Mary Bach isn’t surprised the price scanning system at a Giant Eagle in New Kensington failed an inspection this week.

The consumer advocate from Murrysville said price scanning errors — recording the wrong price for a product at checkout — occur at retailers of every sort.

“I am finding more mistakes when I shop now than ever before,” Bach said. “The excuse I’m often given when I ask a front-end supervisor or manager is they simply are having price changes quicker than they can keep up. So, the shelf tag is old, the price in the scanner may be correct.”

The inspection, though, sheds light on a little-known system in which thousands of devices like store scales, gas station pumps, parking meters, air pressure pumps and price tags on products are inspected for their accuracy.

Introducing the Bureau of Weights and Measures.

A large task

“We conduct some 8,000 inspections a year with two inspectors,” said Greg McCloskey, director of operations for Westmoreland County’s Bureau of Weights and Measures. Last year, the county found 200 violations.

In the case of the Giant Eagle store where the inspectors found the price scanning system faulty, there also were several scales in the store that were inaccurate, McCloskey said.

Rather than fining O’Hara-based Giant Eagle for the miscalculations, McCloskey said he will give the company 30 days to resolve the problems. If it fails a second time, Giant Eagle could be fined $100 per violation, McCloskey said.

In Allegheny County, Frank Pollock is in charge of the weights and measures division — a team of five people who inspect thousands of pumps, scales and scanners.

He and his team inspected a total of 19,578 items around the county in 2023 alone.

Though it’s a “large task,” Pollock said the staff members enjoy the job, which ensures that the inspections are completed.

“Commitment has always been one constant with the weights and measures staff,” he said, “which is why we enjoy our responsibility of consumer protection.”

He said each day is organized in a way that maximizes the number of inspections that are completed.

“We take great pride in protecting the consumers of Allegheny County,” he said. “We refuse to have slow days.”

Pollock said the team inspects about 1,500 devices and stores per month.

All inspections happen on an “unannounced basis,” except for new gas stations, Pollock said. Those inspections are coordinated ahead of the new gas station’s opening date, he said.

“We try our best to work behind the scenes and conduct our inspections without disrupting the day-to-day operations of the store,” Pollock said.

Inspection staff receive training on the job and are required to pass four certification courses: gas pump certification, price verification, scales and timing devices.

Each month, the division releases a report detailing the inspections made, which culminate in a yearly report denoting the totals.

In 2023, about 11,200 fuel dispenser meters, 1,400 parking meters, 1,040 price verification devices and 4,700 small weighing devices were inspected in Allegheny County in addition to other items. A small weighing device could include jewelers’ scales or airport luggage scales.

Other items, such as dryers in laundromats and car washes, are inspected once every five years, according to Pollock.

The weights and measures division’s budget is $341,700 in Allegheny County, Pollock said.

Allegheny is joined by Beaver and Westmoreland as the only counties in Southwestern Pennsylvania to operate their own weights and measures departments. They are among 13 counties statewide that have their own operations, according to the state Department of Agriculture, which is responsible for the inspections in all other counties.

In Westmoreland, the county’s Bureau of Weights and Measures tests devices including gas, diesel and kerosene pumps, all scales and price scanners. The bureau was established in the 1930s to ensure equity and protect the consumer and business owner.

To help defray the costs of the annual inspections, the county passed an ordinance in December 2000 that created a device-licensing program.

The state Agriculture Department tests devices that are too large for the county bureau’s equipment. Those tests, in turn, are monitored by the county’s agency.

Inspection process

For testing a pump, there are about 20 items inspectors look for, Pollock said. Gas pumps usually are tested from April to October.

“I emphasize safety and, most importantly, looking for leaky hoses, which can be a fire hazard, but also make sure the pump is dispensing the proper amount of product,” Pollock said.

When checking price verification systems, he said the team members usually enter a store to select and scan random items to verify that the price tag matches the price at checkout — with a goal of at least 98% accuracy.

Mike Charley, whose family owns two Shop ‘n Save stores in Greensburg and one in Murrysville, said that inspectors will come into the store and, working with the store’s pricing coordinator, will price-check 100 items.

For the scales they use at the deli and the cash registers, the inspector will have a weight that is certified as accurate and place it on the scale. If the store scale is off, it will be recalibrated by a third-party company, sometimes within an hour or so, Charley said.

Regardless of what’s being tested, Pollock said a typical day begins at 7 a.m., with the first inspection starting around 7:15 a.m. Usually, the team sticks with one type of inspection per day, and the day concludes around 3 p.m.

“If we are testing parking meters, depending on the type, we may walk city blocks testing each meter with coins and a stop watch,” he said. “Municipalities can also bring in their meters, and we will feed each of those with coins and test on one- or two-hour intervals.”

If a device fails inspection, it is then tagged with a red failure tag, according to Pollock.

Parking meters in Irwin had to be bagged in October 2020 when the meters failed to give motorists the correct amount of time for the money they put into the meter. Inspectors from weights and measures found the malfunctioning meters and the borough replaced some 200 meters in 2021.

Those are the same kinds of tags Westmoreland’s inspectors put on the Giant Eagle scanners in New Kensington.

When a price misrepresentation occurs, Pollock said the store is given 30 days to remedy the situation prior to reinspection.

“If continued failures occur related to price misrepresentation, a higher level of enforcement will be used — and a local magistrate may assess fines,” he said.

As far as Bach, the consumer advocate, is concerned, rapidly changing prices might be a reason for mistakes, but it’s not an excuse. Over the years she has made it a point to take retail stores to task for discrepancies between advertised pricing and what customers are charged.

She has filed minor lawsuits regularly over the years, typically winning a small judgment and — more importantly for her — forcing retail stores to pay closer attention.

“Scanners and checkout stations only have to be inspected once every 36 months in Pennsylvania. That’s once every three years,” Bach said. “A price could be right today and wrong tomorrow. They change on a very regular basis, and it’s really up to the customer to make sure they’re charged the price they were promised when they check out.”

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