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devilbunnytoday at 12:48 PM4 repliesview on HN

I suspect this law does not apply in cases of fraud. If not, simple tag-switching would be rampant.


Replies

otterleytoday at 6:37 PM

There is, as you suspect, a carveout:

https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXV/Cha...

(i) ...if there is a discrepancy between the advertised price, the sticker price, the scanner price or the display price and the checkout price on any grocery item, a food store or a food department shall charge a consumer the lowest price. If the checkout price or scanner price is not the lowest price or does not reflect any qualifying discount, the seller: (i) shall not charge the consumer for 1 unit of the grocery item, if the lowest price is $10 or less; (ii) shall charge the consumer the lowest price less $10 for 1 unit of the grocery item, if the lowest price is more than $10; and (iii) shall charge the consumer the lowest price for any additional units of the grocery item. For the purposes of this subsection and unless the deputy director determines otherwise, individual items that differ only by color, flavor or scent shall be counted as the same item if they are identical in all other aspects, including price, brand, and may only vary in random weight. This subsection shall not apply if: (1) there is evidence of willful tampering; or (2) the discrepancy is a gross error, in that the lowest price is less than half of the checkout price and the seller, in the previous 30 days, did not intend to sell the grocery item at the lowest price.

drdectoday at 6:27 PM

They are talking about the price on the shelf vs the price at the register. The price tag on the shelf has information identifying the product. The price at the register is obviously associated to the bar code on the product. So there's no way for a consumer to swap price tags from one product to another.

Source - worked at a grocery store in Massachusetts as a teen

show 1 reply
bee_ridertoday at 6:04 PM

I dunno, having worked in retail I think it is just not that hard to steal in general (I wasn’t going to get killed over some bananas). Most people are honest most of the time.

The law probably doesn’t apply to fraud, but then the cashier only notices the really obvious cases.

rimunroetoday at 3:09 PM

The thing I was responding to was about pricing policy in general, but I would assume so