Who owns a pound left in supermarket trolley?

[Zippyzoppy]

My son has a part-time job at weekends with one of the major supermarkets. One of his tasks is to round up any stray trolleys and put them back in the trolley park.

Apparently, from time to time ( maybe one/twice per day) people can’t be arsed to put their own trolleys back and so leave the £1 coins in the trolley. If this happens, he keeps the pound and puts the trolley back as required. When he first told me about this, I was quite pleased for him and thought it was a nice way for him to make a few extra quid.

However, when I mentioned this to a friend, she was aghast as she thought that he was cheating /stealing from his employer as the money is rightfully theirs.

Who is right?

@DeliciouslyDecadent
If you put a coin on the wall of someone's garden and walk away, who owns the coin?
Is it the owner of the wall?
Is it the person who finds it there?

£1 coin in a trolley is the same. The lazy person would rather lose a pound than return the trolley.
It certainly is not the S/mkts!
It is an abandoned coin.

It would be strange if this wasn’t covered by a rule. I think it strange he didn’t check before making the assumption.

*would be strange if this wasn’t covered by a rule. I think it strange he didn’t check before making the assumption.
*
It's a part time Weekend job for possibly quite a young person. It could be his first job ever.
It's not really 'strange' at all.

Not strange at all IMO!

I would agree with this, if a customer found it then fair enough. But as an employee, I would not seek financial gain above my agreed remuneration (or tips if I were in a tipping position).

And technically I would say this is the supermarkets, they levy a charge to customers for borrowing trolleys, the charge is refunded if trolly is returned and retained if it is not returned. OP’s son should ask his employer what he should do with found £1s. Maybe they will say he can keep it, but I know I wouldn’t pocket money I come across in the course of my employment without knowing that.

One of my first jobs was as a lifeguard at the local campsite pool. At the end of my shift I’d take a quick detour through where the lockers were and would usually retrieve a pound or two that had been left behind. I was 16 so didn’t even earn minimum wage so I treated it as a tip.

He's "doing the work" because it's his job.

His employer is paying him to do it.

The person who put the pound in the trolley owns it. Not the supermarket and not the staff. The pound is there as a kind of deposit to discourage people from stealing trolleys. If the trolley is left in the car park then it hasn't been stolen, so the pound still belongs to the person who put it there.

If the trolley was recovered away from the supermarket site and the pound was in it then it could be argued it belonged to the supermarket because the customer forfeited the deposit when they removed it.

Not sure who would own trolley money, but I remember when I worked in a shop, we were strictly not allowed any cash on the shop floor and there were spot checks, where they may ask us to empty pockets. it’s easy to not put items through the till and pocket the money. So I would be cautious from that perspective.

or genuinely left by mistake (not abandoned) but the principle is the same; it doesn’t belong to the finder so it’s a £1 today and condoning sends the wrong message. Was I asleep when our moral compass was switched off?

Asleep when the “moral compass” was switched off? No but you were when the common sense and rational decisions were!

I would agree with this, if a customer found it then fair enough.

That’s bonkers. So it would be OK if he found it on his day off or after his shift?

When you're on shift you are bound by the rules of your company, and most supermarkets -including the one I work for and the ones various friends work for - have a "no money on your person during a shift" rule as well as a policy of not accepting tips and another for what to do with found money. If you're on shift and you have a £5 in your pocket and your manager does a spot check and it's found then it's gross misconduct and you can be sacked for it.

When I'm a customer I am not bound by the same rules as long as I am not in uniform so I can do what I want. If I have £5 in my pocket the supermarket cannot ask me to empty my pockets in the same way they can ask a colleague to submit to a random spot check.

It's not difficult to understand that working and non working time requires people to abide by different standards.

Those of you saying it's a tip, do you actually realise that all* supermarket employees are contractually prohibited from accepting tips from members of the public?
It's seen as a bribe.
Not just tips either, gifts of any kind.
Generally they're supposed to be refused but if a customer leaves something insistently then it's to be given to charity.

As I said before, it's about integrity.

*In my experience, and I've read a lot of employment contracts.

It's seen as a bribe

A bribe for what? Exactly what is a guy who pushes trollies in a car park able to offer in exchange for this bribe?

This analogy isn't equal though. The pound is inside a trolley that belongs to the supermarket, presumably in the supermarket car park.

An equal analogy would be putting the coin in a plant pot just inside the gate, and someone else coming along and taking it.

It's clearly on someone else's property, so it's theft.

The pound in question is in someone else's property, so it's theft.

The trolley lad might not always be the trolley lad you know. Rules have to be the same for everyone. If you can't understand why major retailers with trade secrets would want to eradicate the possibility of bribery throughout all levels of their business, then there's no point in explaining.

No, you’re absolutely right. No point at all because you’re being utterly ridiculous.

😂

Those of you saying it's a tip, do you actually realise that all supermarket employees are contractually prohibited from accepting tips from members of the public?*
It's seen as a bribe.
Not just tips either, gifts of any kind.
Generally they're supposed to be refused but if a customer leaves something insistently then it's to be given to charity.

As I said before, it's about integrity.

Why is it so verboten for a supermarket worker to accept a small token of appreciation for their help/service from a customer, yet you're called tight if you don't give an additional 10-15% of your bill to a waiter or waitress?

I mean, I'm presuming we'd be talking about a box of chocolates or a coin or two here; not the keys to a brand new Lamborghini or Elton John's autographed grand piano?

It's finders keepers. The original owner had the opportunity to retrieve it and chose not to. So it's an abandoned pound coin.

As if the police and the courts have the money or time to waste on deliberately dumped pound coins.

I think supermarkets make enough money out of us don’t they, hiring prices with cost of living and then not lowering them when food prices drop. I can be pretty sure you son isn’t on a big wage, so really keeping a few pound from the trolley isn’t going to hurt anyone is it.

Except the son, when he gets fired for gross misconduct.

The police don't, no. But the employer does. Imagine if this lad gets sacked for this. It's theft, so gross misconduct. Getting sacked for theft from your first ever job will follow you around.

It isn’t theft. For it to be theft it has to be illegal and something you could get a criminal record for. This is money that has been left deliberately and donated to the next person in line.