If a charge is levied on the basis of the reading of scales (in the UK at least), those scales have to be calibrated. A complaint to the local trading standards department should bring swift results.
A transaction based on uncalibrated or inaccurate scales could amount to fraud - it's that serious!
Easy to say, difficult to do. You're at the checkin and a flight to catch. Pay up or go home. You comeback many days later and make your complaint. Evidence? The scales have been at it for many days. How can you prove the point in the past? And how many will bother?
Speed cameras have a buffer. I wonder what the XAA's airport authorities or IATA will say is the standard for scales? I was once told by a checkin lass in Italy that the baggage weight, checked passenger etc. and her name all went into the computer. If the baggage showed over weight (how much?) and there was no corresponding charge, then she had to pay it. No shuffle room; hence the off-load and re-load option if common sense is alive and well that day.
And: I know this is a question to blow in the wind; but will anyone please tell me a good reason why various airlines slice 5cm off the IATA standard cabin bag? Not only that, but 5cm from different lxbxh dimensions. Some allow the full whack; then some 5cm less on width and some on breadth. No wonder there is rage BEFORE the gate. How to make an easy job difficult. And in this day of LoCo single tickets is an unnecessary pain. OK in one direction and not in the other. Grannies must be having heart attacks. Me too. And don't start on the ONE piece only rule being so different between airlines and airports. It's a nightmare. Go by train or ferry.
Last edited by RAT 5; 14th Nov 2013 at 19:22.