Go paperless - Not!

[Dave2002]

A few days ago I went into a Tesco Express convenience store to buy some food for the next couple of days. I thought I'd selected some bargains - a couple of ready meals on a "2 for £x" offer, and a £10 meal deal. When I went to the till the assistant was helpful, and started checking things off, and I went off to get one more item. When I came back with a large bottle of water, she added that to the bill, and helped me bag everything up.

Then she said "Do you want a print out of the items, as you've not seen me do all this?" I said "Yes". I paid and started to leave, but then checked the bill more carefully. It had come to over £30 - a bit more than I was expecting.

I noticed that the £10 meal deal didn't look right, and I started to get a bit suspicious about the twofer deals too, so I went back and asked for help again. Neither of the deals had been applied.

In the case of the £10 meal deal, it turned out I'd missed one of the required items - I couldn't see much that I wanted, but i added a box of chips anyway. Some of the other customers had obviously met this before - telling me that "you have to have all the items in the deal, otherwise it'll cost you more" - in this case quite a lot more.

The problem with the twofer deals was that there were actually two different deals - one was 2 for £4, the other 2 for £6. I asked for the lower price item to be substituted for another £6 item. End result - I got more and more expensive food, and the bill came down to around £24.

So don't underestimate the power of paper, and always check if in any doubt. Being environmentally friendly, and not taking the receipt renders that much harder.

[MickyD]

This happens to me all the time in a well-known supermarket here in France. They have 2 for 3 deals on things such as a certain brand of soup. I found out afterwards from the cashier that you have to buy the SAME flavour of soup in order to qualify for the deal! How stupid and misleading is that?

[Serial_Apologist]

I had always used the rear side of my supermarket bills for shopping lists until the day when the paper roll began coming out with printing on both sides. So one day I pointed this out to the checkout girl, and she said, "Oh we can fix that", and proceeded to press a button on the till, whereupon about two metres of virgin paper roll snaked out, and she took her finger off the button, tore off the section and handed it me with a big smile; however I was not sure if she was making some kind of "point"!

[Dave2002]

I think too many people don't check the bills, or receipts, and sometimes this is perhaps known by and exploited by businesses. One restaurant we like and go to quite a lot seems slightly prone to this - not worth bothering too much, as the food is mostly very good. A few days ago we went again, with friends. They often arrive a bit before us, and have a few drinks. When the bill came, it seemed quite a lot, but our friends had agreed to pay, in return for the tickets we'd paid for for them. I glanced at the total, but since they were paying didn't worrry too much. Later I did a mental calculation, and I still feel that if the bill had been examined carefully that something would have been found which was either an error or an "extra" or duplicate item, even allowing for a few extra drinks. I think some people are scared to make a fuss, or don't want to be seen to be picky, and the establishments may "rely" on that.

I like the story of another friend who was out with someone else we both know - a respected mathematician. When they got to the till in the shop and the bill was presented he said - "No - that's not right."
The checkout lady said - "Ah - so you're one of those clever people who adds everything up, and knows what it should be."
"No", he replied, "but I kept a check of whether each item had an odd or an even number, and from that I was able to be sure that the bill is incorrect."

I think she must have given him a slightly odd look after that - maybe only maths enthusiasts will appreciate that.

[Bryn]

On several occasions, I have had to go to the customer services desk at various branches of Waitrose to queue up and get a refund on a wrongly billed item. I also make a point of alerting one of their partners to fairly frequent discrepancies between supposed 'reductions' on short-dated items and the lower on-going lower promotional price which applies to that item. I find this problem far more often in Waitrose than in either Tesco or Sainsbury. I should, however, mention that I an always thanked for bringing such discrepancies to their attention, and I still find Waitrose a far more economical shop in most instances, just so long as one is awake to which items are competitively priced and which are not.

[cloughie]

I don’t do pinless and I want a receipt for any card purchase. Old fashioned maybe but taht way there’s less chance of being diddled. I’m also very much against the move there seems to be towards not using cash.

[Bryn]

In Poundland, they now ask if you want a receipt. This despite the fact the one gets printed anyway but is thrown in a waste bin if not required by the customer.

[Mal]

In LIDL recently, the teenager ahead of me didn't have enough money to pay for what she was buying, and said, "I'll need to get some money from mum", the cashier said, "No problem", and just pushed the pieces to one side. After I paid, the bill seemed slightly higher than expected, but might have been right; without the paper receipt I would have let it go. But I checked the receipt and saw immediately that the teenager's items had been added to mine! There had seemed to be some rapport between the teenager buying and the teenager on the till and I did wonder if this was a scam, but I gave them the benefit of the doubt, and just quietly obtained a refund. I've visited Lidl twice since then and the receipt has come in useful both those times as well! And a few times previously...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Diversifying the discussion a little, we are encouraged to become "paperless", which is laudable in many ways, but digital magazines have only limited usefulness. I've been in correspondence with The Pianist magazine about their constant pressure to go paperless. In this instance, it's almost a non-starter. Each magazine contains approx. 40 pages of piano music, which is about half the content of the publication. In order to actually use this music, you have to either print it out, or buy a hugely expensive tablet, such as an iPad Pro. So far, their replies are a bit government responses to Brexit.

[Dave2002]

Diversifying the discussion a little, we are encouraged to become "paperless", which is laudable in many ways, but digital magazines have only limited usefulness. I've been in correspondence with The Pianist magazine about their constant pressure to go paperless. In this instance, it's almost a non-starter. Each magazine contains approx. 40 pages of piano music, which is about half the content of the publication. In order to actually use this music, you have to either print it out, or buy a hugely expensive tablet, such as an iPad Pro. So far, their replies are a bit government responses to Brexit.

I have an iPad Pro and I can assure you that for pieces which don't fit on one sheet of a4 - which is most piano music - that without some extra effort the iPad versions can be a real pain. I am now playing more regularly with small groups, and having to prepare the music beforehand for "page turns" is a real pain. I've seen professionals do this quite easily, but with a foot switch, and maybe they use special software to get it all to work. I have taken to putting pdfs into Papers or Pages, or sometimes into Photos - but it can be a right faff trying to sort things out in real time whilst sight reading and trying to play. Paper still has a lot of advantages.

[Bryn]

Waitrose (now questionably rebranded as Waitrose & Partners) is the most wasteful supermarket in terms of its receipts. The receipts are very long (even if buying one item), and printed on only one side. A comparative receipt from Tesco or Sainsbury's is about 25% the size.

On the Waitrose plus side:
(1) at least those with failing eye sight can better read what's printed
(2) with a Waitrose card a £10 or more spend (previously £5) gets you a free newspaper and you can always get a free coffee...which I don't as it tastes pretty foul to me!

Re. (2). remember, the price of both the Newspaper and the coffee may contribute towards the £10 spend. So only between £5 and £6 (depending on the price of the newspaper that day) need be contributed by the cost of other items.

[MrGongGong]

Waitrose (now questionably rebranded as Waitrose & Partners) is the most wasteful supermarket in terms of its receipts. The receipts are very long (even if buying one item), and printed on only one side. A comparative receipt from Tesco or Sainsbury's is about 25% the size.

On the Waitrose plus side:
(1) at least those with failing eye sight can better read what's printed
(2) with a Waitrose card a £10 or more spend (previously £5) gets you a free newspaper and you can always get a free coffee...which I don't as it tastes pretty foul to me!

I think there should be a law that makes EVERY company lay their receipts out in the same way
Only printed on one side
with the date in the same place
and so on

Which would save hours of eye strain when trying to sort out the accounts

[Old Grumpy]

Re. (2). remember, the price of both the Newspaper and the coffee may contribute towards the £10 spend. So only between £5 and £6 (depending on the price of the newspaper that day) need be contributed by the cost of other items.

In our local Waitrose (and Partners) you can go straight to the machine with your (now mandatory) own cup and get a coffee or tea...

... I do wonder how many people just turn up and help themselves without buying anything!

OG

[Bryn]

In our local Waitrose (and Partners) you can go straight to the machine with your (now mandatory) own cup and get a coffee or tea...

... I do wonder how many people just turn up and help themselves without buying anything!

OG

The clearly stated deal is that one must make a purchase (of any value) and only have one free coffee of tea per day. I have seen people trying to cheat the system challenged and turned away, the machines often being quite colse to the customer service counter.

[Dave2002]

I think there should be a law that makes EVERY company lay their receipts out in the same way
Only printed on one side ....
with the date in the same place ....

ABsolutely. I think there must be a great game for each company trying to hide the most important features of each receipt - the date, the location, the total amount. I cannot understand why the major features are not always in the same places.