French retailer Carrefour will be penalised for pricing irregularities in a store in China, reports Xinhua News Agency.

A customer in a store in Taiyuan in northern China complained to authorities after noticing that the prices charged at the cash register did not match the prices at the shelves. Carrefour, who apologised for the discrepancy, said the mistake was an individual case and unintentional.

An official from the pricing bureau in Taiyuan said Carrefour will be fined 50,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan (US$8000 to US$80,200). Reports say that Carrefour VP in China Dai Wei has accepted the penalty.

“The Taiyuan store was also found to have used misleading advertising, failed to provide accurate information regarding sales and allowed goods to be produced in areas that were inconsistent with the company’s specifications,” added the report.

The store’s public relations manager Qiao Xudong said that they are actively cooperating with the price bureau on the investigation and will look into the matter thoroughly.

However, he said that they can’t promise that there won’t be any mistakes again especially for a retailer like Carrefour which deals with thousands of products.

GB