Have you ever dumped an entire trolley of food at a till and walked out?

[sunnydaytoday0]

I was in a Lidl store today and a very long queue built up.. and it became apparent that another till was not going to be opened despite the queue getting longer and many of whom had a big trolley load of food. There are no self service tills.

I then saw a man walk to the front and dump his entire shopping on the conveyor belt of an adjacent till and stormed out.

I'm sure if there was more staff this would've been avoided so it wasn't the fault of the person on the till. I know there is pressure on supermarkets to cut costs, but is this now getting to a tipping point in terms of impacting on customer service? Or is it the case that if you go to a so called 'discounter' type shop then you just have to accept that the service levels will be bit lower which allows them to offer lower prices?

Have you ever dumped your shopping at a till and walked out? I thought if the guy wanted to walk out he could, he didn't actually need to go the effort of unloading it all on a belt in a dramatic fashion in front over the worker and then storm out.

I've dumped my trolley once, but that was only because I started to get stomach cramps and realised I was about to have a serious bout of diarrhoea. I was in B & M and they don't have toilets for customers. I only lived a 5 minute drive away so I dumped the trolley, ran back to the car and drove home to use the toilet. It was a close call!

The items had been scanned by me. Or are you accusing me of shoplifting because a random full scan was triggered and I literally didn't have the time to queue up at a manual cashier, wait my turn, unload it all and pack it all away again?

They rarely do full scans here, usually it's just up to 10 random items (percentage based on how many you are actually buying) are double checked by the self scan staff then they put in their code and you pay, barely any time wasted at all. I have done a full scan since this time and all was correct (because I am not a thief), that time I actually had the time to do it however so didn't have to leave everything behind.

Why do people assume everyone has a smartphone?**

Because the vast majority of adults do.

I had this five times in a row when my daughter was a newborn so I don’t know what kind of profile they are going for. It was infuriating.

We are pretty lucky with 3 big supermarkets in town. I stopped shopping at Tesco as a result and go to Waitrose or Sainsbury’s, jokes on them really as that’s 20 odd years of family groceries they’re missing out on.

True but a quarter of the population of adults over 55 don’t. And of the others I guess you need to have it charged and with you which you might not not bother with just for the supermarket.
The stuff people pick up and then randomly leave around the store is more annoying though. Especially freezer stuff left in a fridge. Unfortunately it has to be binned.

Even if posters somehow managed to ignore everyone else and limit their observations of people to just those over 55 - 75% would still be the vast majority.

Two tier pricing shows how badly Tesco are ripping off their non-card-holding customers. It's put me off shopping there.

I know. Hence prefacing with “ true”.
But there’s still a sizeable amount that won’t.
And people forget their cards. We are all just human. Alternatives are the way forward.

They aren’t ripping anyone off. It’s just normal priced stuff the same as other shops charge.
You share your data and you get a promotional price. You don’t want Tesco to know what you buy, go elsewhere.

What, really?? You did that to some poor sod's full trolley just to get your quid back?! If it was that desperate a need to leave, I'd have written off the pound coin.

Lots of these posts read as though the supermarkets are doing us a favour. I do feel for the staff but agree with some of the posts which say vote with your feet, otherwise they've got us over a barrel and nothing will change. I've never dumped a trolley myself but have dumped an armful of shopping when i couldn't wait any longer (10 mins and no other queues opening). Since when did their profit come before my time.

What's a proof of age card? and what use is it if staff won't accept it?

If it's an official document designed for people who don't have other photo id to prove their age, too right I'd be leaving all my stuff too.

That they can be fined is one thing and we need to accept it, that they behave like utter arseholes? not so much

it is extremely misogynistic to use the Karen slur, think about that. Especially when it's not clear you're answering anyone but the OP which is about a man.

Tbh i wish MN would see "karen" as a slur and delete posts for it

the manager was unreasonable to tell people to go to the backs of other queues. He should have stepped up, as a manager and either manned the till until you got back, or replaced the shopping himself if he didn't have other available staff to do it.

In the next in line's place I'd have walked out too.

If they can afford 'discounts' of over a pound on a single item for their cardholders, they are ripping off their other customers.

@StopStartStop Thats not how it works though. Supermarket sell certain things at a loss to get you in the shop . Other things are discounted by the manufacturer in the hope people buy more. 1) 1)They couldn’t afford to do this all the time
2) People don’t actually like the idea of “cheap” food. The idea that quality costs works for manufacturers and supermarkets alike.

Never. I don't understand why you would unpack your trolley/basket only to then storm off. Surely the writing is on the wall by the time you get to this point.

Doesn't surprise me in Boots, their customer service is completely non-existent.

In early 2020 (before covid), I wanted to buy something in my local Boots and I couldn't find a single till open. I assume there was someone on the pharmacy but they were nowhere to be seen. So I walked out. I only had one item so it was easy to put it back.

And then they had their nonsense about taping off make-up aisles so I decided not to go there anymore.

I agree with this.

If you think someone is being unreasonable, then criticise the behaviour.

It is lazy, ageist and sexist to call someone a Karen. See the many threads on this.

As for the loyalty card prices, they are a con according to Which? anyway. For example, if you bought a tin of fruit at the "promotional" price of say 80p, you'd probably find that the tin was 80p a week or two ago anyway, and they've just increased the price for non-loyalty card holders. So it's not a real discount.

OK, you pop into Tesco and either give them all your information or pay more for your purchases. I'm sure you'll enjoy the options they give you.

They will often delete it if reported.

It wasn’t very customer service orientated. He wouldn’t have been able to take over a till but he could have put the shopping back or even just the frozen/chilled and left the rest until later. But he may have been very busy, with a delivery or something that couldn’t be put on hold. It took ages to get him to come and void the payment.

I don’t blame either customer. People can’t wait around forever, as I said, I’ve left in similar circumstances, and some people had to count every penny when they shopped. I often had people have to put something back when the total was more than the money they had. I had a few ask me to put it through the till again if the total wasn’t to their calculation (this was the 1980s, so I had to key in each price, no bar codes!). I imagine if you thought you were going to be able to afford your weekly shopping because of coupons and then found you couldn’t it could feel really embarrassing, possibly overwhelming if you then weren’t sure how you were going to feed the family that week.

thanks i didn't know that.
I won't be reporting this one because i also think that (not only my) explanation of why people shouldn't use it is useful.

I went through a phase of dumping my shopping and walking out when the service was particularly bad. I never got to the stage of intentionally unloading my trolley onto a conveyor belt before leaving but I abandoned my full trolley several times and once walked out after unloading because the checkout guy was particularly useless and had to call for his supervisor every other item. I mean, I waited a good ten minutes for him to serve the person in front before leaving. Sometimes walking out is the only thing to do to preserve your sanity, and I'd rather walk out than get to a point where I want to be abusive.

I was going to say I've not done it for ages, and that's technically true, although I was tempted to walk out of the local DIY shop on Saturday because their service was particularly slow. Would have been self-defeating though, now Wilko has shut it's the only shop in town where I could get what I needed.