Supermarket responds after Reddit user’s warning about self-checkout overcharge — ‘Was annoyed that the total amount due on my supermarket purchase did not equate to the individual items I purchased.’

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 174 points – Woolworths shopper sparks frenzy with wild self-serve register overcharge claim
7news.com.au

Supermarket responds after Reddit user’s warning about self-checkout overcharge — ‘Was annoyed that the total amount due on my supermarket purchase did not equate to the individual items I purchased.’::‘Was annoyed that the amount due on my Woolies purchase did not equate to the individual items I purchased.’

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“We’ve looked into this transaction and can confirm that the total of $17.90 was correct, however the mango price of 80 cents each that appeared on the screen was incorrect due to a technical error — they were on clearance for $1.90 each,” the Woolworths spokesperson told 7NEWS.com.au.

“We understand why this customer was concerned and we apologise for the confusion caused. Our team resolved this with the customer in-store, providing the mangoes free of charge.

Seems pretty straightforward and had a good resolution.

But, what kind of software do they have that uses one price source for the unit pricing display and another source for calculating the total? It seems that it is destined to create more problems like this one.

POS software is right up there with vehicle infotainment systems when it comes to reliability and usability. They get the dregs of the programming world because decent coders have a way better selection of companies to work for.

Even when they get decent coders for the base code, feature creep eventually wrecks the system. I know someone who helped write the POS system used in Disney parks, and according to them the system they originally built didn't suck nearly as much as the system I used as a cast member, and it's the hastily tacked on bullshit (causing the initial competent team to quit) that ultimately broke it. That said, I do realize that most people will not admit to shipping shoddy code in the first place.

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IDK, that seems like a really reasonable question tbh.

I imagine there's code to do something like currency conversion or maybe rewards points calculation so the displayed amount is not actually the number used for the final total

Deductions should also appear as a line item though.

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Seems pretty straightforward and had a good resolution.

Well, except for when the Redditor went home and spread lies technically factual statements presented in a misleading manner and omitting key details with the apparent goal of damaging the reputation of the store despite being treated with kindness and fairness by the manager.

Lies? What lies? They went home and said “I found this situation annoying.” How is that a lie?…

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