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I shop at Aldi's. They attempted to over-charge me (by a huge amount, more than five times what it should have been) recently and I had to just leave the store and buy the stuff elsewhere. I was going to use my debit card but when I saw the amount, I didn't swipe it. I told them I wouldn't pay that so I left. I could not have stayed at the store to ask for a manager because they were too busy at the time. I tried to call corporate or the store to talk about it, but there's no phone number for them. There is a number you can call but it directs you to their website to write in a complaint online, but I may never hear back. The stores don't take calls because it helps them "keep costs low". So I'm wondering if anyone here has ever contacted Aldi's? I have never seen more than one or two cashiers in the entire store, and have never met a store manager.
I may go back later this evening and try to talk to someone there. But that store is so rushed, busy and hectic most of the time, and there's nobody to talk to.
I was only buying 4 small food items and cashier charged me $25 and some change. He had to have known that was wrong, just by glancing at what I had. Even if I bought that stuff at Whole Foods Market, it still wouldn't have cost that much.
I'm sure it was a mistake, could have been a SKU was in the system wrong, malfunction with the register. You don't really elaborate but from what you wrote it doesn't sound like you even mentioned it to the cashier you just walked out? You said the cashier had to know. They are just ringing the things I doubt they are mentally calculating what your chicken breast and bread costs.
They have a contact us page and also social media you could reach out to them on if you want. I would suggest communicating with people and I'm sure this probably would have been resolved on teh spot.
I'm sure it was a mistake, could have been a SKU was in the system wrong, malfunction with the register. You don't really elaborate but from what you wrote it doesn't sound like you even mentioned it to the cashier you just walked out?
Yes, I did mention it to the cashier, I said there's no way that could cost that. He said okay, I left. I didn't want to hold up the line because there were about 15 people behind me. I had two toddlers in the cart about to have a meltdown and wanted to get them out of the store. Too many things going on to deal with it in the moment. I'd prefer to talk over the phone at home and resolve it that way. It's hard for me to get to resolve something with two toddlers who might jump out of the cart any moment and start running around the store like crazy. The cashier likely would have had to call a manager to resolve it all and it would have held up the line. And then I would have been the Jerk Who Holds Up the Line in the Grocery Store. But I found out that Aldi's doesn't have an actual number to call.
I've also had a situation where a cashier over charged me, and wanted me to go ahead and swipe my card and said they would refund the difference back to my card in a separate transaction. I believe this is so they don't have to call managers to do a void-out on the transaction. I don't play that game. It can take up to thirty days for a refund to show up on my credit card. So paying the full amount and waiting for a refund on my credit card wouldn't be an option for me either.
Last edited by PriscillaVanilla; 11-09-2017 at 01:38 PM..
I take it your home state isn't one where consumer law has some variation of 'if it scans wrong in the store's favor ,the store gives you one of the item for free'. Because the places I've lived where such laws were in place have led to management taking that kind of mis-pricing very seriously and correcting it in the spot, lest the store have to give away even more free groceries to customers who notice the error.
Given the huge number of SKUs in a grocery store, even one with limited product selection like Aldi, pricing errors are going to happen at any of them, even very well run stores, from time to time. It's how the store handles the solution that is key.
This is the first time I have heard about a complaint against Aldi's, the "golden store". Everyone seems to be singing its praises. Guess it is not infallible after all.
Many years ago when I lived in Michigan I accompanied my best friend to Aldi's. Had to pay for a cart, no bags or baggers, all the items were loose in the cart, she placed them that way in her car trunk. She ran a home day care and this was a way for her to keep her food costs low.
You were right to just leave and not purchase the items. Not sure the m.o. is the same as an operational procedure or the training doesn't cover it, but basically I've have mostly good experiences at the few Aldi stores I go to most of the time. However I have shopped at another 4 or 5 while out and about in other neighborhoods and have had issues where the cashier seemed new or the items where not marked correctly. I say marked correctly because they merchandise here (as I presume in all their markets) with a stupid placard under plastic and many times the items and descriptions don't match up exactly and it would be easy to either not see the correct price or perhaps have the sku programmed incorrectly.
The sku programmed incorrectly tends to happen more frequently in my experience at the two deep discount stores I shop from time to time but that could also be the issue and cashier likely will not be able to fix it if its a busy store.
From my experience with Aldi, certain items (dairy, frozen, baking related, snacks and specialty items tend to be consistently good quality, produce is hit or miss, and they also tend to get the lowest grade produce small mangos, apples, peaches etc... stuff from Mexico that often looks quite subpar.
They did a total renovation of one near me and the signage for merchandising is now more difficult to read (bad color combinations and placed too low on produce as well as place produce in boxes in refrigerated units that do not enable customers to see the product. I'm thinking their store merchandising team needs help.
To your question about having a manager supervisor to talk to or someone higher up I would ask the store manager on a visit when its slower who you can reach out to. The local store gave me a regional number in adjacent county to call but I lucked out prior to the renovation and saw two women who were obviously corporate employees doing something related to merchandising and in course of conversation about the things I like they get seasonally in specialty, and asked about potentially getting these items regularly, I got contact information.
My advice is if you consistently shop there, to try to get higher up name or at least manager's name. I have had over ~15 years a couple times I returned items for quality reasons and they were good with either exchanging items or reimbursing for them, so, overall the stores near me seem to be well run and the customer service reasonable - but then again I go there so frequently most of the cashiers recognize me.
The overcharging incident probably needs a better examination. One thing I do is to keep a running total in my head so when the cashier does ring it up if it is far off from what I calculated in my head, I automatically examine the receipt while I'm standing there.
PS The seasonal Italian gelato is delicious as are the salted dark chocolate caramels.
I take it your home state isn't one where consumer law has some variation of 'if it scans wrong in the store's favor ,the store gives you one of the item for free'. Because the places I've lived where such laws were in place have led to management taking that kind of mis-pricing very seriously and correcting it in the spot, lest the store have to give away even more free groceries to customers who notice the error.
I wasn't aware of that law and will find out (out of curiosity) if it's a law in my state. What seems strange though, is that I was over charged by almost $20. Not just a dollar or two. Aldi's sells very few food items (if any at all) that cost in the $15-$20 range. So even if one SKU got mixed up from some other food item, it shouldn't have rang up that high. And it seems highly improbable that all the SKUs for the few items I bought were wrong.
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