‘That’s Asda price’ is a thing of the past. The slogan’s long gone and so, it appears, is the retailer’s commitment to offering customers value for money. The regulator has just singled it out by demanding a written pledge that it will change its ways when it comes to promotional deals, which have been criticised for being somewhat dodgy.
Asda was far from alone in over-egging its special deals for customers. The regulator’s been investigating most of the big UK supermarkets since consumer group Which? launched a ‘super-complaint’ last year, after finding evidence of misleading prices.
However, what sets Asda apart from its rivals is that it was the only grocer asked to agree to improvements in writing, which could be interpreted as the Walmart owned company being of particular concern to the regulator.
In submitting its super-complaint, Which? gave the example of an Asda multi-buy offer for Chicago Town Four Cheese Pizzas. The retailer increased the price of a two-pack from £1.50 to £2 as it went into a multi-buy deal of two packs for £3. The price of the two-pack was then quickly reduced back to £1.50 after the offer ended in 2013/14 so customers never really made a saving.
This week, the company has promised the regulator and customers alike that multi-buy offers will represent better value than a single product before a promotional offer and that ‘now’ prices will not be advertised for longer than the ‘was’ price applied. It said it wants to ‘give shoppers increased confidence that they are getting a genuine discount’.
Of course, it’s good news that the retailers are shaping up but they’re not the only ones who need to. It’s undeniable that we’re living in rip-off Britain and we’re all too often taken for a ride by supermarkets, mobile phone networks, energy providers, banks and scammers. But it seems to me that it’s high time for British consumers to get real.
The pages of the financial press are filled with stories of consumers paying over the odds for all manner of goods and services. They make the same warnings time and time again. Sometimes, as in the supermarket case above, customers are deliberately misled but all too often it’s customers’ apathy — or sheer laziness — that’s to blame.
Yes, supermarket deals have in some instances been too good to be true but often a customer needn’t have been Inspector Clouseau to work it out. Sometimes a basic grasp of maths was all that was required.
And surely it’s only people who live in caves who aren’t aware that if you allow your car insurance to roll over year in, year out, your insurer will take liberties and hike your premiums. Or that if you don’t switch energy provider regularly, your bills will rise. But millions of UK consumers are still paying well over the odds for these products and services because they simply can’t be bothered to take action and demand a better deal.
The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, is getting so fed up of having to deal with online fraud claims that stem from customers clicking on links in suspicious emails, or failing to use a sturdy password or internet security software that he recently told the Times that banks should stop refunding customers found to have acted carelessly.
He said the current practise of blanket refunds for all rewards sloppy behaviour so a ban on refunds for those individuals could be a way to incentivise them to wise up. I couldn’t agree more. Of course, there are vulnerable consumers who need greater protection than others and in an ideal world rip-offs wouldn’t exist. But we live in the real world, even if some of us choose to ignore that fact. It’s time we get real and take responsibility for ourselves.
Laura Whitcombe is knowledge and product editor at ThisisMoney.co.uk.
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