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 wish this would happen to me 😂😂

I’m pretty sure that when supermarkets moved to self scan checkouts they did thorough research into how much shopping likely wouldn’t be paid for under the new system compared to how much money they’d save on staffing costs. Either through shoplifting or through honest errors like OPs.

And seeing as they’ve all moved to self scan I think it’s fair to say they’re all doing alright under the new system. So I’m definitely in the do nothing and enjoy your extra £100 camp.

“Bank error in your favour. Collect £100.” It’s hardly the crime of the century, I wouldn’t worry about it.

because you have a receipt, I expect that you’ve paid. Since their system was glitching, it’s possible that there’s a bug in the whole thing and you won’t see a debit for several days.

3 months.

Only joking. She’s 12. I’m not a complete animal.

I still have expectations that it will come out any day now! I will update the thread if it does

Stop fretting and just take the win.

Speak to your credit card company or bank. They’ll be able to see if a payment is pending or has been refused.

I wouldn’t give it this much thought, if it was an individual I had possibly ripped off I would care but a supermarket won’t go out of business and they should have better systems in place if they don’t want losses.

I would personally leave it.
the receipt said payment confirmed and it was an honest mistake. It’ll be aggy to sort out.
however if you’re feeling guilty; send an email to their customer service department in about 5 days (once the money definitely would’ve come out) and see what they say

Booths stopped it as they were losing so much stock. Nice staff there. I don't miss self scan when I shop there.

So, I can speak from a similar experience. The retailers put in new self scan machines and software at my weekly shop store.

Scanned my shop. Paid for it with a gift card and my bank card. Had the receipt for payment of gift card with zero credit and both Google Pay and my debit card for the remainder.

Asked for the receipt which promptly got eaten by the machine. The staff member couldn't give me a copy/duplicate. But hey I had alternate evidence (gift card receipt amount + debit card amount at date and time at store). Which came in handy the next time I was in store.

I was flagged up as having NOT paid. It took 15 minutes at the help / customer service desk to sort out. I was lucky to recall the previous instance, and have the presence of mind to pull up my debit card info. It seems they lost the transaction information. I had mine.

If it were me, I'd drop an email to the retailer highlighting the issue and asking for their input. I wouldn't query with store, as shop staff are not always au fait with processes. Then you also have the email trail, besides the receipt, as evidence of not having shoplifted.

No one in RL would do anything except take it as a win.

I don't think you have done anything wrong. What has gone wrong is their systems.
I'd wait 3-5 days to see if the payment goes through. If you are worried then call your bank to see if they can see the payment pending.

If no payment then two options: enjoy the freebies or if your conscience tells you otherwise, when you are next shopping there explain what happened at customer services or call their customer services if you prefer and see what they say.

Something similar happened to my DH. He thought he’d paid so he left the store with his shopping. However the card had not gone through for for some reason & next time he went in he was spotted via facial recognition & approached by security. They accepted that it was an error so he paid & all good.

This made me LOL

The OP has a receipt saying she paid. I expect it will go through eventually. It is the supermarket’s fault if their system was faulty, as the OP said not everyone has time to spend half an hour hanging around to try and speak to someone. If she goes back with a receipt saying she paid the shop staff won’t be in a position to do anything about it, they aren’t IT experts. They go by what’s on the receipt.

The supermarket is obviously having problems with its system. It will probably come through in a couple of days.If it doesn't then its a lesson to the supermarket. Don't rely too much on technology.

Obviously not your fault, if they approach you at a later stage to ask for payment you have the receipt so you thought you'd paid and there's no question of shoplifting. I'm guessing that they won't bother though, they must have thousand of problematic transactions like yours if their systems were down that day.

You can always pay if they do contact you, no skin off your nose.

You've made every effort to be honest so good on you. If it really doesn't come through but you want to go a step further I'd go in but I bet they say "Don't worry about it" as I doubt their system can cope with a payment without a related transaction.
A few years ago a similar thing happened at my local Sainsbury's. It was chaos! In the end, the shop told customers to estimate the value of their trolleys and pay that. You can imagine a lot of people said £10 when their trolleys were overflowing!

The oddest thing, I was having a chat with a client last night and she mentioned similar had happened to her. It came out of her account 5 days later.

It’s so funny how many people think there is anyone in the corporate supermarket system who would care or thank them for returning to pay for shopping. This kind of loss is as you say literally written into the business model. You are just going to cause a massive hassle for staff if you go back and insist on paying again.

It’ll come through in a couple of days so do nothing. Some of my supermarket shops can take 3 days to show up. Was it Aldi btw? Our Aldi was only taking cash for a while as all their systems were down.

Serves them right. Keep shtum.