Mom charged an extra $36 for her groceries due to little-known rule

A mom was charged an unexpected $55 [$36.37 USD] for her late-night shopping trip, all because of Western Australia’s different timezones. 

The Perth mom-of-four said that she was doing an online Coles shop last Tuesday at 11:30 p.m. when she was slugged with the unexpected charge.

Her click-and-collect grocery bill totaled $450.37 [$297.79 USD], but when she checked her online bank statement shortly after, she found that she had actually been charged $504.70 [$333.71 USD].

“Absolutely disgusted”

After contacting Coles to find out what had happened, she was informed that the week’s deals had already changed over because the order was processed in Australian Eastern Standard Time, which is two hours ahead of Western Australia.

“The online order was in Perth time and that was not what was shown on my screen,” she told 9news.com.au.

“I am absolutely disgusted that they have taken that extra money and that’s not what I was under the impression I was going to be paying.”

The mom then shared a screenshot of the payment screen that showed no indication of the extra charge at the time of purchase and actually claimed that she had saved $100 on her shop.

“I hate to think how many other people have been caught out”

The weekly specials at Coles change each week on a Wednesday and end at 11:59 pm on Tuesday AEST. So in this mom’s case, the fee was charged due to her order being placed just before midnight on Tuesday. 

She was offered a ‘goodwill’ voucher to make up for the mishap, but she decided to cancel the order for a full refund instead. 

“I just think it’s ridiculous that Coles would rather lose out on $450 [$297.54 USD] in shopping rather than own up to a mistake,” she said.

“I hate to think how many other people have been caught out because of it.”

“Ridiculous”

Other shoppers shared their thoughts on the matter online after hearing the mom’s story.

“That’s ridiculous,” one user wrote, while another said: “This happened to me, I called and they refunded me back to the original price as it’s not in the fine print.”

“It will be like this all the time if it goes to cashless,” someone else claimed. 

“We are investigating what happened here. We provided a full refund for the cancelled order and apologise to our customer for the inconvenience,” a spokesperson for Coles told Kidspot.

“Coles offers an extensive range of great value weekly specials every week which update at 11:59pm every Tuesday (AEST or AEDT during daylight savings). Orders need to be placed by this time to ensure customers receive the advertised special price. Weekly specials cut off times are listed on our website, including a conversion for customers in states with a different time zone.”