Shopper says drink cans from Ang Mo Supermarket rejected by BCRS machine as price tags pasted over barcodes

A man who attempted to return empty drink cans to a BCRS machine had his cans rejected as price tags had been pasted on top of the BCRS barcodes the machine typically scans.

Taking to Reddit to complain about the issue, user u/Yadobler warned against buying drinks from Ang Mo Supermarket as the receptacles could not be processed by the machine.

He claimed that Ang Mo Supermarket pasted "internal" barcodes and price tags on top of the existing barcodes for chilled drink cans.

This was ostensibly to enable them to charge a markup for chilled drinks and to prevent the point-of-sale system from double-scanning the cans, he said.

However, he stated that the paper tags would get wet from the condensation on the cans, making it impossible for them to be peeled off cleanly.

Even after removing the tags, he claimed the paper and glue residue obscured the barcodes and prevented the cans from being accepted by the machine.

Miffed

The man also claimed that when he brought the issue up to Ang Mo Supermarket staff, he was apparently told, "Aiya just peel it off, it's because you bought cold drinks."

In total, he brought 27 drinks purchased from Ang Mo Supermarket to a BCRS machine, all of which were rejected.

He stated that he was not going to bother scrubbing off the tags for such a substantial number of cans to receive less than S$3.

He added that he was returning the cans on behalf of his father with Alzheimer's, to prevent ants and cockroaches from being drawn to the empty cans, and that he would simply throw them in the trash in the future.

He concluded his post by asking if anyone else has encountered similar issues of "supermarkets defacing BCRS barcodes for chilled inventory, and is this [was] even compliant under NEA's retailer guidelines".

Investigations

According to a Shin Min Daily News (Shin Min) reported who went down, the Ang Mo Supermarket branch in Tampines did not have price tags pasted over their can barcodes.

A manager at that branch told Shin Min that he believed cans with price tags pasted on them were old stock, claiming that they have not pasted price tags on cans since the BCRS was fully implemented on Oct. 1.

Another branch in Toa Payoh visited by Shin Min also did not have tags pasted on their cans.

Instead, cans from old stocks that were manufactured before the introduction of BCRS machines had refund barcodes pasted on them to allow for their return.

In response to queries from Mothership, the National Environment Agency (NEA) and BCRS Ltd. stated jointly that they were aware of members of the public facing difficulties getting BCRS refunds from canned drinks purchased from Ang Mo Supermarket, owing to price stickers placed over the product barcodes.

They have advised Ang Mo Supermarket to remove the stickers on affected cans and ensure that labels do not obstruct product barcodes in the future, in order to enable BCRS machines to identify and accept the containers.