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?

But that is actually what has happened in 99% of cases, isn't it. The customer knows the £1 is there, they put it there themselves, so they would know they are not getting it back if they just leave the trolley in the carpark rather than returning it.

@sunglassesonthetable I think you should read the reply above you from @wotsitsorhoops , any way I've done speaking to you now.

I worked at a supermarket through uni, both as a porter and as a supervisor.

I couldn't have given a rats arse if a porter was pocketing the odd £1 coin, and neither did the shop. Not a single shiny shit.

It's not the supermarket's money, and it means that the actual trolley, which were quite expensive to replace, has been retrieved.

think you should read the reply above you from @wotsitsorhoops , any way I've done speaking to you now.

Excellent. You're very rude.

So what you you say if a person had a token or coin that had great sentimental value to the owner say it was passed to them from a loved one whom passed away or other equally significant value.

A trolley token of great sentimental value 🤣🤣🤣

@wotsitsorhoops Feel free, you know, to contribute to the discussion, not just make a single comment criticising me.

🤦‍♀️😁

Communication is there. They are told to read the handbook. If they don’t, ignorance is no excuse.

Communication is there. They are told to read the handbook. If they don’t, ignorance is no excuse.

By your own description that's not working but heigh ho.

I'm sure you're across it.

Gross Misconducts a plenty.

It simply isn’t possible to tell each employee every single procedure in the employee handbook, and even if we did, I don’t think they would listen and remember an hour’s long speech.

It is their responsibility to read them, nobody else’s.

I thought this was going to be a case of someone who forgot their £1 and ran back to get it to find someone had taken their trolly and refused to give back the £1 😂

The money does not belong to the store and never would so if someone is leaving their trolly in the middle of the car park then it is a tip to your son for putting it back where it belongs!

I have a hatred for people who leave trollys out as well as those who just push them towards the trolly park so they get all messed up and you can only get a handful in there. I am one of the sad customers who tidy up the trollys so I can get my trolly in properly so if doing that I found a pound, I would keep it!

So would I! I used to keep coins from phone boxes as a child too - apologies if anyone can't stand to read about such an outrageous act 😬😬

And if this token or coin happened to be of great sentimental value to them, I have no idea why anyone would be so cavalier with it as to knowingly put it in a trolley, wheel it around the supermarket, put their shopping in their car, and then whizz off into the ether when the option to simply return the trolley back where it belongs was available to them.

If it did happen to be of sentimental value, they probably shouldn't have been so negligent with it. Same as if I leave my car sitting with the keys in the ignition. My insurance wouldn't pay out for it being stolen because it was entirely the fault of my own careless behaviour.

We found a £1 coin in a trolley that had been left in a car parking space at Wickes a couple of weeks ago.

I let my 4 year old keep it and said it was a bonus for returning the trolley.

Now I'm worried he's going to grow up to be unemployable, lacking integrity and with no moral compass.

But at least he won't be an arsehole who leaves his trolley in the middle of a car park.

Swings and roundabouts I guess.

You’ve led that poor child or road of hopelessness, they’ll never do a days work now, they’ll be searching for pounds in trolleys their whole lives with an effort to find a job.

I don’t see a way out of this for you!

@Blinkblank

Should i consider sending him to private school? I've heard a lack of morals and integrity are desirable in more senior roles.

So worse than being a feckless unemployed trolley pound scrounging thief, you want them to be a politician!

Good grief!

@Blinkblank

Banking?

Yes, I have been in meetings where employees have been fired for gross misconduct for taking items of little to no monetary value.

Last year I had a seasonal employee who had their contract terminated because they kept money left behind in a self scan - the customer had walked off and left less than £2 in coins in the change slot (their change was something like £6.92, they had taken the £5 note and left the coins behind)

The correct procedure is to try and catch the customer before they leave or take it to customer services to be recorded in the "Found Money" log (if the money is unclaimed by the end of the day it goes to the cash office, if it remains unclaimed it is donated to the stores charity partner).

The unofficial procedure is that you do the above unless it is Les than £2/3 - in which case it goes into a little pot kept on the self scan counter with small coins for if someone is a few pence short for their transaction. At the end of the day anything over the 50p float gets put in the charity box.

This seasonal employee found less than £2 in change and instead of giving it to Customer services or putting it in the penny pot they put it in their pocket. Unfortunately for the employee the customer was shopping for someone else and realised they had left the receipt and change, and as they came back they saw the employee pocketing the money. The customer went straight to customer services and reported it, there was an investigation and because self scan is covered in cameras they had clear evidence of him breaching the cash handling policy and pocketing money left behind by a customer.

He was disciplined for gross misconduct and lost his job for less than £2, so yes it does happen.

Yes he was on the checkouts but car park porters fall under the same department as checkout staff in my company so half the self scan staff will also do portering shifts outside so would be well aware of the cash handling policies (and the rest would be expected to know about them anyway as it's in the handbook and on the policies)

I worked a petrol station when I was at college.

There was an offer where for every £20 you spent on fuel you could choose either a free can of Pepsi or packet of Hula Hoops.

A lot of customers didn't want theirs, but everyone knew that didn't mean it was a free ticket for staff to take an item instead. One member of staff did take a packet of Hula Hoops and was caught and got fired.

You could easily say the Hula Hoops belonged to the customer who didn't take them, but that's not how it works. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Oh I thought you meant politicians 😂

But if I the customer took them, then gave them to the assistant? How does that work?

They’d probably still get fired. I have to say this thread has been an eye opener with regard to supermarkets’ employment practices and it doesn’t paint a particularly attractive picture. I just wish we knew which ones are the worst so we could avoid them. I absolutely don’t want to spend my money with a business that would fire someone for taking a can of pop or a woman who’d worked there for 15 years for a £2 bunch of flowers. It’s leaving a very nasty taste in my mouth.

It's his. Your friend is a knob.

Basically on this thread, to anyone who has worked for a big retailer it’s obvious that he should not be pocketing the £1 coins.

A lot of other people, who obviously haven’t worked for companies like this are saying, “don’t be ridiculous, it’s a pound” or “he deserves it he’s on minimum wage” or “finders keepers” etc.

It’s not a moral judgement or whether he deserves it or the person who left it is lazy or anything though. It’s just a fact. You cannot do things like that if you work in retail.

This.

They also don't work for other companies/organisations where there are anti-bribery rules that the company/organisation enforces properly.

This means you have to be very careful of accepting anything from anyone who isn't a colleague and properly a part of your actual company/organisation.