In the supermarket, on the shelf were tins of Cadburys biscuits and the shelf above was crammed with tins of Foxes biscuits, both having labels on each shelf advertising each at half price - �3.49. As the Foxes brand had a higher weight, I took a tin. When I paid, I thought the bill was rather high for the amount of things I bought, checked the bill to find I was charged �8.99 for the biscuits. When I questioned this, it was found that another varity of Foxes biscuits were displayed with the half price tag and there were none of the half price ones to be seen. It seems a shelf packer just re-packed the shelf without taking the old price label off the shelf. How many people have been caught like this? They were both Foxes brand but with a different name on the tin. One would automatically think that dozens of tins in the space marked "half price - �3.49" would be the ones you wanted. Both would have been similar sizes. I asked for it to be exchanged for one for �3.49 but was told they had no more in stock. So I was refunded the �8.99, no apology, but they seemed annoyed to have been caught out.
We did have a Co-op, long gone now. If a label had fallen off anything they gave you the item free more often than not rather than go to the trouble of finding out the price. Now that was tempting - it's not too difficult to get labels off!!!
The price on the shelf is just an 'invitation to buy' but most large supermarkets honour the price displayed especially if its a replenishment error. Although in the store where I worked we had a lot of 'ticket-switchers' so we did not honour them
By rights they should have sold you the biscuits at the price they were showing, and you should have demanded to have them at the price shown, your rights.