The news broke a while back that Carrefour, every laowai‘s favorite big-box store (or rather, “hypermart” in local parlance) has been scamming people. 11 of the French stores were fined RMB500,000 for price manipulation (and 3 Wal-Marts, too), and now two more stores have been found using unsavory tactics to trick shoppers:
Guangzhou-based New Express Daily reported on Sunday that during a Spring Festival inspection, the Guangzhou price bureau found that Carrefour’s Xinshi and Tianheyuancun stores were selling goods for more than the tag prices.
The practices included referring to normal prices as sales prices, charging more than what was listed on price tags, and misleading customers with price figures typed in different sizes.
Okay… some of those tricks aren’t uncommon (referring to normal prices as sales prices?), but still sketchy. Most of these infractions occurred around the Spring Festival travel period known as chunyun.
To it’s credit, Carrefour says it will refund five times the difference on amounts that were overcharged. The problem is, most people say they don’t know how much they were overcharged or forgot.
As always, buyer beware.
