Sunday 13 March 2011
Carrefour faces fines and refunds over price fraud
French retailer Carrefour says it will refund customers five times the difference between the stated price and the actual amount charged after the authorities said on Wednesday that they had uncovered fraudulent pricing in 11 of its mainland supermarkets.
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Carrefour faces fines and refunds over price fraud
Mandy Zuo
28 January 2011
French retailer Carrefour says it will refund customers five times the difference between the stated price and the actual amount charged after the authorities said on Wednesday that they had uncovered fraudulent pricing in 11 of its mainland supermarkets.
The National Development and Reform Commission singled out Carrefour and the American retailer Wal-Mart for either over-stating their discounts by inflating pre-discounted prices, or for charging prices that were higher than those on labels or in advertising.
The NDRC said customers in many places had reported price fraud at supermarkets recently and local authorities were ordered to launch investigations in certain provincial capitals.
Those stores found at fault will be fined five times the amount they gained, or up to 500,000 yuan (HK$590,000) if the amount cannot be calculated.
In one case, a cashier at a Shanghai branch of Carrefour overcharged for a teapot by about 12 yuan, the NDRC said.
Carrefour issued two statements later on day to apologise for consumers’ losses, the Beijing Times reported. It said the first statement blamed the problem on a “flawed pricing system”; the second one removed the reference to the flawed pricing and included the offer of a refund.
Phone calls to Carrefour’s China head office in Shanghai were not answered yesterday and a spokesman did not respond to email inquiries.
Three Wal-Mart stores were caught cheating customers by deceptive pricing during an inquiry by commerce departments in some provincial capitals. The US retail giant apologised to customers yesterday but was silent on compensation.
Wal-Mart said it had asked its 700 inspectors to check prices in all its mainland stores every week and would “follow up the matter proactively and properly”.
The retailer said it would put a taskforce in place to step up supervision over pricing and to ensure prices are accurate and conform with laws and regulations.
“It’s China’s loose supervision and immature legal system that has given these international companies the guts to do this,” said Hu Xingdou, an economist and current affairs commentator at Beijing Institute of Technology.
“If such things happened in the United States or France, the outcome would be much worse.
“We’ve heard of such deeds by small domestic stores before, but well-known multinational companies’ involvement is a very serious matter.
“I think the commission was ‘killing one to warn a hundred’ [sending out a warning to all businesses].”
The NDRC called on all supermarkets and retail stores around the nation to carry out their own checks and asked local watchdogs to intensify the inquiry before Lunar New Year, the year’s most important festival, when people buy lots of food and gifts for families and friends.
Authorities are still investigating stores in Shanghai, Xinhua reported.
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