Asda shamed for supermarket rip-offs

Thought Asda was the best value supermarket? Think again…

Last year Which? launched a “super complaint” about confusing prices in supermarkets.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) promised to crack down on confusing offers.

Less than 24 hours after this announcement Sainsbury’s announced it would be the first supermarket to completely discontinue multi-buy deals in store by summer, while other supermarkets including Morrison’s and Tesco said they had started phasing them out.

However the CMA has revealed that it had to forced Asda to end rip-off deals across its stores.

James Daley, director at Fairer Finance, a consumer body, said: “Supermarkets which are not willing to abide by the rules should be publicly shamed as they are using confusing pricing for their own commercial gain. Once customers know supermarkets and trust that they offer good value it is easy to tempt them to spend more with misleading deals. Companies deliberately do this to confuse and deceive customers. The CMA must send out the message that no matter how big they are they are not above the law and the rules.”

The CMA has now secured a written commitment from Asda that it will change its pricing.

Under its new rules the CMA will ensure that:

• “Now” prices will not be advertised for longer than the “was” price applied, ensuring they are a meaningful comparison
• Multi-buy offers will represent better value than a single product before the offer
• Multi-buy offers will not be immediately followed by “was/now” promotions, so it will be easier for shoppers to tell what is a good offer

Have you ever noticed any sneaky price increases in supermarkets?

I remember last year Asda was the cheapest place to buy my favourite chocolates at only £3 a box. The price suddenly increased one day to just over £7, a little while after that they were ‘rolled back’ to £4 – sneaky!