Underhanded Upsell

Scott Hardie | August 1, 2021
Help me settle a debate.

You're at checkout while a cashier rings up your purchases. The cashier asks if you'd also like to buy an additional small item for a dollar. You consider it for a second and decide, sure, you'd like to buy that, and agree to it.

Were you tricked? Did you fall for it?

I was recently in a debate about this. One person said that upselling is inherently a scam to trick you into buying things that you don't want. The other person said that as long as there's no deception in the way the offer is phrased, then there's no trick; you're just agreeing to buy something else at its stated price.

Who's right?

Samir Mehta | August 3, 2021
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Mike Eberhart | August 6, 2021
If it's a scam or not, I always go with the default of No. I didn't come in for that item, so I'm not going to buy it and take it with me. It doesn't matter what it is, if they try to push something extra at the checkout, I immediately reject it. However, the only time this doesn't apply is if it's a 2 for 1 deal. I had an instance where I was in a 7/11 and I bought two Monster energy drinks. When they were checking out the purchase, the guys says, you get a 3rd for free. Well of course, then I went and got the 3rd one. But if it's going to cost anything extra, then no. I don't need it.

I don't think it's a scam. It's just business and the owners are trying to get every dollar they can get. Just not from me. :)

Scott Hardie | August 7, 2021
Interesting responses. That's more or less in line with what I expected.

I fall on the "it's not a scam" side of the debate, with an enormous caveat that there must be no deception in the way the offer is phrased for it to qualify. There are so many scams out there, from little stuff like you ordering an entree and the waiter asking "what dressing would you like on your salad?" without mentioning that the salad costs extra, to big stuff like scammers cold-calling you with outright lies such as how your car's extended warranty is about to expire.

But if a telemarketer cold-called me with a fair deal, offering to sell me X product for Y price without lying about any details, I wouldn't consider it a scam. I'd consider it very annoying, and I'd consider it illegal if it violates the do-not-call registry, and I'd refuse to buy so as not to encourage further telemarketing calls. But it would not be a scam, technically speaking.

The person who argued that all upselling is inherently a trick said that cashiers are under pressure to fill quotas, and they're only upselling to you because they must. And sure, I understand; the cashier doesn't actually give a damn what I buy. But I still don't see how that makes it a scam. And if I'm supposed to feel sorry for the cashier who is under this pressure, wouldn't it technically be more sympathetic to them to agree to their offer rather than to reject it? I'm not saying that I would; I'm just following the arguer's logic. It doesn't add up to me. :-\

Samir Mehta | August 9, 2021
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Scott Hardie | August 9, 2021
Maybe. It could be due to other factors. Maybe the pandemic so hurt his business that he needed to institute a reasonable cancellation-fee policy, and he's bad at getting the word out. (Or maybe he mentioned it in passing months ago and you missed it?) Perhaps he has had this policy for years, and he's been letting you and other good customers slide, and his boss is cracking down on that, and it was so late in the day that he was too tired to explain it. I don't know.

But with that said: It would have been a kindness to explain this change to you rather than just let you be blindsided by it. And it would have been a kindness to let the fee slide this one last time and tell you that there will be fees in the future since you didn't know. And it especially would have been a kindness to ask you for confirmation before it was too late to avoid the fee. (Does he know that he can automate that process?) And I think it's telling that he didn't or couldn't spare this small amount of kindness for a good customer.

Amazon, for all of their faults, understands customer satisfaction. If I call them to say that a package never arrived, they overnight a replacement to me with no questions asked, because they know that squabbling over $20 is going to make them miss out on a lot of future business from me. I hope that your barber appreciates that late fee, because it might have cost him years of future appointments.

Bottom line: If I were you, I'd pay the fee (you say it's small and he might depend on it), but I'd also ask him what happened (why the change and why no notice), and if I didn't get a satisfactory answer, I would find a new barber.