"The nickel-and-diming of Illinois shoppers by inaccurate price scanners must end"

CHICAGO - Saturday, Lt. Governor Pat Quinn urged the Illinois General Assembly to pass the Retail Consumer Protection Act of 2006.  Quinn was joined by a Des Plaines shopper who was recently charged more than $100 for two tomatoes by an inaccurate price scanner.

 

            Bob Hinde knows an overcharge when he sees one.  Before he retired he was a retail price inspector for the city of Des Plaines.  So it's no surprise he noticed when he was overcharged at the cash register three times in the last three months.  But the last time was hard not to notice.  Hinde was charged $102.13 for two tomatoes.

 

            "No Illinois shopper should have to go through the checkout line wondering if the store's price scanners are on the square," said Quinn.  "That's why we have introduced the Retail Consumer Protection Act - to curb the nickel-and-diming of Illinois consumers by inaccurate price scanners."

 

            The Retail Consumer Protection Act will include stiff fines and store-by-store accountability to ensure retail chains like Wal-Mart and drugstore chains like Walgreens, Osco, and CVS eliminate scanner pricing errors and stop charging customers more at the checkout counter than the price advertised in the aisles.

 

            A recent study by the University of Illinois at Chicago of 78 Wal-Mart stores in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan found that 85 percent of Wal-Mart stores tested demonstrated errors in pricing that exceeded federally accepted standards for large retail establishments.  And checkout scanners rang up the wrong price 6.4 percent of the time. 

 

            A 2004 study by the Chicago Department of Consumer Services found 78 percent of the city drugstores, including Walgreens, Osco, and CVS, were overcharging customers with price-scanner errors.  The overcharge uncovered in the probe ranged from nickels to $35.

 

            While most consumers don't have the overcharging experience of Hinde and his tomatoes, customers around the country collectively pay billions in overcharges each year.  Incorrect shelf price, confusing signs, and computer errors are the most common reasons for price-scanner overcharges.

 

            Modeled on a California law and court settlement, the Retail Consumer Protection Act will propose state fines of up to $5,000 per price-scanner overcharge incident.  The consumer law would require every store to name one employee to verify that shelf and checkout prices match, and would boost public awareness of a toll-free hotline by requiring stores to print the number on receipts and post it at checkouts.  Further, if a customer alerts a store to an overcharge, the store would give the customer up to $3 per item.

 

            "A toll-free hotline would enable any Illinois consumer victimized by this shell game to report it and gain satisfaction," said Quinn.  "And any retail employee could anonymously blow the whistle on such rip-offs and be rewarded.  It should not be the consumer that pays when prices are wrong."

 

                                           For more information visit: www.StandingUpForIllinois.com