Money Matters
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Store undercharged us, now wants us to pay the difference

I'm not a regular on this board but wondering if anyone can help me out here.  We just agreed to the purchase of a new mattress set.  The cost was $2250.  There was a promotion that gave us $250 off.  We purchased other add ons.  Set up financing.  Checked out.  Now today I get a call from the store that they took the discount off twice and need us to pay the extra $250 back.  I get human error and honestly we didn't notice the discrepancy when we checked out.  Morally, I feel like we should pay because the sales man gave us the right price, but the person that checked us out rang it up wrong.  Should we pay?  Do we legally have to pay?  Husband says that's their mistake and they need to eat it.  Thoughts?

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Re: Store undercharged us, now wants us to pay the difference

  • I think legally they should have to "eat it" as you said. But, what if that then comes out of the cashier's paycheck? Or, is this a small business and would you be hurting them? And, will you want to do business again there in the future? You would have had to pay this anyway had they done it correctly. I would pay it.
  • Yes, I would feel bad if it came out of the cashier's paycheck.  How would we ever know for sure though?  I doubt they would tell us, and the skeptic in me says they could lie about it anyway.  It is not a small business. Local, but not small.  Whether I would do business there again is uncertain and doubtful.  I don't tend to buy a lot of expensive furniture, except for things like this mattress that we will spend 1/3 of our life sleeping on.

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  • Probably depends on the state you live in.  But think of it this way - you have a mattress that you didn't pay in full for.  And when you were negotiating prices, they quoted you the correct price, which you agreed to pay.  You didn't pay it.  Even if the cashier rang it up wrong, the fact of the matter is you haven't paid in full for something you agreed to pay for.

    Not trying to be harsh, but I think it's wrong not to pay it.  Whenever I notice something like this on a receipt, I always go back into the store and let them know so that they can correct it.  Sometimes they correct it, most of the time they don't and "eat it."  But I feel that it's really up to the store.  Most of the time I see it at the cash register - major exception is the grocery store when I'm trying to load groceries while checking out. 

    Also?  I'm not sure how you could have missed a $250 discrepancy in the final price.  If you honestly didn't notice, then I would suggest taking a hard look at your finances and seeing if there's anything else like that you aren't noticing.  And let this be a lesson to watch people ring you up when you can.  Because $250 is a lot of money.  While this one might have played in your favor, I can tell you that over the years many sales people have tried to overcharge me for things or not follow their own sales, etc.  I have saved myself literally hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars by insisting that they charge me the price listed in the circular or on their sale sign.

    And finally... if none of these arguments are convincing to you, let's talk about reason #137 why it's a bad idea to finance furniture.  When you chose to set up financing you gave these people access to your credit report.  That means if you don't pay what you owe them, they can report this to the credit bureaus and tank your credit.  And reason #138: because you financed through a larger business as opposed to a smaller one, it's much more likely that they can afford to pursue collections against you if they decided to do that.  There are lawyers out there that do collections work in bulk, and your name might be added to the November list that lawyer receives from the mattress company.  For me, $250 is not worth risking either of those things.


    Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • I would go and have them prove to you (show the actual calculations) that the additional 250 is owed - .  If it really was an error on their part - then you owe it.
    And ditto - do NOT buy furniture and other items on credit (unless you can pay in full each month). SAVE First and then buy it cash.
  • You should pay it, they gave you discount twice so why shouldn't you pay?  If they hadn't applied the discount or if they had overcharged you - you'd be upset and contacting them so it goes both ways in my opinion.
  • I get what you're saying about financing.  It's a valid point about access to my report.  And I only buy on credit if it's interest free and we always pay it off before the accued interest would be charged. 

    When the salesman was selling us all the add ons the total came to around 2460. Which is what the final bill was.  I think what must happend is that he was giving us the price without tax, so when it rang up around the same amount we didnt notice.  That $250 discount was almost the same as the tax amount.  It is obvious on the bill that they undercharged us.  Just want to explain why we didn't notice when we check out.  Hope that makes sense. 

    Either way, my H is calling the store today to see what we have to do, if it will be charged to the financing or if we have to go in and use another form of payment.

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  • OK the tax thing makes sense - I can see how that might have caused you not to notice it.

    Still, I would pay it.  The more people you give access to your credit report, the more likely it is that something is going to get screwed up.  Even if you pay it off before interest accrues, I wouldn't want the dude at the financing department of the mattress store to have my social security number, KWIM?  
    Wedding Countdown Ticker
  • If it were me, I probably wouldn't pay it. In my business, we would never even dream of calling a customer back after a transaction closed to say that we made a mistake and now the customer needed to pay for it. How do they propose fixing it? You're going to nullify the original financing deal and sign a new one? Add another $250 loan to the deal? If you honestly didn't notice at the counter, then I wouldn't go out of my way to make up for their mistake. I'd just pay the $250 forward to someone else.
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