Bogof and multi-buy offers are so wrong

Play it to your advantage. In at least one of the supermarket chains, the EPOS software will calculate the multibuy discount, but if you wait for the bill to be totalled and then say that you've changed your mind (or your bill came to more than you were expecting and you don't have enough money, or something similar) and ask for one of the multibuy items to be taken back, it'll deduct the full amount for that item. In some cases, you can use multibuys to get a discount on your shopping. If the offer is £4 each or 3 for £10, you can put the items through the checkout and £10 will be added to your bill, but if you ask for each of the items to be taken off, the software will deduct 3 x £4, saving you £2 on the shopping that you DO want.

John, left to me, I can honestly tell you all four chicken breasts would go down in one meal with me, along with the normal trimmings.

single people who moan about BOGOF offers. what is their problem! I think it is fantastic that food is now so cheap, much better than when I was a child. So you have to buy 4 chicken breasts for the price of 2. Guess what, thats the same has having 2 free meals. How fabulous is that. I think the problem with these people is that they just don't know how to cook or freeze or store. Maybe, if the Chicken breasts, for example, came with instructions along the lines of put 2 of these in the freezer. Grill one of the other 2 for tea on Monday and pan fry the other one with some onions, garlic and tomato on Wednesday. BOGOF offers are fantastic they keep all of us with a fantasic supply of cheap food. More BOGOF offers is what we want to see. If you don't want the offer, why not be generous and just give it away, maybe the person in the queue behind you is not as well off as you think they are.

Same with Debenhams. Bought a dress for 17.50 with a big sticker on the label saying 'reduced to half price'. When I peeled off the five or six price labels, I noticed the original price was 30 pounds. They had increased the price to 35 pounds for a couple of days to allow the 'half price' sticker. Bit dishonest, as you say.

I had this argument in Asda recently. Fairy non-bio gel has been £3.90 in there since it's release date 18months ago. Then in October this year it went to Buy 2 for £7.00. Which in itself was good, but, they claimed a saving of £2.76 on the regular price of £4.88 each. It has never been £4.88!!! I raised the issue with the store manager who said "Yes it has, you're wrong". So I went to trading standards and they came back saying that it had been £4.88 in another store. Well personally I think this is dishonest! I never realised a £2.76 saving as I had never previously paid £4.88 each. I don't think they should be allowed to advertise an offer in one store based on a price from another.

Another way that they con customers is with “reductions” where they quote an original price that only has to have been the price that was charged in just one branch for 28 days.


That the branch was on Orkney and no one with any sense actually bought the product at the artificially inflated price is irrelevant, they can still legally claim the “new” price as a reduction.

Some interesting comments folks and good to see some (but not all!) persuaded. As someone said you have a choice but I think it's a pretty rubbish choice - in my local shop tonight every item of fresh meat was on a multisave so not much choice there. But I can still buy 1? At 1 for £3.50 or 2 for £5 that's 40% more if you buy 1 so I think that's unfair, a bad choice and worth griping about. And going to the next shop isn't a choice either because they all do this manipulative practice. So no choice there either.
A local off-licence recently changed their entire wine selection to a 3 for 2 and readily admitted in-store that the prices had all gone up at the same time. Which is my point, they are exaggerating or entirely kidding-you-on that there is a saving. And ripping you off if you want only 1. With all due respect calling the supermarkets"Robin Hoods" is naive! If they had any decent justification for this practice (other than making profits by deceiving consumers into buying more than they want and over consuming or wasting) it is strange that they repeatedly ignore repeated queries in this respect.

You've got to be careful even if you have assessed the deal and seen that it can, in fact, benefit you.
My local supermarket often has a pack of 4 yoghurts on a "buy 2 for £3" deal. However, the yoghurts are also sold as an 8-pack. The 8-pack is £2.96! It may just be 4p, but that's money being ripped right out from under your nose!
Beware!

The most unbelievable deal that I ever came across was on new waterside apartments that were not selling very quickly, and a ginormous sign was put up outside to let everyone know, if they bought one, they would receive a free car. Needless to say, some people were drawn in by this, as there were about six identical new cars parked there a few weeks later, and the apartments were occupied. It was not even a very good car.

Kit, you're missing the point. Supermarkets effectively blackmail companies in supplying BOGOF offers. They don't say to companies we're keeping the same stock but we're going to lose our profit by selling it half price, they say can you give us twice the stock for the same money so we can provide a BOGOF, don't comply then we'll sell your competitors bread instead of yours. Therefore any deals that are had are paid for by the small companies not the supermarkets who are the 21st century Robin Hoods.

The shops dont always make a profit on buy one get one frees, sometimes they can just break even or maybe even lose a few pence, a lot of the time these deals are only there to get people through the doors, so while theyre in there they will buy something else too.

In Euroland they're offering buy £1 and get £1 free. Britain is being sold buy one and get one free. It's all lies, lies, damn lies and crooked dealing. The mafia has taken over the country. Soon it will be import 1 immigrant and get 1,000 free. MPs are sold to us as buy 1 government and get one free.

We live in Absurdistan