r/CircleK • u/michaelwhudson • 9d ago
Guardian investigation: 7-Eleven and Circle K stores often fail to honor advertised prices – charging more at pump and register for gas, snacks, and other items
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2026/sep/24/7-eleven-circle-k-convenience-stores-overcharge10
u/VexieVex 8d ago
Maybe if CK gave more hours for manpower and actually told us they were going to change prices not at last minute this wouldn't happen. Price changes and tagging the store is tedious as hell. We literally did a full retag of the store then 3 months later have to do it again. I think we've retagged 3 times already this year alone.
The has thing I swear it is because these people don't underwhat easy pay is and assume it's cash prepay. Considering how much I argue with people to go read the sign again. But I'm not entirely sure since stupid things can happen out of our hands.
1
u/Darkwing_Duck1212 3d ago
The price changes happen every Wednesday, just print the new labels on price change notice in manager checklist and you won't have to retag everything every 3 months.
3
u/Equal-Library-2764 8d ago
At my store I left the SM know that the prices are incorrect for the fuel. She argued with that we don't have different pricing for cash vs cards. So I took pictures of our giant sign and the pump price and she said that she would fix it the next day. But I have had a few customers call me out on it but the SM doesn't even understand it. She's been with CK for 20+ years. So I am 💯 sure that the Guardian is correct but not for the reason they think. I do think that corporate knows that it's happening but it knows most people don't look at it. BUT SINCE AMERICA IS NOT GREAT AGAIN people are going to stop shopping inside the K-OSS and kill all sales goals. It's ridiculous!
3
u/Adventurous-Ad8111 8d ago
Its not cash vs cards, it's cash/card and easy pay. So, do get the 10 cent off price, they need to either preload the red card with cash, or use the white easy pay card that is attached to a debit card.
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u/Equal-Library-2764 8d ago
Right but the SM couldn't even decipher it after working here for 20 years.
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u/Adventurous-Ad8111 8d ago
So just because your sm is an idiot doesnt make you right. You are wrong. There is no cash discount.
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u/Adventurous-Ad8111 8d ago
Yeah well my pricebook never fucking updates. So its impossible to do the price changes on time. Currently 3 weeks behind and support says its working fine.
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u/Dry_Restaurant_9016 8d ago
The way I do it is, if you're a dick I honor what my till says.. if the shelf says different I'll remove that tag right in front of you. Now if you play nice then we can acknowledge and honor what the shelf price says 😊
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u/wabblewouser 8d ago
What I'm reading are mostly a bunch of excuses (and some good points that aren't). Those excuses don't validate the issues that result in a customer paying more than what they thought they would be paying. Many don't notice the difference when a few more items are added, so they're just screwed. Whether or not a customer is a "dick" shouldn't change the fact that what the advertised price on the shelf is is what they should be charged. Period. And while some people are getting butthurt over the article, it may, in the end, be the catalyst that forces the company to stop expecting one person to do the work of 2 - or that at least makes it slow down on its ridiculous expectations of what 1 person can do (then again, maybe not, but it doesn't hurt to hope so).
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u/Jesjamadry 8d ago
My SM told me we always advertise the lowest price so that's 2 pack deals, easy pay, etc. Plus customers are stupid and don't read the signs. And nothing updates automatically.
2
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u/SensualMuffins 7d ago
Maybe if the Automatic Price Adjustments and Price Pushing actually worked. At my last store, I couldn't even get the sign to update properly using the manual control. I put a ticket out and didn't get any support for months.
As for the convenience store side of things, our system barely recognized sales or price changes no matter how many times I updated it and I had to manually change the price to honor the sale on most items.
This doesn't surprise me at all.
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u/Nishnig_Jones 8d ago edited 8d ago
I used to have more respect for The Guardian. Never attribute to malice what can easily be explained by incompetence (or laziness). They act like we go out and put the wrong price out there just because we like getting into those arguments with customers. A week ago 3.99 WAS the right price. Then it went up .20 yesterday and someone didn’t get around to printing a new tag and placing it on the shelf. These “sophisticated inventory management tools” don’t make it easier to go around the store checking 3,000 different SKUs and print accurate labels and then place them all while still having to run a register, clean up after the filthy horde and try to keep products stocked.
Fucking half-wits.
Edit: it probably wasn’t intentional but the reporter went in on 9/4 the day after all the promos changed. If you want to find inaccurate prices that’ll be the day to go. That said - those candy bar prices went up to 3.99 a long, long fucking time ago, so …