After being exposed by Panorama and dragged through the mud by Which?, the verdict is finally in for those “rip-off” supermarket loyalty card merchants, misleading poor innocent Brits into spending their millions at the mults.

And the result is a resounding not guilty.

Today the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) wrapped up its probe into loyalty prices by concluding that the vast majority of offers in the traditional supermarkets are “genuine”.

Of more than 50,000 grocery deals scrutinised, 92% of the prices were found to offer legit savings and – following an initial report in July which suggested its sleuths were going to come up with proof to pin on the supermarkets – the watchdog was forced to conclude there was “very little” evidence to suggest any wrongdoing.

The news was immediately jumped on by the likes of Tesco, whose Clubcard loyalty prices have been among those in the firing line.

“Clubcard Prices has always been about offering genuine savings and rewards to our customers, and we are pleased that this has been evidenced by the CMA,” it said in a statement this morning.

Loyalty pricing and trust

But what of the consumer champion? Far from backing off, Which? yesterday launched a new online and mobile phone tool which will encourage shoppers to try and succeed where the CMA has failed, and find genuine evidence of a conspiracy.

“For years, our investigations have highlighted the rise of misleading and dodgy pricing practices,” Which? claims in a recruitment email for the new tool.

“I’m sure you’ve felt the pain of being in the shop aisle, working out whether something is a deal or not. How can a member’s price be that much cheaper? Was that always the original price? And how can we trust rrp – who comes up with it, anyway?”

 

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Set to go live in January, the research will be used by Which? to compile yet another dossier against the retailers.

Unsurprisingly, despite the CMA finding that most loyalty deals offer genuine savings, the majority of consumers don’t trust supermarkets and believe their loyalty schemes are “misleading”.

A consumer survey which ran in parallel with the CMA investigation found more than 55% of the public thought they were being “manipulated” by the mults. It’s a classic case of smear tactics being more effective than good old-fashioned evidence.

So much for a consumer champion

It’s not the first time, of course, that an official CMA inquiry has shot down claims made by Which? on this subject. In 2015, a probe cleared supermarkets of accusations by a number of consumer groups in a so-called ‘super complaint’ that they were ripping off consumers to the tune of millions of pounds through dodgy deals.

Yet Which? has continued to fuel claims that supermarkets are exploiting hard-up and naive consumers – ignoring the reality that canny Brits are hugely aware of the pricing and value for money on offer at supermarkets, and are ready to vote with their feet when they get It wrong. Just ask Asda.

Even more jarringly, MPs from across the main parties remain in its thrall, with politicians regularly slamming the supermarkets for exploiting the public.

More recently, an investigation was aired by the BBC’s Panorama programme in September, which was so flimsy it wouldn’t stand up to cross-examination from a five-year-old. Again, Which? vented about the supermarket “rip-offs” in what could easily have been misinterpreted as marketing for the discounters Aldi and Lidl. The programme may as well have been advertiser-funded programming on the BBC.

Until today, the CMA has also been dancing to Which?’s tune, having launched two previous probes into claims that supermarkets were profiteering on the back of the cost of living crisis, both of which also turned up no evidence of note.

Surely, however, today’s report will close this chapter, at least as far as the official watchdog is concerned.

As for the unofficial one, expect more of the same in the new year for Which? in its next assault on the supermarket pantomime villains. After all, as the old saying goes: why let the facts get in the way of a good story?

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