How do supermarkets deceive customers? How do sellers deceive buyers? Counters at the cash registers
Caution and vigilance, methods of protection.
In the same article, we will “open the cards” for a number of ways to body kit buyers.
I'm sure many have encountered a similar phenomenon. Some people create a scandal, some remain modestly silent, and most simply do not notice the blatant deception.
But scammers are extremely inventive people. They cannot be denied wild imagination. They know very well how to deceive a buyer . And sometimes it’s very difficult to predict what next new product awaits us. What will they “delight” us with today?
Sometimes it can be quite difficult to immediately distinguish a hoax from reality. Nowadays, you can sell everything on the Internet. Even the air. Yes, yes, money out of thin air. On the Internet you will find a bunch of courses on how to do this.
And a modern Internet user simply must be able to “separate the seeds from the chaff.” For example, do you want to buy a star? You heard right - exactly a star in space.
Complete nonsense, you say. And in vain.
Today you can absolutely officially register the name of a star.
On star-cosmos.ru, with receipt of a certificate and for a nominal fee.
And what to do with it? Whatever.
Give to relatives, friends, girlfriend, boss for their anniversary.
No one other than the owner has the right to name this star.
And it warms you up, you know. Lena Brezhneva, Ivan Urgant, Elizaveta Boyarskaya - these stars, in the literal sense, shine for us from the sky.
It is clear that before ordering it makes sense to look at the reviews.
However, let's return to earthly affairs. Fraudsters have in their arsenal of methods and means of deception those that consistently bring them luck. Read below and be fully prepared when meeting with trading scammers. .
Deceiving the buyer or how much is twice two...
According to the State Trade Inspectorate, the most popular violation of the rules 
trade is basic body kit.
And, by the way, if we take an average, then in Russia every fourth buyer leaves deceived.
And it is clear that no State Trade Inspectorate is able to inspect countless stalls, kiosks, and retail outlets.
And in the markets they stretch out into long shopping rows.
And in vain we think that the risk of being deceived in such places is no greater than in a regular store. Quite the opposite.
This is where they “throw” easily, naturally, professionally.
No matter how sad and cynical it may sound.
Let's look at a few classic examples of body kit.
These are not all the methods in the arsenal how to deceive a buyer . And also sawed weights, placed magnets, sleight of hand of the seller.
And also underweight, expired products, etc., etc....
Surely, any reader can add something from his own practice. Share in the comments.
But always, when entering into commodity-money relations, remember that any person, including the seller, may turn out to be dishonest. And below are some tips on these same commodity-money relations.
How to avoid becoming a victim of shopping scams
If you met with old scales - be sure to look at the arrow. Initially, it should be strictly at zero. If during weighing the needle does not move smoothly, jumps in fits and starts, or gets stuck, the scales are definitely not working properly.
Remember that the weight should already be marked on packaged goods. If the seal is broken or the weight indicated by the manufacturer is difficult to read, ask for reweighing. 
Do not forget and about such a method of deceiving the buyer as re-grade. Basically, it is often used in department stores and supermarkets. This is what is called “giving assortment.”
This is what we're talking about. Good quality goods are placed in the main front part.
And inside, under the top slice of the appetizing layer, when you come home, you will find scraps of meat that are completely unsuitable for food.
Immediately go to the place of purchase and request a replacement or refund of the product. Believe me, they will make a replacement, because for the seller it is easier and cheaper than dealing with the law “On the Protection of Consumer Rights”.
Fraud when shopping online is a separate issue. In upcoming articles we will take a closer look at this practically new service for Russians. We will see the schemes and traps set by dishonest Internet entrepreneurs.
Be careful when shopping.
Take care of your money. And also
Ways to deceive sellers and buyers on AliExpress - how not to fall for the bait
3 (60%) 2 votesA huge number of sellers and buyers are concentrated on the AliExpress site, and the selection of goods there is extremely wide and varied. However, this online store also has its disadvantages, the main one of which is fraud. The Aliexpress administration is trying to take all possible measures to suppress fraudulent activities, but some sellers and buyers still find loopholes and continue to deceive gullible people. In this article we will look at the most common fraudulent schemes on Aliexpress. Forewarned is forearmed.
These days, almost everyone makes online purchases. The Chinese AliExpress store is still the leader in the field of online trading, and everyone strongly associates it with low prices, a huge selection, interesting products, discounts and numerous promotions. However, the scam that is rampant on Aliexpress is putting off some buyers who do not feel protected once they fall for a scammer.
According to statistics, every second buyer has at least once encountered fraud on Aliexpress. Defects, delivery problems and non-compliance with the description are just the tip of the iceberg. Quite often, inexperienced buyers are left without money and without goods. What types of scams are there on AliExpress?
Rating boost
A high rating on Aliexpress greatly helps the seller achieve success and earn a lot of money. The seller's rating, as well as diamonds and medals next to the store name, are often the decisive factor for the buyer when choosing a product. Therefore, sellers often increase their rating dishonestly through cheating.
The standard store development scheme always looks the same. First, all small things are sold at very low prices, and even with discounts, sales are held. All this attracts many buyers, who leave a lot of good reviews and raise the seller’s rating. Then the seller changes the assortment to a more expensive one, but the rating remains the same. The buyer can look at the review history in the store's profile to see which products the seller has raised the rating on.
Sellers often inflate ratings using fake reviews. To do this, they create fake accounts, order goods from themselves and leave positive reviews. To detect the fact of such cheating, the buyer will have to be extremely careful. If you see a large number of reviews from buyers from the same country, strange-looking names, as well as coincidences in the time and date of consecutive comments, then this seller could use cheating.
Category:On 07/17/09 at 18:30 in the Magnit store (Novoorsk village, Orenburg region), I purchased 1 piece of Beseda tea, but the cashier listed this drink in the amount of 2 pieces on the cash register receipt. And this is not the first and not the last case of deception of customers in this store...
"Lenta" in Saratov. 04/2/2010 cashier Makarova Lyudmila punched out an extra item on the receipt - Lowenbrau Original beer, 4 pieces, which I did not buy. The check has already been reviewed at home. Summary - check your receipt without leaving the cash register. An unpleasant aftertaste remained.
I live in Rostov on Don. 02/09/2010 I went to the Auchan hypermarket on Observatornaya Street. I arrived home, looked at the receipt, and the cashier, Victoria Komova, gave me 2 extra packs of cottage cheese. So, gentlemen, check your receipts without leaving the cash register - cashiers are not honest.
From the editor: In these situations, the law is exclusively on the side of the consumer, but not without the conscientiousness and lack of conflict of the seller. Correctly, all deceived buyers advise: check receipts without leaving the cash register. For example, if, quite by accident, three yoghurts are put out at the checkout instead of two, it’s quite easy to figure it out. You can also ask the store administrator to check inventory balances. The seller will find extra packs of yogurt. However, if the cashier has already hidden them, then it will be quite difficult to prove anything.
2 way to cheat
Another good and often practiced way of shortchanging customers is incorrect product barcode . The cashier swipes the product under the checkout scanner and the computer reads the price. Sometimes the cashier manually enters barcodes. Any experienced cashier is well versed in product codes and, depending on the situation, can easily enter the code of an expensive or cheap product. And the cashier knows very well one or two numbers, which he replaces, putting in the wrong item.
The same “tricks” can be performed by salespeople on the sales floor, when in the vegetable or meat department they weigh the goods and stick price tags on them. For example, the seller measures “Tender” sausage as more expensive ham, or white cabbage is valued as Chinese cabbage.
Reviews from our
We shopped on 05/11/2010 at 15:00 in the Noginsk supermarket "O`key". The bill turned out to be 11800 with a discount of 500 rubles. with a loyalty card. Cashier Popukalova Yulia sold us 1.26 kg of apricots, which we did not take, at a price of ATTENTION!!! 888 rub. per kilo. Total overpayment - 1000 rubles. with more. They discovered it only the next day. Moral: be careful. Don't trust anyone. Check receipts without leaving the cash register.
In a large hypermarket in Novosibirsk, the cashier gave me a “Biscuit” cake worth more than 900 rubles (that’s more than 7 kilograms), although I didn’t buy it in principle and would have noticed such a large, sweet and expensive cake in my basket. But the diet cracker cookies, costing 47 rubles, were not punctured. Apparently, the barcodes of these similar products differed by one digit, which the cashier took advantage of. The total amount of the check is more than 6 thousand rubles, the forgery was discovered only at home. One gets the impression that this is the company's policy.
From the editor: Manipulating codes is a fairly noticeable deception; sellers rarely take risks. Most often, code substitution is an unintentional deception of unqualified employees. Therefore, finding out and dealing with the canopy if you have a receipt will not be difficult.
3 way to cheat
A well-thought-out and blatant way to deceive customers - different prices in the window and at the checkout . The atmosphere in a supermarket is always designed to provoke impulse buying. And it’s unlikely that any consumer will deal with confusing price tags or check product articles and codes on their own. It is spontaneous purchases, for which you did not find a price tag or did not bother looking, that subsequently surprise you with their true value.
Another trick is re-grading. For example, in a box with new potatoes or porcini mushrooms there are last year's potatoes or champignons, which belong to a completely different price category.
By law, Rospotrebnadzor must monitor the availability and accuracy of price tags in supermarkets. But, often, during audits, the department only checks the number of price tags and names of goods on the display. The numbers match - everything is fine. And the location of price tags and compliance with the display of goods is a problem for the seller, and therefore for the consumer. An attentive buyer will definitely find a price tag that indicates the exact name of the product, article number and price.
Reviews from our
In the store "Magnit" Kazan on the street. Kr. Kokshayskaya very often there are violations regarding price tags. In the hall there is one price, but at the checkout it goes much higher. I bought “Conference” pears - in the hall there were 2 price tags of 60 rubles. and 44 rub. They punch the checkout, and there are already 68 rubles... I tell the sellers, they answer that they didn’t have time to change the price tag, and it was already past 12:00.
On August 21, 2009 I went to the Perekrestok store in St. Petersburg on the street. Efimova, 2. The price tag for “Bavarian Sausages” produced by “Pit Product” was 213 rubles, but at the checkout it was 250.90. After checking with the seller, they explained to me that I could get money for them and return the goods, but in their computer the price was 250.90. It's a shame, you expect one thing, but it turns out to be something else. And also with champagne, the price on the price tag was 69 rubles, but they knocked out 110 at the cash register. And this is often the case with champagne. And often the price tag does not have very complete information, and the price tag is not located where it should be.
04/16/2010 was at the "Carousel" on Bukharestskaya, St. Petersburg. I bought an avocado for 19 rubles. I waited 30 minutes at the 11th checkout while the cashier served three customers. I was very surprised that I didn’t seem to buy anything, but spent a lot of money. I came home and discovered that the avocados were priced at 94 rubles 50 kopecks PER piece! Blatant fraud! Be carefull!
From the editor: This situation is the most difficult from a legal point of view. If the total amount of purchases turns out to be much higher than expected, check your receipt immediately. Without leaving the cash register, call the store manager, go with him to the window, check the prices with the receipt. Sometimes, in order to return a product whose price you are not satisfied with, you have to be intrusive and persistent, proving the store’s guilt by any means - witness testimony, photographic recording. Or go to court.
4 way to cheat
Body kit in supermarkets possible, despite the most accurate electronic scales. Consumers often forget that some types of goods, such as fruits and vegetables, as well as sausages and water-weighed meats, dry out quickly. That is why the products are pre-packaged in bags and nets and a price tag with weight and price is attached. Supermarkets deliberately deceive consumers by packaging products in a liner or plastic container that weighs 8-10 grams. Thus, when buying, for example, a kilogram of Victoria or red caviar, the consumer is forced to pay for packaging at the price of the delicacy.
It is enough just to go to a publicly accessible scale and weigh the goods to reveal the miscalculation.
1. Awakening of appetite
Senses are the most active allies of marketers. How many times have they told the world: “Don’t go to the shops hungry!”, because the more you want to eat, the more unnecessary things you buy. But even if you're not hungry, supermarkets have a range of ways to whet your appetite.
For example, the smell of fresh baked goods has proven itself: it tempts the buyer to spend a larger amount. Correctly set lighting works well: the products on the display window look festive, bright, juicy and exciting.
But one of the most powerful ways to induce salivation and the accompanying desire to urgently buy something to chew is free tasting samples. Firstly, they smell, they attract you and you want to buy them. Secondly, having treated yourself for free, you begin to feel obligated to thank the store. If you hadn’t come across this sausage at a tasting, you wouldn’t even remember about it. And now it's in your cart. And, of course, on the check.
2. Hypnosis with music
If you hear upbeat music in the supermarket, turn your attention to maximum. Melodies are launched at a fast pace where it is important to increase the number of sales. Study Using Background Music to Affect the Behavior of Supermarket Shoppers, conducted by the American Marketing Association, proves that energetic music provokes buyers to.
Unconsciously adapting to the driving pace, we put more expensive goods in the cart, and even in larger quantities.
On the other hand, slow music is also a trick. Stores specifically select songs with a rhythm that is much slower than the average heart rate. This makes people linger longer at the shelves, spend more time on the sales floor and, as a result, buy more. Moreover, it is almost 30% more - this, in particular, assures the American marketing consultant and author of the book “Brain Blower!” How marketers manipulate our minds and force us to buy what they want." Martin Lindstrom.
To protect yourself from this influence of music, go shopping with headphones.
3. Color design
People are “drawn” into stores whose exterior walls and entrances are painted in warm colors: red, orange, yellow. But inside the color situation is changing: cool shades in the interior - blue and green - make buyers spend more. CNN, citing research How color affects your spending, published in Business Review, states that customers spend 15% more money in stores decorated in blue-green shades than in those whose walls and shelves are painted in warm colors.
4. Discount cards and loyalty programs
Do you think that discount cards are designed to save you money? I must admit, this is partly true. But not all of it. The store saves much more on loyalty card holders for a variety of reasons.
A discount card links you to a specific supermarket
When choosing between two absolutely identical stores, you will probably go to the one with a loyalty program.
The map is watching you
That is, it gives the store information about your shopping habits. What price category of meat do you prefer? How often do you buy dog food? Do you like chocolate or, say, fermented milk desserts?
Thanks to the card, the supermarket knows everything about your expenses and has the opportunity to influence them.
If you have ever received individual offers like “Buy chocolate for 300 rubles and get a 15% discount,” you understand what we are talking about. Of course, the offer seems profitable. But it is beneficial, first of all, to the store that encouraged you to buy a larger volume of sweets than you are used to.
The card encourages you to spend more
Many supermarkets award points for every ruble spent in their chain. Later, these points can be converted into money by paying with the accumulated points at the checkout. Profitable? On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, you yourself don’t notice how the store forces you to spend more in order to accumulate more treasured accruals.
5. Lure products
“Buy 10 pieces for only 100 rubles!” - a good old marketing ploy. Many people fall for this offer, ending up purchasing more products than they need.
There are also more subtle manipulations. The store offers some popular product at a really good price. For example, meat during barbecue season or a large pack of diapers of a famous brand. This is bait.
A profitable product is actively advertised to force buyers to look into a specific supermarket. But if you’ve already entered the sales area to buy meat or diapers, why not buy something else? It is on these related purchases that the store makes cash.
The profit he loses on the bait is repaid by the extra money that customers leave at the supermarket.
6. Complementary products
You go to the store to buy a pack of your child's favorite crackers. And nearby on the same shelf you find children's chocolate and marshmallows. “Oh, how on topic!” - you think and throw all three items into the cart. This is how combinations like this work.
Some combos are obvious, like shampoo and conditioner. Some are more subtle, like disposable plastic plates and fancy paper napkins. It seems to us that we decided to buy the napkins ourselves. In fact, your supposedly spontaneous purchase was predicted in advance.
If your hand reaches out to a product that you weren’t planning to buy a second ago, just ask yourself: “Do I really need this?”
Leinbach Reile, author of Retail 101 and co-founder of the American Conference of Independent Retailers
7. Packaging in which food spoils quickly
Fresh bread is often sold in a paper bag. Beautiful? Fact. But it’s not practical: bread in such packaging will dry out quickly, and you’ll have to go to the store again. This is also one of the marketing ploys. Therefore, after returning from the supermarket, try to repack your purchases so that they remain fresh for as long as possible.
8. Products with added value
Supermarkets play with prices, raising to eye level those products that you especially want to sell, and lowering inexpensive goods that are unprofitable for the store almost to floor level. The “magic nine” effect is widespread, when a product with a price of 199 rubles seems to customers to be a better buy than a product priced at 200 rubles.
Goods sell well and explain to customers why they are worth buying. For example, a product may be labeled as “Grown in our area, which means it will bring profit to our farmers.” Research shows Sales of Local Foods Reaches $12 Billion, buyers are willing to pay up to 25% more for similar products.
Another option is products with recipes for dishes that can be prepared from them. They seem more practical to buyers, and therefore their sales level is higher.
9. Reusable branded eco-bags
Reusable eco-friendly bags instead of bags - a brilliant marketing ploy! Firstly, they are branded: retail chains place their logos on them, turning customers into walking advertisements. Secondly, they make customers trust the supermarket: “Wow, it cares about the environment!” And thirdly, they increase the amount of the average check.
Harvard Business School published a study BYOB: How Bringing Your Own Shopping Bags Leads to Treating Yourself, and the Environment, proving that shoppers with branded eco-bags spend more. Imbued with concern for nature, they first give preference to more expensive natural and organic products, and then, at the checkout, stock up - as a reward for their own virtue.
10. Counters at the cash registers
At checkouts, marketers place expensive and not always necessary little things: chocolates, jelly candies in bright packaging, ice cream, wet wipes, hand sanitizer gels, and so on. The hope is that you, tired of making decisions on the sales floor, will relax at the checkout and buy yourself (or a child who is no less tired than you) a reward. And it works.
The little things on the racks near the cash registers can be considered the store’s concern for the buyer: so you might have forgotten that you need wet wipes, but here they are! But if you went back to the sales floor, you would find similar napkins at one and a half times lower prices. It’s inconvenient to return, so you buy the product at an inflated price, once again becoming a supplier of “golden fleece” for stores.