Man gets into a pickle over mispriced chutney

A 56-year-old father-of-two claims he is no longer welcome in an Abbots Langley shop after telling the owner he had been overcharged on three separate occasions. David Monk, of Upper Highway, Abbots Langley, has been a customer of Budgens in Abbots Langley High Street for the 17 years. Last October, when buying a bottle of olive oil and a jar of chutney, he noticed he had been charged more than £7, when the bill should have come to £4.03. Although this was corrected at the till, Mr Monk claims this has happened on two further occasions, each time a chutney being part of his shopping.

He said: "I’m not blaming staff in the slightest, don’t get me wrong, I don’t think anyone is intentionally overcharging me. But three times - in October, November and again in December, when my shopping was scanned, I was overcharged. Chutney was labelled at £1.43, but instead I was charged £2.15. I’d only bought a few items so was able to pick up the error quickly. And I was reimbursed.



"But for those who are a bit older or are buying vast amounts, they may not have noticed if they have been overcharged." Mr Monk said he notified the shop’s manager in November with a handwritten letter, but did not receive a response. When the overcharging episode happened again in December, Mr Monk decided to contact the shop owner, Dary Sweeney. He said: "He offered a full apology and promised to review the shop’s pricing.

"But I said if it was to happen again, I would be contacting the press to make them aware of the ‘over-pricing’ issue. As a result, I’ve been sent an email from Mr Sweeney, banning me from the shop. He wrote that ‘we cannot accept your future custom based on the terms you have set out’. It’s ridiculous, I'm in a right pickle, I'll have to buy my chutney elsewhere." Mr Monk said he was not visiting the shop in attempt to "catch the owner out over pricing"- rather he likes to buy a special variety of caramelised chutney sold there, which he cannot find elsewhere. The label price of the chutney has since risen to £2.15.