Food Lion Deception
Food Lion is a grocery store chain with a couple of stores in South Boston. It appears to me they were deceptive with this advertisement. This is a copy of the eMail I sent them. It is pretty self explanatory. Is there a possibility I misread the ad, and am wrong?
COPY OF EMAIL TO FOOD LION:
Reference your Food Lion advertisement in The Gazette-Virginian for the Week of 02/14/07 thru 02/20/07. I assume you don't open attachments to eMail, so this is a link to a scan of your advertisement at photobucket:
My wife went to both of the Food Lion stores in South Boston, Virginia this morning and was charged $9.96 for four 12 packs of Pepsi. She showed the advertisement to the cashier at store number 0744 and told her she thought she should have been charged $5.98. This is a link to a scan of the sales slip at photobucket:
The cashier told my wife she thought the ad was misleading, but the Pepsi was $4.99 per 12 pack.
Then my wife went to store number 0548 and showed the advertisement to the store manager and asked him if it was correct. He told her Food Lion has never had Pepsi at $2.99 per 12 pack.
I contend that a misleading advertisement is an advertisement which contains true information but can be easily misinterpreted by a reasonable person. A FALSE ADVERTISEMENT is an advertisement which is false. I contend this is a FALSE advertisement.
Now, I'll admit $2.99 per 12 pack would have been a pretty good price and the wife should have smelled a rat up front. I'll also admit that by today's standards, this is the low end of the scam spectrum. I'll probably recover financially in less than a year. In the meantime I have to live with a woman who came home from a special trip to town without the great bargain she went after.
I suggest that when for whatever reason your advertisement doesn't reflect what I have to pay at checkout, you put a poster or some other kind of announcement at the store entrance that the advertisement was a mistake and not valid and will not be honored.
Can you imagine our mutual embarrassment if I came into your store with only $3.00 in my pocket and tried to buy a 12 pack of Pepsi?
COPY OF EMAIL TO FOOD LION:
Reference your Food Lion advertisement in The Gazette-Virginian for the Week of 02/14/07 thru 02/20/07. I assume you don't open attachments to eMail, so this is a link to a scan of your advertisement at photobucket:
My wife went to both of the Food Lion stores in South Boston, Virginia this morning and was charged $9.96 for four 12 packs of Pepsi. She showed the advertisement to the cashier at store number 0744 and told her she thought she should have been charged $5.98. This is a link to a scan of the sales slip at photobucket:
The cashier told my wife she thought the ad was misleading, but the Pepsi was $4.99 per 12 pack.
Then my wife went to store number 0548 and showed the advertisement to the store manager and asked him if it was correct. He told her Food Lion has never had Pepsi at $2.99 per 12 pack.
I contend that a misleading advertisement is an advertisement which contains true information but can be easily misinterpreted by a reasonable person. A FALSE ADVERTISEMENT is an advertisement which is false. I contend this is a FALSE advertisement.
Now, I'll admit $2.99 per 12 pack would have been a pretty good price and the wife should have smelled a rat up front. I'll also admit that by today's standards, this is the low end of the scam spectrum. I'll probably recover financially in less than a year. In the meantime I have to live with a woman who came home from a special trip to town without the great bargain she went after.
I suggest that when for whatever reason your advertisement doesn't reflect what I have to pay at checkout, you put a poster or some other kind of announcement at the store entrance that the advertisement was a mistake and not valid and will not be honored.
Can you imagine our mutual embarrassment if I came into your store with only $3.00 in my pocket and tried to buy a 12 pack of Pepsi?
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quote:Originally posted by bobski
oh great...does that mean pigply wiggly's must go too?[:(]
and what the heck is a harris teeter anyway?[:D][:p]
Well....yeah. Piggly Wiggly as a name for a grocery store is about as funny sounding as "Food Fox" with a logo on the store of a big 'ol red, bushy tailed fox.......and......maybe have...the clerks pin fake bushy fox tails on.........and then..........wait a minute! I kinda like that idea.
Never mind.0 -
Looks fine to me.
Buy one, get one free.
Buy a second, get a second free.
Limit of two free 12 packs.
After that, $2.99 with card, regular retail price without card, whatever the regular price might be. That means the regular retail price is more than $2.99 to me.0 -
I think the fly in the ointment was when I looked at the ad, I ASS-U-MEd the "Regular Retail Price" was $2.99. Evidently the regular retail price is $4.99. That makes the price of a case of Pepsi $9.98. A little on the high side, but I guess it's within the bounds of reason. I'm downgrading my opinion of the ad from FALSE to MISLEADING.
Thanks to all.0 -
James, I don't see where the sales price of a 12 pack is noted. With this in mind, it would be my impression that if a 12 pack was shown as $4.99 and you took 4 12 packs, then you should expect to pay for 2 12 packs at $4.99 and get the other 2 12 packs free, as the ad does note a limit of 2 free. Total cost of the 4 12 packs would be 2 X $4.99 = $9.98. I also take it that had you bought more 12 packs they could have been had at $2.99 each if you had the MVP card, and if not they would cost the $4.99.
For sure, the ad appears to trick people into believing that the 12 pack is being sold at $2.99, since when one looks at an ad, they normally, as you note, assume that's the cost for one, in this case, 1 12 pack.0 -
Food Lion was run out of Texas. Now you know why![^] 0 -
Who the hell in their right mind drinks Pepsi? 0 -
I don't think any of us have claimed to be in our right minds. Matter of fact, if I were smart enough not to drink Pepsi, I'd probably have been smart enough to understand the advertisement in the first place. [;)] It's a pitiful state of affairs when you need a lawyer to decipher a grocery store flyer for you. That thing reads like it could have been written by Moscow Bill.
I splained the advertisement to the wife the way some of you splained it to me, and doggoned if she didn't go back today and buy four more 12 packs. She said $5.00 a case was about as good as she could do nowadays. [:D]0 -
$4.99 a case is right at the military price, too. 0
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