4 Investigates: Inaccurate grocery store scanners

As you grocery shop this Thanksgiving, you may want to double check your receipt for accuracy.
After reviewing inspection reports of thousands of grocery store scanners across the state, KOB Eyewitness News 4 found many of them rack up wrong prices. Some scanners only had accuracy rates of 70 percent while dozens of others had a 90 percent accuracy rating.
"Passing is 98 percent. So anything that is below 98 percent is not a passing store," Kelly Chavez, an Inspector with the New Mexico Department of Agriculture told KOB. Chavez is one of three inspectors in the Albuquerque area that routinely inspects scanners.
If a store doesn't pass, Chavez said inspectors will visit the store more often. If accuracy isn't improved after increased inspections, Chavez said it's possible sections of a grocery store could be shut down or the entire store could be closed.
KOB found one K-Mart scanner in Roswell had a 31 percent error rating while another grocery store east of Belen had a 28 percent error rating.
Chavez can't explain why some stores have high error ratings, but says it could depend on store management.
"Some stores will have 30,000 price changes in a week, so when you're looking at that, they're going to be errors. I mean it's inevitable."
Mark Lane, the manager at the La Montanita Co-op in Albuquerque's Nob Hill says it takes a huge amount of effort to keep human error out of the scanners when inputting in new prices.
La Montanita has had 100 percent accuracy ratings on its scanners over the past two years.
"In this day of a rough economy, every penny counts," Lane said.

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