2014 and I analyzed based on how many items were overcharged during that time as well as getting a rate by dividing that the total number of items that was purchased during each inspection. Seat to the bulk of the items that were looked at by the -- actually purchased by these County inspectors and then the percentage of those particular items that they did find to be overcharge correct? Which stores were the worst offenders. The number one with tears. That also included Sears outlet stores. They overcharge about 15.7% out of the hundred 97 items that were purchased by inspectors at that time. After that the list goes on to H&M, [ Indiscernible ] shoes, Brookstone caught target and so on. Apparently the county gets complaints from consumers have been overcharged and you included some of his comments in the report. Correct. Anyone that feels that they can't resolve the overcharging with the individual store or with the chain of that certain store they can file a complaint with the county and then we will follow. In addition to routine inspections we also had re-inspections and also inspections that resulted of a complaint. What have the stores set to you if anything or indeed have they made any public comment about these findings? I haven't heard back from a lot of their stores -- the stores that I contacted. Some of them said we tried very hard to make sure this doesn't happen. We make sure we have protocols in place to make sure that it doesn't happen that mostly they encourage a consumer to come forward if they have been overcharged. One of the comments is that a consumer did complain and came forward in the store and that she was charge $50 for a top that was finally marked for five dollars and she was apparently treated from her own rare -- memory of this particular incident not quite well. Unfortunately that can happen. A lot of stores will say well going to charge her with the prices but I feel that including stores, specifically, there is a human error in that effect as well where someone will pick up an item and then put it back when they realize they want something else and they may put that back in a place where it's not supposed to be. Okay. What are the consequences for the stores if they are found to be overcharging their customers. Stores can be find from 100 to thousand dollars based on the error in which the item was overcharged. The total data I pulled -- San Diego County stores have been find around $384,000. Really? That much? Have you found any store that were under charging? Yes. Under charging is also an issue. It happens less frequently than overcharging. I haven't looked at the top source for under charging but that is something I can look into. Yes, tell us all. [ laughter ] What the procedure for consumers if they have been overcharged? It gets sticky there because based on my interviews with retail analysis and also with the county supervisor of these inspections there really is not a simple way to avoid this. If you are buying 100 items you and I can remember the price of every single one. One of the main things they said if you have the slimmest idea that you are being overcharged on something they say to speak up. Tell the cashier cost supervisor and have them check it out. The last thing you want is you go home and you were overcharged on five items out of the hundred that you purchase. Was there any sort of idea or hint that this was deliberate? Not that I can tell. No I don't think so. I don't think any store wants to be known for overcharging their consumers because that looks bad in one of things that consumers can do to protect themselves is stop shopping. I any of it is intentional. Will kind of feedback have you gotten on this particular report? Has been a lot of feedback. A lot of consumers calling me or emailing me and saying I was overcharged at this store the store and you need to look into that. Most of it is people saying that they should be diligent about service checking their receipts. It's just a reminder to us all. Actually to take a look at the receipt is that of just throwing it away. Thank you very much for this. I've been speaking with San Diego Union Tribune reporter Laura Schroeder. You listen to KPBS midday.