To think challenge 25 has gone too far?

I got ID'd at Tesco once when I was 28 when buying a Red Bull 😂 Had to go home and get my passport. I was laughing about it though, always a compliment for a woman

I get IDd every single time now. I just accept it tbh. I’m almost 32… alcohol, cigarettes, lighters, knives, GLUE, nail packs with glue in them, paracetamol. All of it ‘can I see some ID please’.

I don’t drink or smoke any more tbf so it’s not a huge issue but the paracetamol one pisses me off. I don’t have a driving licence right now so have to take an old residency card for a foreign country and point to the DOB. Absolute faff for a 48p pack of painkillers.

They tried to do that to my mum when I was 21. ‘Sorry love I’m not selling it to you with her’. Soon looked glum when I showed her my ID showing of legal age. As though she’d be buying the expensive NZ SB for her underage kid.

Did you actually bother to go back to the shop with your passport - just for a can of drink?!

I do wonder how many sales these shops are pointlessly turning down, and also annoying customers in the process.

It’s worse in the US. My dad got IDed in a Walmart when he was in his late 60s 😂

I once bought a grass snipper from B&Q - essentially a long pair of scissors with a very narrow-opening jaw and two flimsy thin metal blades - and the self-service till demanded that I wait until an assistant came over to press the 'definitely over 25' button.

In the same transaction, before the grass snipper had instantly triggered the alert, I had already scanned a rip saw - an angry-looking tool with massive, vicious sharp teeth, which you plunge into stubborn bush branches or whatever to tear them open and away for serious pruning and clearing. It doesn't take much imagination to think how this could be abused by violent sorts, and could extremely easily kill a person. That was fine, though - no age-check needed on that one!

I’m 43 and still get regularly told I look like a teenager so no surprise I get regularly asked for Id.

43 and same on all points.

As someone who has to follow the ch25, we get in serious trouble if we mess up. We have to follow the policy however stupid it may seem

A motorway service station worker recently refused to sell me a can of Red Bull because I was accompanied by my 15 year old daughter.

I sometimes think it’s nothing to do with the law and fines and stuff. They just enjoy the power trip.

I've never quite understood why no-alcohol beer or wine flag up the mandatory age check on the self-service till. Not low-alcohol, but ones with 'zero' in the name and stating '0.0% alcohol'. To be honest, I'd have thought they would serve as ideal drinks for teenagers who like the idea of a 'more grown-up' drink, but one that is safe and legal for them whilst they're still under 18.

Then again, Tesco sell bars of rather nice Polish Wedel brand strawberry or cherry-flavoured chocolate - I gather Wedel is the equivalent of something like Cadbury in terms of their 'mainstream' status and the family demographic that they're aimed at - but they must have a trace of alcohol somewhere in them, as they always flag up as over-18s only. I do often wonder whether children and teens in Poland are also banned from buying one of their country's standard mundane treat products - which must severely reduce the company's potential sales reach - or whether they just officially say "Meh, it's chocolate - it's perfectly fine for kids"?!

I really isn't.

I'm 40+ years older than I need to be to buy age restricted goods. There is absolutely no way I look 25 or under.

For some assistants it's just a power trip.

So challenge 25 not 30+

What does the actual law state? I know sales staff are warned to be on their guard for young people who are a bit over 18 buying drinks on behalf of friends/siblings who are a couple of years younger; but surely this doesn't mean that adults can never buy over-18 purchases by virtue of whom they happen to be in the shop with? Especially as those who are up to this will almost certainly have the younger ones hang back separately from the older ones whilst they're going through the till, so they aren't identifiably together.

I've even heard of parents who have been refused a bottle of wine, because they have a toddler sitting in the trolley with them, in case the little one is planning on teaming their turkey dinosaurs and cucumber sticks with a cheeky merlot!

I got IDd buying my DD craft glue once, I would have been about 32!
They are just being over cautious because retailers face heavy fines if they sell to underaged people so staff get warned to ask everyone they think could possibly be under 25, it’s not their fault. Just take ID and take it as a compliment

I lived around the corner so it was a few minutes. Otherwise yes, I wouldn't bother coming back

It is a minor inconvenience for you to show your ID.

If a retail worker gets it wrong they could lose their job and be prosecuted. Essentially ruining their whole lives.

It is not comparable and you are being unreasonable.

I was id-ed in February: I'm 38! TBF it was the first time in a while it has happened - a notable one was for buying non alcoholic wine when pregnant!

My son worked part time in a supermarket a couple of years ago when he was 18 and they really drummed it into them to check. They were all petrified of selling to someone underage and getting in trouble. My son said if they didn’t look old enough to be his mum or dad, which he classed as mid 40s as that’s how old we are, he asked for ID as better safe than sorry.

I think people are spectacularly bad at judging age. We’ve seen it on here, a woman posts a photo on here asking how old she looks and guesses range from 25 to 65. 😂 Even the guesses that could be taken as sensible have a big range.

My DS was ID'd for a Tesco order (no problem, although he's 19 he has a baby face and he's ID'd everywhere) gave the delivery lady his ID - she said 'oh no, you've got to be 25' and then took the WHOLE ORDER away!

But what if you don't have any ID? And not everybody wants to carry it with them, even if they do. Lots of people (not me, I'm old-fashioned!) just keep everything on their phones - loyalty cards, payment cards etc. - and they don't want to have to find somewhere to keep an ID card as well (safely, so that it doesn't get dropped, lost or stolen), just because they might fancy a bottle of wine or a few cans of beer, and a shop assistant can't accept that somebody who looks clearly middle aged or even grandparent age is not under 18.

It also seems to defeat the object of making shopping easier, quicker and more efficient in every way possible. loyalty cards and vouchers/coupons are now all on your phone. As I said, they've made it so you can pay with your phone. Even aside from using your phone to pay, it was considered too onerous to press 5 buttons on the chip & pin machine if you do have a physical bank card, so they brought in contactless.

Yes, of course people can survive with transactions taking longer; but they just don't want to have to nowadays. Even cars are built with automatic headlights that often don't work properly to save drivers from having to waste half a second clicking a switch.

If shops are really so permanently petrified about selling alcohol or cigarettes, why don't they just not sell them at all, and save themselves all the bother?

Just show them your ID pay and go about your day? Is this all you have to worry about?

I had the same issue trying to buy sugar syrup. The till flagged it up and nobody could override it and as I didn't have ID I wasn't able to buy it. It's literally just sugar and water but because it's often used in cocktails it was with the liqueurs so it flagged up as challenge 25. I wasn't very happy, I ended up making it myself which I could have done without since I wanted it for my cocktails on my weekend away and I didn't really have that much time.

If it had been actual alcohol I would have understood but when it's not it's stupid.

There is a digital version of the UK driving licence available, could you not have that on your phone? Would it be accepted?

Ah, I suppose so - that would at least resolve one issue.