[hippo22]

Unfortunately, this type of conflict can only be adjudicated by courts, which low-income people don't have the time and money for. You couldn't just walk out of the store with the items. You'd need to either:

1. Buy the items and sue.

2. Take the items without paying, likely get the police called on you, and defend yourself in criminal and civil court.

[jefftk]

3. Point at the sign, which is posted at every register, and ask for your discount. If they say no you ask for the manager. I've done this several times, and never had an issue (but sometimes it takes a little while).

[jkaplowitz]

Theoretically there is a third option, stay in the store near the cash register and call the police to come deal with it on the spot before the purchase. The problem is that they probably won't bother coming, and if they do, they won't come quickly enough to make it worth waiting for them given the amount of money at stake.

Edit: Yeah, I did say before the purchase, but I should have said after the purchase when they pay the legally correct price but the store accuses them of shoplifting and tries to detain them. And I know it's often infeasibly hard to pay the legally correct price from a logistical perspective without the cashier's cooperator, especially if you want to pay with a card. It is clearly possible to put at least the right amount of cash on the counter, ask for the change, and attempt to leave if they refuse, but that doesn't guarantee ever getting the change. Anyway, I did list this option as (purely) theoretical and not as actually practical.

[jimnotgym]

Just refuse the price and walk out, closing the checkout lane while they put everything back on the shelf. Announce loudly what you are doing. Take some friends to do it in other checkout lanes

[almostgotcaught]

this is a tort not a criminal act - cops wouldn't/couldn't do anything.

[jkaplowitz]

In a lot of places in the US, the lower of the shelf price and the scanner price is by law the most they can demand, at least for retail sales to consumers. Attempts to stop the customer from leaving after having paid the legally appropriate amount would be criminal acts by the store, no?

[dawnerd]

Have you seen the cops here though? Good luck trying to argue it when they’re loving you up for “shoplifting”. They’re going to side with the store.

[jkaplowitz]

I did call it a theoretical option and not a practical option. Although they might be a little more sympathetic to someone who is white, in a business suit, has a photo of the shelf price on their phone, can confirm that a surveillance camera captured them paying the shelf price, and is lucky enough to either get a cop who knows about the local price accuracy law or can point the cop to a visible posted sign about the law in the store.

[gruez]

Not to mention that cops only have powers to arrest/issue tickets, not to adjudicate disputes. This isn't Judge Dredd where cops can mete out judgements as they see fit. That's the whole reason why we have courts and judges.

[jkaplowitz]

It's not about adjudicating disputes in an arbitrary sense, it's about enforcing consumer protection laws about prices displayed and then charged at retail. Many places legislate that the lower of shelf or scanner price be the maximum price charged.

[gruez]

>It's not about adjudicating disputes in an arbitrary sense, it's about enforcing consumer protection laws about prices displayed and then charged at retail.

This is a fundamental misunderstanding of how the legal system works, at least for common law ones. When cops "enforce" the law, like arresting someone or towing a car, they're only allowed to do it because there's some immediate need. In the former case, it's because having a criminal roaming around the streets is a danger to society, and in the latter case because the car is blocking traffic and needs to be removed. In both cases you still need a judge to ruled that the person actually shoplifted or parked illegally. None of these factors apply in a dispute over pricing, and it's not the police's job to strongarm the shopkeeper to accept the lower-marked price. Indeed, in the two examples, there are often cases where no actions are taken at all, for instance issuing a summons instead of arresting someone, or issuing a ticket instead of towing a car.

[jkaplowitz]

> When cops "enforce" the law, like arresting someone or towing a car, they're only allowed to do it because there's some immediate need.

Not at all true. They can enforce the law because there's a law being violated, not because there's an immediate need for the enforcement.

> In the former case, it's because having a criminal roaming around the streets is a danger to society, and in the latter case because the car is blocking traffic and needs to be removed.

There are so many cases where cops can arrest someone who isn't being a danger to society in any way, like someone who illegally crossed the border into the US (a criminal misdemeanor) and is otherwise fully law-abiding. Or for an example under state law, a cop arresting someone who is intentionally underpaying state income tax (criminal tax evasion) has no immediate need to take that person into custody before conviction but is 100% allowed to do so if probable cause exists, at least until the initial bail hearing.

> In both cases you still need a judge to ruled that the person actually shoplifted or parked illegally.

Not before a cop gets involved, no. The judge comes after the cop.

> None of these factors apply in a dispute over pricing, and it's not the police's job to strongarm the shopkeeper to accept the lower-marked price. Indeed, in the two examples, there are often cases where no actions are taken at all, for instance issuing a summons instead of arresting someone, or issuing a ticket instead of towing a car.

This has nothing to do with strongarming the shopkeeper to accept a lower-marked price in the sense of an ordinary pricing dispute between private parties, it's about enforcing state or local laws that regulate this in cases where a shop is violating applicable laws.

It is true that many of these laws only allow administrative fines in response to complaints or inspections, not anything as proactive as I was describing. The theoretical viability of my idea of simply leaving with the item after paying the legal maximum price at the cash register and involving the cops if stopped actually depends on state contract law, and likely specifically its judicial precedents: if that state would view the buyer's offer to buy at the shelf price as accepted on the terms of the store's invitation to treat since the counteroffer from the cash register's scanner was illegal, then title transfers to the buyer at the time of payment and an attempt to stop them from leaving would be a crime that the cops could in theory be called for. If the state would view the buyer's offer to buy be rejected even though the counteroffer was itself illegal, then yeah the only available enforcement is the administrative complaint / inspection / fine procedure and the buyer never gains title to the property. I expect this legal conclusion would vary from one state to another.

I think we all agree that this theoretical option is very rarely practical, and I'm not pretending otherwise.

[sejje]

Call the police to come deal with...mispriced items? That's not the job of police, sorry. Not in the US anyway.

[jkaplowitz]

Call the police to stop a store from criminally restraining the freedom of a customer to leave with their purchase after the customer pays the legally mandated maximum price which is often the lower of shelf and scanner price, yes. That's not going to be a high enforcement priority for the police, but it's absolutely a crime if the store does that.

[gruez]

>Call the police to stop a store from criminally restraining the freedom of a customer [...]

Realistically no store is going chase after the customer for that, but that doesn't mean the average shopper is going to risk arrest/banned (for what the store essentially sees as shoplifting) to send a $2 message over the price difference. And all of this assumes your novel legal theory is actually correct.

[jkaplowitz]

It's not a novel legal theory, But yeah, I did call it a theoretical option, not a practical one. I don't pretend that it's practical.

[gruez]

Your original idea of "paying the marked (lower) price, walking away, even if the cashier corrected you with the higher price" certainly is novel. Otherwise can you link any sort of judicial ruling or even a random lawyer that agrees with you?Otherwise this looks suspiciously similar to all the spurious legal theories that sovereign citizens have, about how they don't need a drivers license because they're "traveling" or whatever.

[LorenPechtel]

Call the cops to come deal with someone threatening to make a false police report about you.

[JumpCrisscross]

> this type of conflict can only be adjudicated by courts, which low-income people don't have the time and money for

Massachusetts has a strong consumer arm at its AGO [1] and consumer regulator [2].

The problem is less one of cost of litigation than education about available options. (And the time to pursue them.)

[1] https://www.mass.gov/how-to/file-a-consumer-complaint

[2] https://www.mass.gov/orgs/office-of-consumer-affairs-and-bus...

[michaelmrose]

If you walk out and it goes to court you will surely lose. You may have started with the right to get it for nothing but you cannot realize that right by force. Self-help is almost always illegal in any case of disagreement between parties.

[mynameismon]

Yeah, but someone living paycheck-to-paycheck and shopping at dollar stores is likely not someone who can afford filing a lawsuit.

[bombcar]

If it’s common enough it sounds like it could be some fun pastime for lawyers.

[mschuster91]

> Unfortunately, this type of conflict can only be adjudicated by courts, which low-income people don't have the time and money for.

Here in Europe, we have consumer protection agencies. Get wronged? Shoot them off an email and they'll take care of it. And overcharging at the cash register? That gets handled by the responsible authorities. Again, call them, tell them what happened and it can get real messy real fast.

[js2]

I was having trouble getting Verizon to unlock an iPhone that had been purchased (not financed) from Best Buy and that had been on Verizon's network for more than two years. Verizon support said only BB could unlock it[^1]. I thought that was poppycock. I filled out a form on the FCC's web site just before midnight. By 8 AM, the FCC had forwarded the complaint to Verizon. By 9 AM Verizon executive relations called me. 30 minutes later the phone was unlocked.

Which is all to say, for some things, the US also has consumer protection and it's great when it works.

[^1]: Apparently only Apple sells unlocked iPhones. iPhones purchased at other retailers carrier-lock themselves at activation. At least on Verizon they're supposed to automatically unlock after 60 days. When that doesn't happen, you get stuck in Verizon's mindless customer support swamp[^2,^3].

[^2]: https://old.reddit.com/r/Bestbuy/comments/17ae8l2/verizon_sa...

[^3]: https://old.reddit.com/r/Bestbuy/comments/1buemp5/why_is_it_...

[LorenPechtel]

Yeah, I've had a similar experience with a phone company trying to hold a number hostage. Yes, the bill was unpaid, but I was not the one liable. (My phone on a company account, the company was going under.) Letter to the regulators, very promptly fixed.

[raw_anon_1111]

I bet you didn’t try that this year when every single part of the federal government is actively trying to harm people.

[zdragnar]

We have such agencies over here as well. Most states have some sort of weights and measures agency that handles inaccurate price scanning complaints.

I can't say how effective they are at remediating small figure issues, but no company wants to hear from them regardless.

[venturecruelty]

We have those agencies as well. They've been steadily gutted since their inception, and the courts (well, the Court) don't care.

[zeroonetwothree]

You may be referring to the CFPB but states tend to have their own agencies that have nothing to do with SCOTUS or the federal government.

[venturecruelty]

And yet, here we are, with the terrible state of affairs for consumers.

[gnulinux]

You live in Massachusetts and speak from experience? Because this law seems to work quite well in MA as it's a particularly popular law.