@engineer,
engineer wrote:
okie wrote:I said "[priced per pound," not the weight that you bought. So the hamburger meat was priced in an even cent per pound, $2.99 a pound. They do not price it at $2.99 and 9/10 of a cent per pound. I realize that if they sell by portions of a pound, that the total price may end up a fraction of a cent and it is rounded to the nearest cent. I am okay with that, as that is done all the time and is normal practice.
It's six of one and half dozen of another.
Sorry but pricing by tenth of a cent versus weighing a product in fractions are not at all the same. Another example, if you buy fabric, you pay an even cent per yard, never in a tenth of a cent, then they measure and cut it in yards, which might be so many yards and a portion of a yard, which results into a total cost that might be in uneven cents, then rounded to the nearest cent. This is common practice .
Quote: With that logic, if they listed the price per ten gallons instead of one gallon, you'd be happy even though everything else is the same.
But they don't, for more than one reason, one being the price of 10 gallons would be tens times as high as for a gallon and therefore not acceptable to the public. Besides, we do not generally think in terms of buying lots of 10 gallons, we think instead in terms of how many gallons we put in the tank.
Quote: Pricing gas in tenths of a cent "is done all the time and is normal practice." I don't agree with the idea that sellers would drop the price by .9 cents/gallon instead of raising it. If they felt pressure to do that, they would do it now (except drop it a full cent) to get competitive advantage.
I have two litmus tests for advertising. First, is it fraudulent? In this case, the answer is clearly no, the price really is $3.999/gallon.
I agree with you, but pricing in 9/10 of a cent is bordering on fraudulant, as it is unethical in my opinion, considering that virtually nothing else is priced in that manner.
Quote:Everyone knows the price, it is listed for all to see, the pump is capable of applying the price. Second, does it prevent a consumer from making intelligent choices in the marketplace.
Yes I think it does prevent some consumers from making intelligent choices, or it at least encourages misleading choices.
Quote: Once again, the answer is no because everyone does it. If I see one station marketing at $3.989/gallon and one marketing at $3.999, that extra digit doesn't stop me from understanding which station has the lower price. I just don't see any case that anyone is being harmed here.
And what do people say the price for gas is, they commonly say it is $3.98 at one station and 3.99 at the other, but in reality they have been fooled because it is really essentially $3.99 at one and $4.00 at the other. By using the 9/10 of a cent, the stations have essentially mis-stated the real price. By the way, "everyone doing it" does not make it ethical or decent to the consumer. As for me, I have had enough of their lousy little game that they have played for far too long.[/quote]
If you want to argue against drug advertising, I'd once again take the side of the advertisers, but I think you could make a better argument.[/quote]What does drug advertising have to do with this?
Quote: This is more of one of life's little annoyances that makes everyone say "there ought to be a law", but really there shouldn't.
Maybe, and if there is nothing done, I will live with it, but frankly I think its time to make a law, because there are far more laws that are sillier than what I am proposing here. I have already given an example of the government making us buy certain light bulbs, supposedly to save energy. Not only would my law fix unethical pricing, but it would likely save a ton of electricity in signage. Besides, I think my proposed legislation would end up being loved by almost everybody in the country, which could not be said for very many laws.
... maybe you're just drunk 
... maybe it's both 
