This has to be the weirdest story ever…

CANTON — Alana Lipkin walked out of the Shaw’s Supermarket here last week with 12 items — everything from a Kodak disposable camera to Neutrogena hand cream — all for free.

She wasn’t shoplifting. She was taking advantage of the chain’s price accuracy guarantee, which gives shoppers a product for free if it scans at the register for a price higher than advertised. Lipkin is so good at finding mispriced items that she says she typically snags more than $200 worth of free merchandise per store visit.

But her days as the queen of supermarket pricing errors may be nearing an end. The region’s two largest supermarket chains have banned Lipkin from their stores, calling her a disruptive influence. Lipkin, a 45-year-old single mother of two from Framingham, says the stores are blaming her for their failure to accurately price their products.

That’s typical. Of course the stores don’t like her. They don’t create the policy with the intention of ever giving anyone the benefit of it. They create the policy to get you in the store and then they try to divert you when you take advantage of it. Just try and cash in on those “we’ll match it or beat it” type deals. I did it while living in Staten Island with Circuit City. I bought a TV, and found it that weekend in the paper for $90 cheaper. I called them and they said they didn’t match ads that were from companies outside of 10 miles (this one wasn’t) from the store, and they, under no circumstances matched prices from New Jersey. I informed them that Staten Island is approximately 3 minutes from New Jersey and if they didn’t match the price, they’d be eating the TV. They eventually gave in, but imagine if I wasn’t persistent?

Anyway, this story gets even stranger:

Stop & Shop Supermarkets three years ago notified Lipkin she would be arrested for trespassing if she entered any of its stores. Shaw’s sent Lipkin a similar letter Aug. 10, which she received shortly after the Globe accompanied her on one of her shopping trips.

“We do that with any customer who becomes disruptive in our stores,” said Judy Chong , a spokeswoman for Shaw’s.

Faith Weiner , a spokeswoman for Stop & Shop, said she believes Lipkin is the only customer the store has ever banned. “We felt that she took unfair advantage of our price accuracy policy and tried to manipulate it to her advantage,” Weiner said.

Read: She took advantage of a policy we’re proud of until we have to back it up with action. Judy Chong, you’re a hypocrite and so is the company you work for. How is someone making you back up your policy taking advantage? Simply put, they aren’t, but I guess instead of fixing your idiot employees, you just shitcan anyone who tries to benefit from a policy customers are supposed to benefit from.

It gets even stranger…

Lipkin insists she hasn’t been disruptive. The no-trespass letter she received from Shaw’s specifically mentions an incident at a store in Stow, but the evening manager of that store, Stephen Kavanagh , signed and dated a statement for Lipkin in which he said he was asking her to leave because “she was only looking for scan guarantee items and not shopping.”

I’m sorry but what the hell difference does it make if she walks into the store, walks up and down every aisle and leaves? What is the definition of shopping? People go “shopping” all the time and don’t “buy” things, so has this guy actually redefined the word and then employed his own definition to ban someone from the store. How about that?

If only that was the end of it.

“She’s one of a kind,” said Jack Walsh , the town of Framingham’s director of weights and measures. “They accuse her of switching labels, but I don’t think she does that. She spends a lot of time on her hands and knees searching for pricing errors.”

[...]

Asked how Lipkin seems to find more pricing errors than state inspectors, Carroll said: “She’s a hunt and searcher. We don’t do it that way. We select products at random. She’s a professional shopper.”

Or in other words, a consumer does a significantly more thorough job than those who are paid to do it.

Meanwhile, Lipkin is still banned… Stores are still gonna balk at standing up to the policies they implement… In the end, the consumer loses this one because she dared to hold the stores to their word.

Bastards.

Boston.com via Consumerist

Technorati Tags: shopping, consumerism, consumer advocacy

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