Supermarket giant Tesco short-changed customers after promotions advertised on shelves were not applied at the checkout, an undercover reporter for BBC’s Inside Out discovered.
The BBC visited 50 stores, and in 33 of these Tesco was still advertising promotions that had expired. The discounts were not applied at the tills, although if the shopper noticed and mentioned it to staff, it was applied.
However, not all stores removed the outdated labels from their shelves even after being informed about the discrepancies by reporters, with out-of-date labels still being on the shelves of some stores later on. In the worst example, one store in Birmingham repeatedly failed to remove expired labels for more than one month after the issue was first raised.
“The mistakes Tesco are making are ABC errors and it’s simply not good enough – what an insult for their loyal customers,” said Martin Lane, managing editor of Money.co.uk. “Shoppers shouldn’t need to, but unfortunately, they had better check their receipts because this could really add up over the year. “Tesco really has its work cut out to win back trust after this fiasco. The odds are beginning to stack against them, and with Aldi and Lidl snapping at their heels I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a further dip in their profits because of this.”
There are more than 3,500 Tesco stores in the UK, and the company will be re-evaluating the prices of every item at each store. The issue was only found to have occurred in-store, not online.