Mom was charged an extra $36 for her groceries because of a little-known rule

One mother was charged an unexpected $55 [$36.37 USD] for her late night shopping trip, all because of Western Australia’s different time zones.

The Perth mother-of-four said she was doing a Coles online shop last Tuesday at 11.30pm when she was struck by the sudden charge.

Her click and collect grocery bill totaled $450.37 [$297.79 USD]but when she checked her online bank statement soon after, she found 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 offers had already changed 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’s not what showed up on my screen,” she said 9news.com.au.

“I am absolutely disgusted that they have taken that extra money and this was not what I was under the impression I was going to pay.”

The mother then shared a screenshot of the checkout that showed no indication of the surcharge at the time of purchase and actually claimed to have saved $100 at her store.

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

Weekly specials at Coles change every Wednesday and end at 11.59pm on Tuesday AEST. So in this mom’s case, the fee was charged because of her order placed just before midnight on Tuesday.

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

“I think it’s ridiculous that Coles would rather lose $450 [$297.54 USD] in the bargain and not admitting a mistake,” she said.

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

“funny”

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

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

“It’s going to be like this all the time if it runs out of money,” claimed another.

“We are investigating what happened here. We provided a full refund for the canceled order and apologize to our customer for the inconvenience,” a Coles spokesperson said. baby pot.

“Coles offers a wide range of great value weekly specials every week, which are updated at 11.59pm every Tuesday (AEST or AEDT during Daylight Savings). Orders must be placed by this time to ensure customers receive the special advertised price. Weekly offer cutoff times are listed on our website, including a conversion for customers in countries with a different time zone.”