Unlike most parts of the civilized and uncivilized world, Canada allows retailers to advertise entirely fictional prices that don't reflect what you'll actually have to pay for the item.
So when you bring the cash to the counter, the amount advertised does not suffice. It's some other total that you have to divvy up.
It's insanity, uncivilized and quite ridiculous.
The problem reached tragicomedic proportions with a new environmental tax on electronic goods.
The price is now meant to include some do-gooder tax-grab along with the GST/PST, leaving consumers swindled, bedazzled and tricked out of cash they need to feed their starving children. Authorities recently banned such practices for airplane flights but they are apparently happy to let this nonsense continue at the cash reggies all around us.
Anyway, the example cited in the accompanying photo should give you an idea: a TV advertised at under $800 actually comes out to almost $1,000 at the cash.
C'mon guys, make it real!
15 comments:
I don't know why you are seeing that. I just tried BB, on Chrome, FF and IE, and all three returned the price + environmental handling fee.
It is possible that your browser, or PC is being geo-located outside of Québec? (e.g. VPN to outside the province, forcibly reporting another location?)
I always like shopping at the SAQ, for other than the obvious reason. (and gas stations, but less fun) The "sticker" price is the price at the cash. Everything should be like that. The largest price on any sticker should be the all-included price, what will be paid at the cash. (i.e. not discounting mail-in-rebates).
There's no "pricing fiction." The majority of people understand that taxes are NOT included in the advertised price be it on the shelf, price tag, or flyer.
As a person who's a proud owner of not one, but two T.V's, I emphathize.Truth is, I myself hardly watch much of it.
Only as I'd dearly like to replace at least one of the old darlings.
One hales from 1988. The other came with king-size bed bought at the Brick circa 2004.
Futureshop has better deals on the LG, and that model doesn't appear to be too brilliant. Yeah-I know-it was for illustration purposes only.
If I had the mulla I would truly go for a LED HD Samsung. The best. So happy with my Samsung monitor. Triffic to see things so crisply and authenticatingly depicted on-screen.
And no, this is not a paid publicity blurb!
So busy harping on 'bout virtues of certain TV's that I clean forgot an essential point.
That I must, myself, be too bloody cheap. I have only ever bought two TV's. That I now still have. Point is that whilst we're constantly indoctrinated re: the price of electronics will be coming down, there's always some other tax or charge to "make up the differerence".
Hence you can get a nice TV for even 3 bills, yet it will cost you another hundred in various taxes +.
Guess that's why I never bovered. Plus I'm damn cheap.
"Environmental Handling Fees" are as big a scam as those "global warming offset" taxes on airline tickets to Britain...that's a cost of doing business, and I could care less about how the product has to be disposed of afterwards...charge the manufacturers a fee, and make them build it into their prices. I get around it simply by buying in consumer-friendly America with the higher cross-border shopping exemptions our great Prime Minister has granted us.
Smart shoppers will wait until those high basic prices come down, buy only during sales, and where possible, buy only from wholesalers, not retailers, some of whom pay the sales tax.
And what about all of the ridiculous online purchasing where the "shipping charges" are higher than the price of the product itself. Where is the outcry over that?
All over Europe and the South Pacific, the price you see is what you pay. You don't care if there's a 20% VAT included. You go into a supermarket here - some food is taxable, and some isn't. Show the post-tax price!
We are being ripped off when it comes to environmental handling fees, Ontario charges $5 per tire, Florida chargs $1 per tire.
The environmental tax was the original reason for poking my nose in.
Yes, this is just another tax grab. But what is the worst thing, is that there is not recycling plan included. What do I do with my new TV + 42.50 (PC, tablet, printer, etc.) at the end of its life? Can I bring it back to BB, FS, CHF, Dell, etc? Is there central depot, or am I caught dealing with my local Ecocenter, if I have one?
Look at the 3$ recycling fee on tires. You can bring back any tire, which has had the 3$ paid, to any shop and they have to accept them.
All of this recycling procedure has become a farce, anyway.
Supermarket can and plastic bottle crushers only accept those coded "Quebec Deposit", despite the fact that the streets are filled with plastic water bottle and others like Gatorade clearly marked "recycle where applicable" etc., but which in fact can be recycled nowhere.
Why not enable EVERY such container to be disposed of as conveniently.
"Bring your batteries and paint cans to your local city dump", we are basically told.
Yeah, sure. As if Aunt Martha is going to lug her trash all the way from Baie d'Urfe to Repentigny or some other god-forsaken location.
Most shoddy recycling is done in QC.
We have festering collection of AA batteries in a bucket here. Each place that's "supposed" to accept has been a flop. Growing collection of old cable détritus that your "not allowed to throw out", but even Cable guys can never, ever say where I can be well rid.
My ex boyfriend was more than a commiserator when he dropped by from Amsterdam 2 yrs ago. He was amazed we had to strip soup tins, and could not recycle polystyrene, tin foil & plastic.
And he's a Scientist and Physicist.
If you're starting a recyling program, make it a thorough one. Been here long enigma to graduate to dreaded polymer, foil, and plastic.
And yeah, likely the so-called Environ Tax is just another Git.
Dreaded Spell-Check strikes again!
Second-to-last paragraph should read: "Been here long enough (recycling planning) to graduate to.."
Computer says sorry.
And whatever happened to those big, dark-green "igloos" the city used to have? Remember those with their circular deposit holes in which anyone could drop their recyclables?
There was one next the to the Snowdon Metro and others on Fielding Avenue on the north side of Loyola Park.
I saw them in Paris a few years ago.
Why can't North Americans get into the mind-set of recycling instead of littering? I am constantly appalled at what is dropped, smashed, and tossed away on our streets and in our parks.
Don't our schools teach cleanliness and civic responsibily anymore? It's pathetic!
@Kristian
I suspect you wouldn't be complaining as much if you remembered you get to buy TVs and computers at cost at The Source because you work for Bell. :)
-Kevin
It has been a long time that we does that "tax extra" thing just to make customers believe they are making a bargain.
But come on, in Europe, majority of prices include "sales tax" so what we see on the tag is what we pay. However in the bill, you see really the countdown of prices "plus taxes".
We should stop monkeying the Americans and quote prices with sales tax and all surcharges included. Stop these old methods coming out of some "Mad Men" episodes. Stop believing a merchant want to tag prices before taxes to reflect some savings. This isn't true. Even I did believe an old merchant saying if you're interested in a product, you pay the tax at the cashier. And the current government would get a good excuse to retaliate the "one cent" piece which will disappear...
If some education can be told to many people still believing the "plus tax" attitude, then a wind can turn around...
However, it seems we are still stuck with the old merchant attitude of keeping the prices low for the idiot customer, then add taxes to explain if you want this item, do your citizen action and pay your taxes...
Price for this declaration: 0.00 plus tax=0.00 (percentage of 15% has not applied to the "nil" base price...)
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