What’s red and white and jolly all over? If you’re thinking Santa Claus or “a ticklish candy cane” you would be right, but the real culprit is our friendly, Proctor neighborhood Safeway. Why is Safeway so jolly? Because it’s literally stealing our money on every purchase.
Now, I don’t use the word “literally” lightly. (I also don’t use “it’s” lightly either, ever since a prickly incident at the Squahomish Spelling Bee of 2002 – but that’s another story.)
Just to be clear, I mean that Safeway is marking products on sale in the store and then slyly (or consistently accidentally) charging full price at the register. Advertising one price and then charging another is stealing.
As near as I can figure out, the on-going theft either operates on a mechanism of laziness, poor planning or vile, diabolical Grinch-like villainy (take your pick). You see, when an item is marked down in the store two things must happen: A beautiful yellow Safeway Member Discount sign must go up, and then the computer system must be updated accordingly.
This second part is particularly important so that when Grandma Ethel sees that cough medicine is on sale for only $3.99, the clerk doesn’t ring it up as $8.49. What with Grandma Ethel’s weak hip and the general belief that young people are usually right about most things, she won’t argue about (or even notice) the price inflation and – BAM! Theft occurs!
Safeway is currently doing a stellar job with the Part One of the operation. Sale signs throughout the store are large and yellow with thick black letters and sometimes I just want to take a few home and hang them around my house to act as party conversation starters. (“Why yes, I am a Club Member…so nice of you to notice.”)
But when it comes to Part Two of Operation: Put-Items-On-Sale-And-Charge-People-Fairly, Safeway is dragging its feet. Firstly, there is a seriously clumsy procedural problem: Most sales for the week are posted Tuesday night around 10:00 p.m., but the computer system is not updated until 2:00 a.m. Wednesday. This means that there is a four-hour window of 100 percent error on all items marked on sale!
But even after the system is updated, the person in charge of updating the system is – either by accident (it’s done late at night after all) or by the sinister design of store managers – neglecting to include a significant number of discounted products such as cereal and milk (the two products I purchase all the time, and which frequently are “marked down”).
Mind you, the thievery has very little stamina or follow-through. If you walk the reluctant clerk back to the sale sign—prepare yourself for a few sighs, rolled eyes, or a phone number if some flirting occurs—then everything works out fine. But I would imagine in the age of credit cards and apathetic college kids, nobody is really looking at the receipt.
If Safeway wants to inflate its prices because it knows it lives in a rich neighborhood across the road from a rich competitor, that’s its business. But advertising low and selling high is wrong. I’m tired of having to jump through hoops to pay the actual price of a product.
So Puget Sound students, I implore you: Check your receipt! Safeway is already getting enough of our money as it is; they really don’t need a tip.