Each week, the Guardian An­gel col­umn high­lights com­plaints sent in by you, the con­sumer, and pro­vides so­lu­tions or di­rects you to the ap­pro­pri­ate re­source.

Prob­lem: Ra­jen­dra Har­ry sent in an e-mail com­plain­ing about stores that check re­ceipts when cus­tomers ex­it the es­tab­lish­ment.Mr Har­ry said, "I am con­cerned about the check­ing of re­ceipts at the ex­its of stores like PriceS­mart."I be­lieve we are gov­erned by the Sale of Goods Act and goods be­come the prop­er­ty of some­one at the point where it is paid for, ie, at the cash reg­is­ter."PriceS­mart and oth­er stores check out all gro­ceries against the re­ceipts at the ex­it. Is this some­thing le­gal, even if there is no sus­pi­cion of shoplift­ing?"

So­lu­tion: The Con­sumer Af­fairs Di­vi­sion was con­tact­ed to gain in­sight in­to this mat­ter. The di­vi­sion said there are no laws pro­hibit­ing this prac­tice, and con­sumers choose to en­ter these stores, know­ing the stores' poli­cies in this re­gard.If con­sumers dis­agree with this prac­tice, they can choose to no longer shop at these es­tab­lish­ments, or to com­plain to the stores' man­age­ment or the Con­sumer Af­fairs Di­vi­sion.

Prob­lem: La Ro­maine res­i­dent M Vic­tor said she pur­chased a $30 top in a store at Gulf City on May 10.She said, "As I of­fered my cred­it card to make the pay­ment, the cashier in­formed me that the val­ue of the top was too low for cred­it-card use and that I would need to make the pay­ment via cash.Ms Vic­tor said stores should have signs in­di­cat­ing their poli­cies, as it is un­ac­cept­able to be in­formed of the store's prac­tices at the check­out counter.

She said, "I have al­so ob­served some mer­chants ap­ply­ing dif­fer­ent charges for items be­ing pur­chased via deb­it card/cash and cred­it card."For in­stance, a bot­tle of di­etary sup­ple­ments might cost $63.75 ac­cord­ing to the price dis­played on the item. When you reach by the cashier, you are then told that the cost is now $66.75 be­cause you opt­ed to use your cred­it card.

"They even have the au­dac­i­ty to tell you that it is too cost­ly for the busi­ness to pay bank charges when a cus­tomer us­es a cred­it card, and that the cus­tomer then has to ab­sorb those charges!"I think it is time mer­chants act more pro­fes­sion­al­ly. The con­sumer can­not al­ways op­er­ate un­der con­di­tions of caveat emp­tor when shop­ping."

So­lu­tion: The Con­sumer Af­fairs Di­vi­sion said Ms Vic­tor has to re­port the is­sue to the bank that is­sued the cred­it-card ma­chine to the store and find out the bank's pol­i­cy on the mat­ter, as the bank is the one to take any nec­es­sary ac­tion against the store.

If Ms Vic­tor has fur­ther ques­tions, she can con­tact the di­vi­sion at 625-5829 or 623-3821.