I've just been ID'd

Years ago, when self checkout was a new thing, my brother kept getting the ID check meaning an assistant was needed, no alcohol, or other restricted items. He finally worked out it was his newspaper... The Guardian to be exact.

Got nothing to do with how old you look, it's bar code/ ingredients on the item.

See my post about buying a mini Xmas pudding.

And I'm your age.

Presumably you've never had the pleasure of being age-checked when buying a mini Xmas pudding?

Yep- a mini Xmas pudding, gluten free, was flagged up when I was self checking out.

I'd love it if I were IDd. I'm 66 ! x

I got IDed buying a number 1 birthday candle....

When I was IDed twice at 42, the staff were quite amused by my happy dance.
(Cider, Red Bull)

I was once ID'd for a porridge to go bar. Yes it was self checkout but I'm still baffled...

Every item in the shop goes into the computer system under a category - grocery, produce, dairy... Etc. Beer & Wine is a category, alcohol removed wine and beer are still under the "beer & wine" category, so they still trigger the automatic response from the computer system to check ID when they are scanned..

They don't want to be seen doing it because it's against licencing aims, and without a licence no one gets served.

I get so annoyed when I'm ID'd. I'm more than double the legal drinking age, I have three kids, and I have an incredible amount of wrinkles.

A lady in Waitrose wouldn't accept my driving licence the other day because the photo is now B&W and she hadn't seen that before. She rubbed the dates with her fingers, eyed me up a few times, and proceeded to ask me if I had another form of photo ID.

Edited to add: I agree with you, it's really silly. I might as well be drinking orange juice - that's 0.0%, too!

It's a waste of time checking U rated films and flavours why not save it for actual age rated films and actual alcohol

I used to drink Becks Blue in pregnancy by and always got ID’d despite looking about 62yo thanks to major fatigue

Yes, I had it once with an alcohol flavoured item that actually did not actually contain alcohol. It was Christmas Eve. I felt so sorry for the lady who was serving me as she said so many people got angry at her when she asked for id and she was so grateful that I showed her my id without any issue. She was just doing her job. I tend just to carry id on me when I go shopping just in case.

Yep, I used to be a cashier and this was how it worked. And if you didn’t comply then you could get in trouble for it and it wasn’t worth the risk.

If it flashed up on the screen that it was an age restricted product, which they sometimes do because of the category it's been put in, the sales assistant has no choice other than to comply with the companies age restriction rules.

0% beer isn't actually 0% alcohol because they remove the alcohol rather than put it in so they can't remove absolutely all traces of it (same as decaf is caffeinated coffee that has the caffeine removed so will always have a bit of caffeine in it) so you wouldn't want kids buying it.

Absolutely cackling at @igivein and the Christmas card though- that is truly nonsense.

This is a result of governmental responses to interfering know-it-all do-gooders campaigners.

Always affecting everything but the bloody thing that was of concern in the first place.

I got ID’d for buying Tipp Ex at 29, I wasn’t even planning to drink it!

Oh I get this too! I'm pregnant so only drinking the 0% stuff, whenever they have to approve it at the till I always ask them if they know why it needs approval but they never do! The last person I asked said "no but I'd like to know myself so I'll find out and let you know when I next see you". I'll let you know the outcome if I ever see her again 😂

The supermarkets are choosing (as they're entitled to do) to go further than the law here. The law allows for anything under 0.5% to be sold to under 18s.

My two favourite 'you couldn't make it up' ID requests (both at Tesco so they must be keen as mustard) were:

1. Buying a knife - fair enough I hear you say, but said knife was part of a 'baby's first cutlery set' that I was buying for my toddler son.
2. All time favourite - a pack of Christmas cards with a depiction of a Christmas Cracker on the front. Apparently crackers have explosive in the snap, so it needed to be ID checked. I pointed out it wasn't an actual cracker and there was no snap, but the assistant said 'the rules are there for everyone's safety' and then huffed off 😂

It might be 0% but it is still beer or wine and is therefore in the category of goods which can require ID. I see the notifications come up at the self-service or scan and pack checkouts. Mostly the staff just come up to me and use their store login to OK it. I'm 58 now and they must be satisfied that I look as though I satisfy the criteria as I haven't been asked to produce ID for years.

I don't see an issue with it. I have my driving licence face card in my purse if it should be needed anyway.

I bought some sugar syrup and grenadine (non-alcoholic version) to make cocktails and the check ID prompt came up on the til. The cashier said that anything like is listed under alcohol as a category and they wouldnt sell it to an under 18.

I also bought some cigarettes last year and got ID'd. I am mid 40s with a long beard. The cashier said he was happy that I was over 18, but not that I was under 25 so he had to ID me. I havent carried ID since I was about 19 years old, but once I explained that the legal age to buy them was 18, and he was happy that I was over 18, he realised how daft he was being and sold them to me.

I think it's a non-issue, really. It takes about 5 seconds to get your ID out & show it.