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’m honestly astounded at the amount of people admitting it as well. Hundreds of ££’s worth of food was thrown out daily in the Asda I worked in where people just dumped it. I can guarantee no staff member ever thought “gosh I wonder if that was because of me?”They’ll be thinking “Christ what an entitled prick”.

Awful behaviour.

Yeah. I suddenly felt sick and had to hold on to the trolley, tried to wheel myself over to the only seats which were at the front of the shop, only to be stopped and told I couldn’t pass the tills with my trolley, I said I felt sick but they guy said I couldn’t take it, absolutely everyone saw me dump it at an empty till and stagger to the seats and slump down! No one helped! When I felt well again I phoned my husband to come get me in the car. I got up to get the shopping and pay for it they guy who had told me off had taken it back round the shop and put everything back! That was M&S!

We have self check outs at lidl and Aldi so queues aren't the issue but i have left my credit card at home and had to fetch it

Many years ago I was talking to someone who had worked in a food processing and packing factory. The food was prepacked and delivered to quite a number of supermarkets. if the product passed its sell by date, it was returned to the factory. I was told that it was then repacked, re-dated and sent back out again.

Yes. I left a whole trolley at Tesco once after waiting an entire hour just to get into the self-serve bit. I needed to go to the loo & the bastard manager who came out to ‘help’ refused to save my place.

I have, in Lidl. The couple in front had a £50 voucher. My entire trolley of shopping was on the belt. The voucher wasn't working, various managers were called. I waited and waited. Eventually my queue was told to go to another cash desk. A member of staff helped me put all my shopping back in the trolley. I was then told to go to the back of the very long queue. Fuck that! I left it all. Had a baby with me too!

I worked in Safeways when I was in 6th form (so nearly 50 years ago!!!). The only thing that made management up staffing levels on any shift was finding abandoned trolleys of shopping. It was the only way they would understand that queues had reached unacceptable levels. The sheer horror of finding a trolley full of potential profit abandoned in an aisle focussed their hive mind in a way that endless complaints from customers and employees never did. I can remember one manager actually wringing his hands and wailing over a trolley full of steaks and wine left behind one Friday evening (back in the days when late night opening meant 8pm).

I've let this lesson guide my behaviour. If queues are unacceptably long I walk away leaving my shopping behind me. If the shop can't be arsed to provide staff to serve me they don't deserve my custom. That applies if I've got one dress in M&S or a trolley load in a supermarket, but only in chain stores. Of it's a little independent shop I'm much more patient.

@Blackandwhitemakesgrey I don't know - there was a house fire when I was out. I came back to pandemonium and had to move temporarily, police were involved due to court case. All I knew was that the boarding was removed but I took the call from them saying I could access the house again in the middle of a supermarket. It wasn't the best of times.

I can guarantee no staff member ever thought “gosh I wonder if that was because of me?”They’ll be thinking “Christ what an entitled prick”.

I don't mean to be rude but why do you think people care what your staff members think of them? Do you honestly believe people give it two thoughts? I honestly could not care less about what the Zara cash desk team think of me when I leave whatever I was going to buy on the nearest surface and walk out of the shop.

That's gross 🤢🤢 hopefully standards have improved since then

Obviously, they had circumstances that meant they couldn't open more tills (new staff/training/system issues) could be anything, I'm sure they didn't do it for the shits and giggles, to leave one member of staff in the lurch, and have complaints.

"I hate blooming store cards, I’ve whittled them down to just a few because I can’t stand the weight of my handbag on my poorly shoulders. Thus I only shop in a few particular shops now. My mums purse is as big as a paperback book, it’s insane."
I now have an app called Sto card
It's got all my cards on it, so if I've got my phone I've got all my cards 😊

Yes I left a full trolley a few weeks ago. My card didn't work and I just left it all there. I have been back since and in fact didn't even think about it until I read this.

Why?

I did once, I had DD with me about 18 months at the time in the buggy and pushing a trolley, it was a disaster but she wouldn’t sit in the trolley seat and pushing both was easier than her screaming.

I gave DD a block of cheese to hold to keep her entertained 😂, unloaded the shopping on to the belt and then asked DD for the cheese. She gave it up and I loaded it, the shop assistant then told me she needed me to take DD out of the buggy so she could inspect it for any stolen goods.

i left the shopping and filed a complaint.

@Blackandwhitemakesgrey because PP have said they did it to get at staff members.

You leave a jumper on the side in Zara it doesn’t have to go in the bin. You leave a steak on a shelf, then you’re a dickhead.

I worked in Tesco as a student and I loved it. Away from the checkouts and the people, having a wee dander. Great.

I did it once, £100 of shopping went through absolutely fine, second last item was a bottle of wine. The 50+ year old assistant told me it was an alcohol free lane and I couldn’t pay for the wine in this transaction. I said ok, I’ll go shop somewhere else. In my defence, I had travelled 4 hours by car and was exhausted, we ended up with a takeaway and a few beers.

Yes in tesco a few yrs ago, long queue & only 1 till open as trying to push everyone onto new self serve tills. Had to leave to get kids from school & left it at customer service & told them why

No. It’s really disrespectful to the staff. They’re busy enough without having to have the extra work of dealing with this. That customer was a twat.

Wow that's so childish.

Our Lidl's had 6 self checkouts.
They had to close them because so many people were stealing 😐

I did abandon a shop in Lidl once. My Queue wasn’t moving, another checkout was opened but people with trolleys got there first and I was with my SIL who had paid for her stuff already. I just left the 3 or 4 items I was getting on the belt and left with her.

i can understand if its eg an emergency and people have to rush off,
but theres also some facebook groups where people advocate cash is king and if tills are closed and only self service is an option some members of the public then leave the shopping as their "mini" protest about not having tills available.

personally what happened to people behaving like adults and accepting each business has different methods, rather than just demanding x