Tesco’s beer blunder

THE supermarket’s slogan is “every little helps” – but the beer price labels at a York Tesco store suggested customers were getting a little more help than they really were.

Former York councillor Christian Vassie said he noticed two labels advertising multipacks of Becks Vier and Carlsberg at the Askham Bar store in early February.

Both labels related to packs of 12 x 440ml cans, both of which cost £9. But one label said the Carlsberg pack price worked out at £1.71 per litre while the other said the cost per litre of the Becks Vier was £1.37.

Mr Vassie said it was obvious both labels could not be correct and so he took the labels to the store’s information point, and explained to a member of staff they were wrong and misleading, and asked him to give them to the manager, with a request that they be corrected.

He said the staff member agreed the information was wrong and said the manager would be informed and the error corrected.

But six weeks later, he had spotted the same price labels were still in the store and still misleading customers.

He said if information was wrong and Tesco showed no interest in correcting mistakes when they were pointed out, the price comparisons were worse than useless.

A Tesco spokeswoman said there had been a “system error” which had now been corrected.

She said: “We apologise that this was not done more quickly, and are taking steps to ensure this does not happen again.”

Comments(30)

Shouter says...
8:45am Wed 16 May 12

It's rather ironic that the Tesco ad is on this page! By the way, the correct price should have been £1.71 per litre so the Carlsberg label was correct. Personally, I wouldn't buy either of those brands anyway - much prefer a decent real ale.

Sawday2 says...
8:56am Wed 16 May 12

Not just Tesco that cannot correct mistakes. Two years ago I contacted CYC to report that the road markings approaching Monks Cross were written "store's" instead of the correct plural "stores". They advised that it would be corrected when they were next painted. Well they have just been painted again with the same erroneous apostrophe. This time CYC have ignored my email advising them that there was still time to correct it while the road marking contractors were on site.

TheTruthHurts says...
9:11am Wed 16 May 12

STOP THE PRESS!
'
Millions of labels printed - small error on one of them - Mock Shock Horror! drop everything. Core strategy, Stadium, forget all of them and make sure this makes the deadline!

roskoboskovic says...
9:11am Wed 16 May 12

my word,this one has really flushed the pedants out.

yorkiemum says...
9:18am Wed 16 May 12

1 label out of millions were you charged wrong Mr Vassie??

You're_all_idiots says...
9:24am Wed 16 May 12

Meanwhile in other news, a customer at a nearby fast food outlet found his burger to contain both onions and ketchup even though he had asked for it without. The manager apologised and the error was corrected. "I felt like my trust had been abused" said the customer who prefers to remain nameless.

Seriously? Is this paper now nothing more than a parody of itself?

jadestars says...
9:39am Wed 16 May 12

Does anyone actually price their beer "per litre??" ... too much time on your hands Mr Vassie! A completely pointless story that has me, and many others im sure, thinking "so what!!"

MrsHoney says...
11:27am Wed 16 May 12

I must admit it's not really much of a story but I have done the same at Tesco. Only because an assistant happened to be passing at the time I was pointing out the error to my husband. They had a sign saying buy 2 for £4!! When the product was actually £1.50 each, not much of a bargain - lol.

russeboy says...
11:45am Wed 16 May 12

Here is one I saw yesterday,
Kleenex Oval Facial Tissues £1 or 2 for £3.50.
I did point this out to a passing Tesco employee who just laughed.
The moral of the story is, just because its a yellow ticket it doent mean its a deal. Tesco have programmed us to look out for these yellow tickets as we now automatically associate some kind of deal.

BL2 says...
12:33pm Wed 16 May 12

FORMER councillor Vassie desperate to get his name in the papers then?

Prob says...
12:33pm Wed 16 May 12

aside from the fact this is a pointless article, there's not much Tesco's normal staff can do.

They can print out a new label, which will still be wrong, or they can remove the label. Once removed, someone else in the near future will come and replace it (with a still incorrect one)

bpk68 says...
1:25pm Wed 16 May 12

TheTruthHurts wrote:
STOP THE PRESS!
'
Millions of labels printed - small error on one of them - Mock Shock Horror! drop everything. Core strategy, Stadium, forget all of them and make sure this makes the deadline!
lmao! *tips hat*

alfie says...
2:01pm Wed 16 May 12

another non story!

Jazzper says...
2:49pm Wed 16 May 12

You're_all_idiots wrote:
Meanwhile in other news, a customer at a nearby fast food outlet found his burger to contain both onions and ketchup even though he had asked for it without. The manager apologised and the error was corrected. "I felt like my trust had been abused" said the customer who prefers to remain nameless.

Seriously? Is this paper now nothing more than a parody of itself?
I was just thinking of contacting the press myself....I'm sure there was far more lettuce in my salad sarnie, I pointed this out to my wife...she went ballistic ! maybe it's the bomb squad I should call not the 'Press'

bolero says...
3:08pm Wed 16 May 12

I've never used this before in postings, so here's a chance. LOL.

bolero says...
3:09pm Wed 16 May 12

I hope that apostrophe was in the right place by the way.

xtc says...
4:25pm Wed 16 May 12

Would seem the former councillor has to much time on his hands and needs to get a life!!if the price is wrong the store have to sell it to you at the ad price,years ago i got a vcr for £100 as the ad in catalogue stated got to store to find the typo had cost store £40

Silver says...
4:58pm Wed 16 May 12

If EX Councillor Vassie wanted to be pedantic on the people's behalf why not do it to the council on things such as Beckfield tip and the closure of Burnholme school? Instead of being a waste of printed space about a mislabelled product.

MarkyMarkMark says...
5:18pm Wed 16 May 12

"aside from the fact this is a pointless article, there's not much Tesco's normal staff can do".

What about Tesco staff who aren't normal? Could they do something perhaps? (Sorry, couldn't resist. My inner pedant, y'know.)

I don't think a store is obliged to sell you something at the (incorrect) price marked. I think they can either refuse to sell it to you at all, or can sell it at the marked price. But they can't charge you a different price, in theory. (Although they can, because (a) they just change the price on the shelf & in the inventory system, and (b) if you really want it, rather than just being after a good cheap deal, then you'll usually pay for it.)

ebore says...
9:03pm Wed 16 May 12

Is it just me or is does this say so much about the sort of people who are running this city?
Not bothered about the litter outside. But a typo on a beer label...

dodgydavereturns says...
8:25am Thu 17 May 12

Ebore...He ISN'T running the city any more, although his ego thought he was, he never actually was...Bless, he is left trawling the aisles in tescos now looking for the cheapest booze....Try Aldi Christian, they are nearer for you than Tesco anyway!

It is a shame you didn't pay so much attention to detail when you built your extension on your elderly neighbours land by mistake isn't it Christian?

For those of you not in the know about this, have a look at this and see what a lovely man MR Vassie is....Does it hurt not being called cllr now?

http://themorningfli
ght.com/news-comment
/l-j-rawlinson-v-cll
r-christian-vassie/

long distance depressive says...
9:30am Thu 17 May 12

Unemployed road digger seeks work, no qualifications. York Press reporter vacancy anyone??

NickPheas says...
2:46pm Thu 17 May 12

I would normally suggest that Mr Vassie should get out more, but perhaps he should actually get out less.

NickPheas says...
2:48pm Thu 17 May 12

russeboy wrote:
Here is one I saw yesterday, Kleenex Oval Facial Tissues £1 or 2 for £3.50. I did point this out to a passing Tesco employee who just laughed. The moral of the story is, just because its a yellow ticket it doent mean its a deal. Tesco have programmed us to look out for these yellow tickets as we now automatically associate some kind of deal.
A few months back Asda was offering some cans of refried beans for £1.37 each or two for £12.50.
How we laughed.

ycfcdk says...
7:47pm Thu 17 May 12

Sawday2 wrote:
Not just Tesco that cannot correct mistakes. Two years ago I contacted CYC to report that the road markings approaching Monks Cross were written "store's" instead of the correct plural "stores". They advised that it would be corrected when they were next painted. Well they have just been painted again with the same erroneous apostrophe. This time CYC have ignored my email advising them that there was still time to correct it while the road marking contractors were on site.
haha....i can't believe you contacted them over that.

Dr Brian says...
10:07pm Thu 17 May 12

alfie wrote:
another non story!
Unfortunately you are correct and it is typical of the York Press these days.

No doubt later this week we will have pictures of ladies in hats at York races with a note that you can buy copies of these pictures from their picture department.

Dr Brian says...
10:15pm Thu 17 May 12

dodgydavereturns wrote:
Ebore...He ISN'T running the city any more, although his ego thought he was, he never actually was...Bless, he is left trawling the aisles in tescos now looking for the cheapest booze....Try Aldi Christian, they are nearer for you than Tesco anyway!

It is a shame you didn't pay so much attention to detail when you built your extension on your elderly neighbours land by mistake isn't it Christian?

For those of you not in the know about this, have a look at this and see what a lovely man MR Vassie is....Does it hurt not being called cllr now?

http://themorningfli

ght.com/news-comment

/l-j-rawlinson-v-cll

r-christian-vassie/
Thank you very interesting to read that - obvious why he was looking for the cheap beer deals then.

dodgydavereturns says...
8:09am Fri 18 May 12

NickPheas wrote:
I would normally suggest that Mr Vassie should get out more, but perhaps he should actually get out less.
You are wrong on both counts Nick.....He should just get out!

dodgydavereturns says...
8:10am Fri 18 May 12

NickPheas wrote:
russeboy wrote: Here is one I saw yesterday, Kleenex Oval Facial Tissues £1 or 2 for £3.50. I did point this out to a passing Tesco employee who just laughed. The moral of the story is, just because its a yellow ticket it doent mean its a deal. Tesco have programmed us to look out for these yellow tickets as we now automatically associate some kind of deal.
A few months back Asda was offering some cans of refried beans for £1.37 each or two for £12.50. How we laughed.
...BTW how many did you buy?

Oncebitten says...
2:50pm Fri 18 May 12

eh ...didnt want any of you to miss out:
diced onions 50p per bag or 2 for £1.50...another Tesco bargain!

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