Kate Hawkesby: Calling out supermarkets on dodgy pricing may work, but I'm concerned it won't

I see Consumer NZ is making a last ditch attempt to ping the supermarkets on dodgy pricing or so called specials that are not specials. They’re relying on us, the customers, to give them examples to strengthen their case, they say they’re “calling on New Zealanders to be the eyes and ears at the supermarket one last time to help gather as much evidence for the Commerce Commission as possible.” They’ve even designed a new form to make it easier to share examples of dodgy pricing. But the problem is, this falls again on us. Why should we have to be the eyes and ears of calling them out, why are the supermarkets not fixing this themselves and being a bit more proactive about not ripping us off. Especially now, in a cost of living crisis for goodness sake. Apparently, back in March, Consumer brought more than 300 examples of dodgy so called 'specials' to supermarket bosses attention. And while supermarkets apparently acknowledged these examples, they’ve done nothing about it. In fact, in the last two months Consumer says they’ve had more than 160 complaints highlighting pricing issues at supermarkets. So what’s changed? Absolutely nothing. Either the supermarkets are too big to be bothered, don’t care, know that Consumer NZ is toothless therefore are not worried, or arrogantly assume we just won’t notice. I think consumers are noticing though and I think they’re fed up with it – the numbers of complaints would indicate that’s the case. Putting the supermarkets ‘on notice’ as Consumer says it did back in March, has changed nothing. They’ve shown no interest in correcting their dodgy practices. So the things they’re worried about us the consumer paying attention to, in order to hold supermarkets to account, is stuff like misleading multi-buys. That’s when products are advertised as cheaper or a better deal if you buy them in bulk, as opposed to individually. So one real life example was four packets of rice crackers advertised as ‘4 packs for $5’ when in fact the crackers were a dollar and nine cents a packet individually to begin with, so you were actually paying more, to buy 4 packets of them. Now when I hear that, it really annoys me, but it’s the sort of thing I’d personally never stop to check, so is that on me? Like whose fault is that? The supermarkets’ for being unscrupulous and trying to rip me off? Or mine for not checking? But how much time do we have to check every little thing when we’re at the supermarket? I mean we’re busy, we may have kids with us, we may be in a hurry or we may be checking other stuff like ingredients lists or nutrition info. I mean how much time and attention do we have to give supermarket shopping? See I reckon we should be able to rely on supermarkets to not be ripping us off, we should be able to relax and know that they’re doing the right thing and making sure a deal is a deal, not making us second guess everything. But does that make me naïve? Or does it make them reprobates? So although Consumer NZ wants us to do the hard yards here and bust supermarkets on their dodgy pricing, I actually think it’s worth doing if it’ll make supermarkets finally sit up and take notice. My concern though is that they still won’t, because they’re too big to care.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.