What to do about the big shop I may have inadvertently shoplifted!

[ImGoingUpstairsToTakeOffMyHat]

Did my big shop yesterday using a scan and shop doo-dah.

Racked up £100+ worth of goods, and went to the tills to pay. I was told scan and shop wasn’t working so I’d have to put it through again on the other tills. They also said Google pay wasn’t working and made sure I had a physical card.

Went to self scan, and it was chaos. I could hear that other customers’s payments weren’t going through and a few people had to take themselves to the cash machine or go to sort it at customer services.

Anyway I scanned all my shopping then went to pay with via contactless with my card. It asked me to insert the card and enter my pin, which I did. It took a really long time but the screen on the card machine, and also the self scan machine, displayed a green tick and said “approved”/“transaction complete”. But then suddenly the self scan screen showed up a red exclamation mark and said “Error - call for help?” With a yes and no option. However, by this point the machine had spat out a receipt, and staff members were all busy helping others, so I assumed it was just the machine glitching. Also DD was in the car and didn’t want to leave her much longer, especially as scanning the shipping took so long. I pressed no, took my receipt and left.

However, no money has left my bank. I didn’t realise until I was making a transfer this morning and noticed I had no transactions for yesterday.

I was going to go back and tell them but DH said that they may make me pay, only to find that the payment is just taking a few days - so says I’d risk a double payment and may struggle to get a refund on one of them. I tried calling the customer services today but was on hold for ages and we had plans. I don’t want to go into the supermarket and ask for advice in case they accuse me of shoplifting, or force me to pay (see concern above about potential double payment )

The receipt says “Total paid £102.34”. Just for clarification. It’s not the kind of receipt you get when a transaction fails.

Should I worry about this? Is it shoplifting? Has anyone experienced this before? I don’t know much about banking, can transactions take a number of days?

I'd get in touch with them. Not sure what other option there is.

You could wait and see if it goes through. If you've got a receipt saying you've paid, don't worry. Not your fault

I would say that if you received a receipt - you paid.
Did you check pending transactions?

I wouldn't do anything.

You have a receipt saying PAID.

I wouldn’t do anything further.

If i doesn't go through, go back and explain. Whilst it might not be your fault, clearly it needs to.be paid for despite what your husband says.

I would continue on the basis that a receipt for payment confirms they have received payment. It may well be delayed but tbh I wouldn't take any further effort.

If this is a large supermarket I would take it as one of life’s little wins! It will likely never happen again and will be a drop in the ocean of a loss for the company. It was their fault. If they had insisted on using people on the tills this would not have happened. Don’t feel bad! X

I'd take it that you've paid as you've got a receipt The transaction doesn't always appear immediately especially if their systems were having a problem.

Some payments take a while to show up. If the reciept says paid then I would expect somewhere in the system your payment is waiting to go through.

I wouldn't do anything. You went through the proper procedure and got a receipt. Wait & see if the transaction goes through. If it doesn't, enjoy your free stash.

You have a receipt ! I would hang on to it, maybe the money will come out later on this week. If it doesn’t then it’s a win for you.
Sounds as if a lot was going wrong , the store will just write it off.

Their tills were faulty that day. It's isnt your fault if the payment didn't go through. In no way did you try not to pay. And you've even got a receipt

Their tills were faulty that day. It's isnt your fault if the payment didn't go through. In no way did you try not to pay. And you've even got a receipt

I have, it’s not pending.
DD, a wise tech savvy teen, has just told me that I can contact supermarkets via social media. I had no idea! So may do that, and see what happens

Your bank will be able to tell you if there is a payment pending - even if it's not showing in the app/online. And you know the exact amount because of the receipt. So I would contact my bank because that way you know if any money is due to go out.

There isn’t enough tills these days or enough people to man the self service ones. A lot of this could be avoided, but the bigger supermarkets have found a way of saving money on staff making us do a lot of it ourselves.

I had this happen once when i bought shoes then I needed a refund the following day because they literally broke instantly the refund went in before the money came out took around a week if I recall I just kept the money available and held my nerve

This happened to me im Sainsburys. It came put of my bank account 5 days later!

I wouldn't do anything

I bet a few others have the same thing going on too. The machines were clearly having a bad day.

The receipt says you paid. You didn't get a notification the transaction failed. That would be good enough for me.

The machine spewed out a receipt and the word 'approved' appeared on screen.

With that in mind I think it's fair enough that you assumed you'd paid. Just pretend you didn't notice it didn't take the money. It's not your fault that their system failed. The alarm should've sounded if you had genuinely stolen something anyway?

I wouldn’t do anything except photograph and keep the receipt. Keep it for 6 months and then chuck it.

There will be absolutely no punishment or consequence if they contact you for payment and you show them the receipt. I think they’d struggle to request the payment if you have the receipt.

They can afford to lose £100 in shopping. Just leave it. You tried to pay. You have ‘proof’ you paid. Do nothing more and enjoy your free shopping. With the cost of everything at the minute it’s one less thing to worry about