Swanky, spacious showrooms, rows and rows of shelves with tempting offers, they mushroom in the metros, the air-conditioned comforts of retail chains, however, are also witnessing frayed tempers at payment counters with customers complaining of wrong billing or discrepancies in what was "offered" on the shelves and the actual billing done.

Billing errors are common in supermarkets says Sonia Kohli, a shopper. She was charged Rs 86 for a toothpaste under a 'super saver' offer on which the MRP (maximum retail price) printed was just Rs 50. In a similar case the billed price was Rs 80 when the actual price of the product was Rs 73. When a complaint was made regarding the same the cash counter person blamed the barcodes. "These are just barcode errors, software problems or data entry mistakes which can be rectified," he said.

Gargie Sharma who stays in a hostel says that "once on checking the bill after returning home after shopping I found that I was charged for a product which I hadn't bought".

Officials at a retail chain in the capital dismissed such occurrences as rare. "It is a rarest of the rare case", anexecutive said adding that the cashier might do it by mistake or he might swipe the product twice under the scanner as these people are not literate enough.

But if a complaint is made then the error is corrected." But not many people check their bills or do a check after returning home from a tiresome shopping trip.

A manager asked about the quality of products said, "Sometimes it does happen that the products are stacked at the discount section because they are nearing the date of expiry