The Consumer Protection Board found that in 39 of 165 shops it checked last month, prices listed on the shelves did not match the prices at the till.
During checks carried out from May 7 to May 11, inspectors selected 25 items in each shop they visited, comparing the prices marked for each with what they were actually asked to pay.
The data showed violations in 23 percent of the shops visited, with more than two-thirds of the pricing errors in the shops' favor. However, the result was an improvement over last year, when a similar inspection found problems in 34 percent of shops.
The worst case, from the shopper's perspective, was a bottle of sunscreen spray sold at the Kuressaare Säästumarket. It was marked as 2.55 euros, but an unwitting consumer would have ended up paying 5.49 at the till. The shopper could have taken the edge off the loss by heading to a Jysk in Pärnu, where vacuum cleaner bags marked as 3.99 euros were in fact going for 1.99 euros.
As a result of the inspections, the board issued 560 euros in fines.
Steve Roman
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