Did I screw this guy?

[LJ-MosinFreak-Buck]

I like my gunshop. It has the tax and shipping disclaimers at the door:

BUYER RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY UNEXPECTED COSTS FROM RISING INFLATION/SHIPPING FEES.

It's fine, and this is how he works.
You pay the price of the gun, say 150, and anything over 150 he adds $10.85 tax to, and that's the price you pay if it is in the shop. It's a small shop, so I'm not too worried. I like the guy, and every now and then he throws some awesome deals in, like when I bought my mosin, he gave me a 250 round can on strippers for free. I was walking out the door and he goes wait a minute. Yeah? I said. He goes into the back room and gives the ammo to me. i'm paying for this, I told him, and he says no. I argue with him for about twenty minutes and he is bent on giving me the stuff. So I take it.

Point is, when you go in there and see a price, expect 10.85 and additional shipping fees if required and that's it.

 

[Pilot]

Well, the question is, was it worth burning the bridge?

What? Why would he want to do business with someone who attempted to use unfair business practices? They deserve to be reported to the BBB for misrepresentation. Prices marked should be prices paid. If they intended to get more for that stuff they should have repriced the merchandise.

The store owner is incompetent.

 

[WayneConrad]

Janitor, You're quite right. My mistake.

 

[Wopasaurus]

What is the name of the shop? And where is it?

I don't blame you for doing what you did. Where I work, if something is inappropriately marked, we have to sell it for that price.

Almost every day we are updating prices on merchandise, it's called working in retail. It was his loss. Of all the people here saying that you didn't take the high road by just walking away, I say the owner didn't take the high road by honoring his self-advertised prices. So let him take the hit, maybe he'll be more conscientious about his own business in the future.

 

[Janitor]

Dang ...

Janitor, You're quite right.

Now there's something I don't get to see very often.

To tell the truth, as much as I already disliked that shop simply from the story itself, that parting comment that bothered you would be enough on it's own to make me never go back. That, and warn all friends about the place. No excuse for that kind of comment.

 

[Tribal]

It may not be honorable (although sometimes it may simply be a mistake), but a store isn't under any legal obligation to honor prices on mismarked items. I'm afraid I have to disagree with leadcounsel, though: In this situation, having the item on the shelf with a marked price is an advertisement, not an offer. The offer is you taking the item and saying you'll pay $X (the marked price) for it. Acceptance is them ringing you up at that price. Consideration might only be relevant if he'd rung you up but changed his mind before taking your money, but isn't all that relevant if he ended up completing the sale. At any point before ringing you up, the store can decline to sell you the item at the price (they can also let you know that the item is on sale even when not marked as such, and you've probably had that happen before). Obviously they can't discriminate in certain ways, and if this is part of a general practice of bait-and-switch then the BBB will come down on them, but one-off instances like this are just the way things are.

I'd say to never go back to the store and to warn your friends about it, too.

IANAL: This is not legal advice

 

[learn2shoot]

I don't think so - It seems that he was too lazy to update prices. Had you said it was marked $1 and rang up $10 that might be different (simple decimal error)

 

[poker88]

You did not screw that guy and I hope you never shop there again. They don't deserve your business.

 

[Lashlarue]

So the stuff sits there another twenty years, can you imagine how many times he could have turned over merchandiise that would have sold with that $40. Stupid is as stupid does!

 

[Jolly Rogers]

Tribal...The BBB has no power in a legal arena to influence a business. They only can negotiate a resolution. The state retail control board that licences the business will be thrilled to hear of a situation that entials a marked item for sale that won't be honored at the register. Whatever the govt department is called where the store is situated, that state agency has the real power.
Joe

 

[rdalrymple]

Ash said "Well, the question is, was it worth burning the bridge?"

This is a valid question. I probably would not have burned the bridge. I probably would have returned the product to the shelf and left the store.

XDKingslayer said "In my opinion, yes.

It's worth burning that bridge because this obviously isn't a place to return to."

This is the winner, in my opinion. But, I wouldn't have known that this isn't a place I want to shop, because I would have likely avoided the conflict. You chose not to avoid it, and as a result you learned a valuable lesson about the character of the owners and employees of this store.

I manage a small family owned retail business. It's not firearm related, but is a specialty business. Our policy is simple. If the price is marked on the item, that's the price you pay, plus sales tax of course. Have we lost money on an item because our failure to update a marked price caused us to have to sell at a loss? Certainly. But we haven't lost a customer because of it.

In a specialty business, repeat customers are common, and very much necessary.

Ash said "Well, the question is, was it worth burning the bridge?"

From the customer standpoint, yes. From the business owner standpoint, a resounding no!

 

[Zundfolge]

Gee, this never happens to me when I buy ammo at Walmart (or another big box retailer)

 

[Eric F]

This sort of thing happens all the time every where. In all kinds of stores. In this case it would have been nice if the conflicting parties could have reached a resolution with out an arguement, Alas not everyone can get along with everyone.

Some localities I have heard have laws stating you must sell at what is on the price tag.

 

[romma]

Good Job!

 

[AZAndy]

I doubt that Arizona is the only state with a "Weights and Measures" agency that enforces pricing laws. The original poster's (and my birth state) of Ohio undoubtedly has some such, too.

In Arizona, the W&M people go into retail stores at random and check that everything has a price and that items are either scanned or rung up correctly. Heavy fines can result from infractions. The biggest offender, year after year, by the way, is Wal-Mart. ;-)

If a candy bar gets mis-tagged at $0.10, then that's what the store has to sell it for.

Similarly, when a gas station raises prices, they change it on the sign before they change it at the pump. Back in the old days, when it would occasionally go down, the reverse was the method of handling it.

 

[Cougfan2]

I didn't have to even read the responses. It's not your fault that this guy has shoddy business practices. You did nothing wrong.

 

[Mainsail]

No, you did not screw the guy.

That was unacceptably rude behavior from the shop owner, but may be indicative of his current financial situation. He may well have been a jerk, but he may also be struggling to keep the shop open. Your single purchase wasn’t going to make or break his business but he subjected you to the ‘big picture’ of his impending failure out of frustration. Mom and Pop gun stores were never big money makers, and with the economy such as it is today it has to be difficult to keep the door open. Most people will cut things like ammo and gun purchases out of their budget when they’re trying to stretch their paycheck to the end of the month.

He was wrong and you were perfectly in the right to expect to pay the posted price, however, please consider returning after a couple days to speak to the owner. Discuss the encounter with him, maybe he was paying bills in the back and took out his panic/frustration on you. Put yourself in his shoes, he’s got a great job (working with guns and stuff!) that could go away, and he has a family to support. If you open a dialog and he’s still the same jerk he was before, wash your hands of him and his shop and don’t return until he has his going out of business clearance sale. If he seems apologetic, see what you can do to spread the word around about his shop. This internet thing works both ways, we can bitch about a business and hurt them, or we can put the word on the street and help them out. We all have bad days and I can easily forgive a guy for being a butthead if it was an isolated incident.

 

[peyton]

I have to say, you did right. Now the owner should of had the prices right to begin with.

 

[hrgrisso]

Ironic

I'm with the earlier suggestion. Go back and buy any other things they've been to lazy to update! Remember your doing them a favor - clearing out unmoving merchandise like that! Take back your hand cart and all your buddies too!

A business has the right to change prices with regards to what it will cost them to replace it. However if the items aren't moving why replace them? And when a potential customer brings merchandise to the register that IS NOT THE TIME TO DO SO!

So again your helping them!

For a small business that has an inventory of maybe 10k items there is NO EXCUSE to not keep inventory prices up to date. Their loss! If they can't handle inventory they shouldn't be in business!

 

[SG1]

The argument over the price was bad enough. But the comment the guy made as you were leaving would have been enough for me to never return. A shop owner cannot expect to treat people like that and still retain their business.

Any business owner should know better than to speak to a customer like that, or to allow an employee to speak to a customer like that. That's bad business. I don't want to spend my hard earned money in a place like that.

As a matter of fact, if I were in that store, at that time, and heard them talk to YOU like that, I would have left. I wouldn't have hesitated to tell them why I'm leaving either.

 

[Dain Bramage]

Some bridges need burning.

 

[Bazooka Joe71]

Some bridges need burning.

As I am walking out the guy hollers, Have a nice day, sir, hope your gun blows up in your f#*^%#ing face.

And I'd say this is a prime example of that.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

You didn't screw the guy, he's an idiot who screwed himself.

Dunno about your state, but in my state there's a law that clearly says the price marked OR the current selling price, whichever is lower, is what the customer pays. Stores can't have merchandise marked with a price and then try to raise the price at the register.

 

[HB]

I'd say try to return the bullets for current market value

You did the right thing but never go back to the store.

HB

 

[SuperNaut]

Laziness is always expensive in the end, maybe you taught the guy a lesson. As far as his parting comment is concerned; I wouldn't let a comment like that stand. But, I can be pretty vindictive sometimes, it's a fault.