Scale At Supermarket Weighs A Little Heavy

A customer who paid a recent visit to a supermarket reported that the scale at her check-out lane was overweighing items, though this was soon rectified.

Flori Fundateanu recently visited the newly-opened Bónus on Skipholt in Reykjavík, and reportedly ran into a situation that may serve as a cautionary tale for the check-out line.

While watching as the cashier scanned items and weighed the vegetables she bought, she noticed that a paprika (shown above with a pack of cigarettes for size comparison) registered as weighing 247 grammes. Finding it difficult to believe that the paprika weighed this much, Flori pointed this out to the cashier.

Testing the scale, a package of chocolate marked as weighing 300 grammes was placed on the scale – which gave a reading of 420 grammes.

The scale was restarted by the cashier, and when everything was weighed again, Flori says her grocery bill was cut by about 700 ISK. As can be seen on the amended receipt, the weight of the paprika was half what it was initially reported to have been.

While many supermarkets do not have scales in their produce sections which would allow customers to check the actual weight of items before heading to the checkout line, Flori is almost certain this Bónus has such a scale. She advises that shoppers make use of produce section scales, when available, and to keep their eyes on the cashier scales when being rung up – mistakes and technical errors can, and do, sometimes happen.

UPDATE: Guðmundur Marteinsson, the managing director of Bónus, told Stundin that there was a technical error within the scale, but all others in the store were reading accurately. The offending scale has since been removed, and replaced with a new, fully-functional scale.