Michigan price scanner law: Overcharged? You’re owed compensation. Here’s what to know.

Do you pay attention to shelf tags or other displayed prices on items you buy only to look at your receipt and discover it scanned at a higher price at the checkout?

If so, know you have a right to recover your loss, and a little bonus to boot, thanks to a Michigan law that’s been around, with iterations, for decades.

Michigan’s “Shopping Reform and Modernization Act” protects consumers when an item purchased scans at a higher price. The law took effect on Sept. 1, 2011, and replaced Michigan’s item pricing law of 1976, often called the nation’s most strict, that was in place for more than three decades.

With the new law, individual price stickers or tags were no longer required on just about everything sold in Michigan.

But in its place, under the new law, retailers were required to display the price near or where the product is displayed. But an actual sticker on the item indicating the price was no longer required.

Retailers, of course, applauded the move because they no longer needed to deal with the expense and costs of adding and changing price stickers to items.Those who opposed the law, according to several Free Press archives reports, cited that pricing individual items for customers to know what they are charged for the product.

Also known as the “Scanner Law,” the act allows for compensation to consumers when overcharged for an item, though with, of course, a few caveats.

With the holidays arriving, people are busy and it’s easy to overlook prices or not pay attention to receipts.

In addition, more stores from grocery retailers to home improvement stores, have more self-checkouts, relying on customers to scan their own items.

While it’s easy to scan, pay, and go, it’s a good practice to keep an eye on what the price of an item is, how much it scans for, and pay attention to receipts. Go over your receipt and make sure the items you purchased are scanned at the correct, displayed price.

While you may have a phone app to check a price, the Scanner Law requires retailers to display or clearly indicate the price of an item.

Here’s what to know

How should stores display prices?

• Prices can be on a price sticker, stamped on the item, or otherwise marked.
• Other ways to look for prices include signage, electronic readers, or any other method that “clearly and reasonably conveys the current price of the consumer item, to a consumer when in the store at the place where the item is located.”

Does it include all items?

• There are exceptions. Among the 13 items exempt from displaying the total price, according to the law, are items sold by weight or volume and not in a package or container, prepared food for consumption, unpackaged food items, cars and car parts, live plants, and live animals.

What must happen for consumers to trigger the Scanner Law?

• There is a price displayed for the item.
• The item is purchased using an automatic checkout, such as a scanner.
• A receipt describes the item and states the price charged for the item.

When to act if you are overcharged:

• You have 30 days after buying an item to notify (in person or in writing) the store or seller of your loss because you were charged more for an item than what was displayed.
• Once the seller is notified and within two days they are to compensate for the loss.

Here’s how consumers are compensated:

1. Consumers (buyers) are given an amount equal to the difference between the price displayed and the price charged for the consumer item. For example, if the price of something is $1.59 and scans at $2.09, the difference is 50 cents.
2. The buyer receives a bonus, also called a “bounty” of 10 times the difference that is not less than $1 and a maximum of $5. In the example above that would be $5. Note: If you bought multiples of the same item, the bonus only applies to one item not all of them.
3. Using the example, the consumer would receive $5.50 as a total bonus.
4. If a seller refuses to pay the consumer can take the seller to court and may receive up to $250 in damages and up to $300 in attorney’s fees, according to the law.

When the law or the bonus doesn’t apply:

• The scanning error is caught and corrected before the transaction is complete.
• The item is rung up by hand incorrectly and a scanning device is not used. This is considered human error and the bonus doesn’t apply.
• If an item is on sale but scans as the regular price, you are not entitled to the bonus because you were not charged a price higher than the displayed price.
• You are past the 30-day mark or no longer have a receipt.

Keep in mind, if a store doesn’t provide a bonus, it is not a violation. It does open the retailer, according to the Michigan Attorney General’s office, to “a private right of action by the consumer.”

You can download a scanner error bill of rights that explains the law. To report a retailer not in compliance with price display contact the Michigan’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development at 517-655-8202 or write to them at 940 Venture Lane, Williamston, MI 48895.

Contact Detroit Free Press food and restaurant writer Susan Selasky and send food and restaurant news and tips to: sselasky@freepress.com. Follow @SusanMariecooks on Twitter. Subscribe to the Free Press.