A Bicester Village shop has been fined £13,500 for misleading customers with its discount prices.

Trading standards began investigating Blazer, owned by Moss Bros, after a customer discovered a difference in the discount price of a shirt he bought last April.

The shirt bought for £29.50 was discounted rom £39.50. But a tag inside the shirt revealed the "usual price" should have been £35.

London-based Moss Bros pleaded guilty at Bicester magistrates to four counts of misleading customers under the Consumer Protection Act.

The firm also admitted having a suit on the "half-price" rail marked down from £235 to just £215. Trading standards officer Graham Jones, prosecuting, said, when colleagues visited Blazer, they found a number of shirts with contradicting price tags.

He said: "A purple shirt had never been sold at £45 as claimed. It had been offered for sale at £39.50."

Other examples included a sports sweatshirt which never cost more than £39.50 eventhough it had a "usual price" of £49.50.

Claire Andrews, defending, said there was no intention on behalf of the company to mislead customers.

She said: "Staff just wrote down the wrong price. The suit found on the half-price rail simply got moved there by customers."

The firm was fined £2,700 for each of the five charges.

Afterwards, Moss Bros director Peter Moss said the store at Bicester Village operated a complicated discount price structure.

He said: "It was a local problem and it is not something we are getting wrong around the country."

Story date: Wednesday 10 March

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