Accused of stealing a bag for life

[MindfulMess]

I went to my local supermarket this afternoon to pick up a few bits and pieces. We’re in a big city and I’m in there almost every day. There’s only one checkout with a person working it; the rest are self-checkouts.

I got chosen for a random check. No drama, it happens a lot. Then I was told I hadn’t scanned my bag for life. No , I said, it’s mine. I just took it out of my pocket. The woman repeated that I hadn’t scanned it, and I repeated that it was mine and had just come out of my pocket. She called a supervisor and they told me to wait.
A few minutes later the supervisor came back, and the first woman said (without looking at me), “You can go”. Nothing was said about what had happened but I assume they reviewed security tape or something and saw that yes, my bag had in fact come out of my own pocket.

I pointed out that they had been quite rude and was pointedly ignored. I was shaking. I’m shy in public at the best of times and I really didn’t know what was going on or what was going to happen. I mean, you wouldn’t expect they’d call the cops over a bag for life but I had no way of proving I hadn’t stolen it. They were, if anything, even more rude once they said I could go.

What should I do? I’m honestly quite scared to go back. None of the usual staff seemed to be working today (I’ve been in there perhaps every second day for over a decade, quite a few of them know me by sight.) But it’s my local shop…

(By the way I am well aware that regulars steal things too, and I have no issue with being checked. The attitude, though, was awful. When I questioned it I was basically told to leave the shop now please madam!)

When nearly all our human functions have been automated which most will be, all will be left is for the Robocops to keep us in order as we scavenge the world looking for scraps to survive. Alexa is not your friend but a cuckoo in the nest ...😁

I ALWAYS get followed around M and S by their security guards when I look like crap - jogging bottoms and big ugly coat. They aren't even stealth about it.

Last week I brought two steaks and literally had the receipt in my hand as I knew they would pounce on me at the door. I practically thrust it in his fucking face with glee.

When I am dressed for work, they do not bat an eyelid.

This is why I love the shops with NO tills like Tesco Go.

Given her obvious public humiliation, I'm guessing that she would have given anything to be able to wind back time and pay for the bags. Until she got caught, 60p was the price that she considered her reputation to be potentially worth - like some of the people on this thread.

Anything you say? Her house? Her children? It sounds dreadful.. it must have felt like she'd been sent to a public humiliation to the stocks. And she did it all to herself.😢 😲

Hopefully she'll learn from this and style it out better next time if she's caught. After all, it wouldn't do to have your entire reputation destroyed, for life probably, for misappropriating a plastic bag.

Ironically if this woman had been watching me more closely, she’d have seen me pull the bag out of my own pocket.

I was saying to DH though (we are both white), it’s a good example of white privilege (“If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones.”)

How did they manage to charge you Op if you had already scanned & paid?

I got checked before I’d paid. When you press pay it sometimes says you’ve been selected for a random check, and the staff member comes over with a scanny thing and scans a few items. That’s when she said you forgot to scan your bag and I said no I brought it with me.

I then got left there for ages (without paying) and paid once they said I could go. I’m thinking they must have a button on the scanner to add a bag? As she didn’t scan a bag on the actual scanner.

I haven’t been back (yet), feeling shocking today, am off work.

I’m thinking they must have a button on the scanner to add a bag?

Intriguing. Hopefully someone will be along who knows the answer to this question. I doubt it would be legal to zap someone with additional costs in this surreptitious manner though.

I honestly don’t know @Dayvi , but it’s the only option I can see short of witchcraft. The only bag in the mix was mine and it was already full of groceries; I’d have noticed if she’d somehow picked it up to scan it! And the scanner on the machine was on my left, she was on my right.

@MavisBeacon1234

then take your own.

what else do you steal because you don't like the price of it??

@Littlefaeries - Tesco don’t bear the costs of thefts from their store. Everyone who shops in Tesco pays for it, in the percentage added to the cost of every item to cover shrinkage.

That sounds like an upsetting experience OP, especially as it’s your local shop.

I worry about this sort of thing happening to me. So I usually take bags from a different shop e.g. I’ll take my Sainsbury’s bags for life with me when I go to Tesco.
That way there’s not going to be any unfair accusations about not scanning bags.

Your bags are 60p. It’s scandalous.
You must be making a fortune on bags.

I don’t because I won’t shop in Tesco.

I got checked before I’d paid.

Of course thanks.

Don't have self scanners where I am!

The one time I did try to use when in UK I had my own bag.

Not sure what happened but someone had to come over!

Absolute shit that they charged you for your own bag.

I mean you couldn't prove that it was yours any more than they could prove it wasn't!

And you don’t think that Sainsbury’s or Asda or any other shop does the same, @Littlefaeries?

Wherever you shop, a percentage of what you pay is to cover shrinkage - loss by theft counts as shrinkage.

I assume they checked the CCTV and saw that I DID take it out of my own pocket. Because if they’d seen me steal it they presumably would have said more than just “you can go”. I really don’t know though.
Apparently they are “looking into it to find out what happened”. I’m sure I’m about to hear that I was rude and aggressive or something.

My local shops still give out the blue ones for free - they cost about 2p in bulk on eBay.

Do they not legally have to collect tax on them though?

Ha ha.
I shop in Carrefour.
Good luck thieving in France. I wouldn’t dare try.

As for shops putting up prices to cover theft, so what?
Youre never going to stop shoplifting so consequently prices will allow for that.
But if all shoplifting stopped tomorrow do you really think prices would fall?
If so you’re deluded.

Small shops are effectively exempt if not strictly legally so and there are plenty of exemptions to boot.

www.gov.uk/guidance/carrier-bag-charges-retailers-responsibilities

The latest no checkout stores which are being trialled by Amazon and Aldi in Greenwich - I have been to both means you just pick stuff up put it in a bag brought or bought and simply walk out of the store. You check in via your app at an entry gate. I ask one of the staff about shoplifting, and he said it's impossible. During the pilot staff were encouraged to try and steal and were told they could keep anything they did, but it's uncrackable, apparently. The ultimate scab store !

I mean you couldn't prove that it was yours any more than they could prove it wasn't

It's probably easier to prove that a messy folded up bag is an old one though, and not one you just picked up.

In any event, the onus is on the shop to prove. To get a conviction for theft you need evidence, and you need to prove beyond reasonable doubt.

As for France, I'd prefer not to import assumptions that every shopper is a criminal and deserves to be searched.