Fair Go: How many times can you be asked to pay for something in a shop?

It should only be once, but for Palmerston North woman Barbara Jordan, it was twice.

How many times can you be asked to pay for something in a shop?

Well it should only be once, but for Palmerston North woman Barbara Jordan, it was twice, and she wasn’t happy about it.

Barbara bought a set of trekking poles from Torpedo 7 ahead of her trip to Alaska.

The sales assistant showed her the box set, with two poles and a carry bag inside. The price was $139.99, but luckily for Barbara, there was a sale on.

“She said ‘here’s a box with two skis in it' and with the sale price I thought 'that’s a really good deal’.”

She was sold the set for $97, and went home happy with her purchases.

Until, she couldn’t get them to work – so she went back to the store, where staff showed her how to lock the poles into place.

“I love the poles, but I don’t know how to drive them!” she laughed.

Barbara was getting ready to leave when the manager intervened, and asked Barbara to stump up with more money for her trekking poles.

“He was very insistent, he just said ‘you’ve only paid for one, you owe us for the other one, you need to pay it.”

The price sticker was stuck to the box Barbara had got her poles in and others in the shop were displayed the same way.

There were no prices on the poles.

“That’s the price that was on the box, on the unit and that was the unit, two poles in the box with the bag in it,” she said.

But the manager wasn’t budging, and Barbara says he refused to acknowledge the way the poles were priced could be misleading, especially seeing as even the staff member who sold them to her got mixed up.

“He wouldn’t budge, you know, if he’d said ‘I’d be grateful if you would be happy to continue paying’ I would have been happy (to pay for the second pole).”

Barbara did pay for the pole. Her daughter then made a complaint to head office, but didn’t hear anything until Fair Go got involved.

Torpedo 7’s CEO Simon West says the company got it wrong.

“It’s clear we could have handled this better,” he said in a statement.

“We’ll be refunding the purchase of the pole in full. We’re also talking to our stores across the country to make sure that these items are displayed with clear pricing in future.”

Barbara’s delighted to hear no one else will be taken aback by the surprise sticker price.

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