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?

I can hear it on Desert Island Discs now.

The companies that still charge £1 for the trolleys all have policies about what they do with the money. I suggest your DS checks his handbook because if someone catches him he could be done for fraud / stealing. It’s why many supermarkets have stopped charging for trolleys.

For all the people aghast, if you as a customer found a trolley with a pound in already, would you take it in and donate to the supermarket charity, and then put your own pound in??

I couldn't get worked up at someone on minimum wage getting maybe £2 a day extra from a couple of trolleys. Similarly I'm fine with passing on a car park ticket to another driver of it has time left on it, or accepting one from someone else.

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.

She's one of those bizarre mumsnetters who immediately describe every white lie as 'fraud'

Which brings me onto:

he could be done for fraud / stealing

😂😂😂 Don't be so utterly ridiculous.

I am a manager in a supermarket and I would be very disappointed in any staff member I found pocketing trolley coins. The accepted thing here is that any coins are handed in to be put in to the charity box. It’s not stealing exactly but it does show a weakness of character.

Piety and judgyness aren't pleasant traits either.

He could be sacked for having cash on him if store rules say he can't. No way to prove it's from a trolley over taking from elsewhere.

I assume most stores would make you put it in the charity pot.

I assume tills also have some button for "amount left by past customer" to ensure tills add up and encourage all money to be secured in the till.

I’d pocket the coins and keep quiet about it, it becomes a problem when colleagues find out and feel left out🤣

*He could be sacked for having cash on him if store rules say he can't. No way to prove it's from a trolley over taking from elsewhere.

I assume most stores would make you put it in the charity pot.

I assume tills also have some button for "amount left by past customer" to ensure tills add up and encourage all money to be secured in the till.*

Assume doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

The pound isn't a charge so it doesn't belong to the shop. It belongs to the customer. It's either lost property or a deposit that should be kept is case the customer comes back for it. Either way it's a lot of hassle that's the shop is unlikely to want to be involved in.

It’s a tip for returning the trolley

Many supermarket workers are on wages so low they have to rely on the charity of the state to make a living wage (ie working tax credits). And you'd begrudge them a pound from an abandoned trolley someone was too lazy to take back.
I know where I'd be looking for character defects and it's not with the workers.

Of course it’s his.

Does anyone here own a personalised shopping coin for trolleys? I never knew they were a thing until I went to get a trolley one day and realised it had a pound coin in. Except it wasn’t a pound coin it was a made up coin the same size of a pound for the sole purpose of trolley usage. It had a lovely intricate design on with the name Alice on.

I was in early labour at the time picking up some doughnuts to take to the hospital and I had always loved the name Alice.

I took it as a sign from the universe and that was daughters name 😁. That coin was meant for me.

Take it but don’t talk about it, maybe?

The whole point of the £1 is to help ensure that customers put their trolley back. If they don't do that then I would assume the £1 is forfeit.

If this was a big deal to the supermarket, I would have expected him to be told what to do with money left in a trolley during his training.

This is one of those things in work where the supervisor probably doesn't care and would prefer not to be asked, but if you do ask, they will have to make sure it's 'by the book'.

If it’s the supermarket’s money how will they log it into their books and pay taxes on it? 🤔

This ... They have no way to process it . your friend should mind her own .

If I ever left my pound in the trolley I’d much rather it went to the trolley person as a tip rather than the supermarket!

"Theft by finding"is a thing however it only becomes theft if that property hasn't been abandoned and you've made proportional efforts to find out if it's been abandoned rather than lost. Proportional is the key word here. If you found £1000 the efforts to ascertain if it's been lost or abandoned would be higher than for a £1
If you saw someone leaving the £1 in the trolley, you should ask 'did they mean to do that? ' to them rather than just take the coin however if no one is in sight and the trolley has been left in the car park, it would be reasonable in the case of £1 to say it's been abandoned and therefore not theft.

Well quite. And it's also quite a bizarre idea that a 'charity' like Barnardo's/ OXFAM needs a few pound coins more than say a single parent struggling to survive. Charity begins at home. And not all charities are good, some people may even be opposed to the one with the nearest box.

@Teateaandmoretea

She's one of those bizarre mumsnetters who immediately describe every white lie as 'fraud'

Yet another person who doesn't know what the meaning of "white lie" is.

They have no way to process it?

😂

What an utterly bizarre response. I don't think I'm the one misunderstanding.

Your son is right.

I’m not in the uk and we don’t have staff that are only collecting trolleys, any member of staff can be asked to retrieve them. I often do it myself if we are busy. I wouldn’t pocket the coin myself and I wouldn’t expect any member of staff to do it. None of them are on minimum wage, we have very good unions here and, going by the threads I read here, are paid more than teachers and nurses in the UK.
I am not a miserable manager, I’m actually lovely, but I do hold all staff to very high standards of integrity. I don’t expect anything from them that I wouldn’t do myself. Trust is a very big thing when you are handling money and if that makes me “judgy” that’s fine. I do judge them, that’s my job.

They have no way to process it?

How would they put it through their tills ?

A white lie is a lie told to avoid hurting someone else's feelings. For example, your friend asks if you think she looks fat and you say, "Nooo, Sue, of course you don't!" Even though she's put on 3st since you saw her last month.

Nothing to do with justifying one's own questionable actions.

So yes, you are misunderstanding "white lie".