Made to pay for a bag in the supermarket

[christmasfoodshop]

Just picked up a few bits for Xmas food shop.

Had baby with me and she was tired so getting a bit irritable.

Scanned all my shopping at self checkout, ended up with a quite a lot more than I needed (as you do).

Baby crying. Paid for my shopping.

Realised I needed a bag at this point so got one and put all my stuff in there.

Go to walk out.

The shop assistant said I needed to pay for a bag. Fair enough.

She said I had to rescan it.

Baby now screaming and wriggling out my arms. Heavy bag of shopping in the other hand.

She made me wait there until she'd scanned a bag, pressed 'check-out' , selected 'pay by card' and then I had to scan. All for bloody 30p.

In hindsight, I do understand I had to pay for the bag but I was so bloody frustrated and just wanted to get out of there that I paid 30p for the bag and stormed off. Left my giant trolley in the middle of self checkout. I was at my wits end. I felt like I was at school being held back by the teacher.

It's 30 bloody pence. Let me go!!

She acted like she was earning money out of making people pay for bags.

YABU - everyone ALWAYS must pay for bags no matter what

YANBU - in the circumstance, she should have just let me go all for the sake of 30p plastic bag.

YABU

Having a baby with us doesn't mean you get things for free.

She asked her to pay for the bag. That's not hostile. Being asked to pay for something you are taking from a store is not humiliating or an inconvenience. OP's attitude and decision to "storm off" made the interaction hostile.

Yes wild to think of people getting free bags with their shopping.

only because you were forced to...

YABU. I work in a small supermarket . We get sent deliveries of bags guided by our sales of the bags.. If no one paid then we wouldn't get any more bags delivered. Hope that helps!!

In this day it is a wild thought considering we have been paying for them for over 8 years

Left my giant trolley in the middle of self checkout.

You left a trolley of shopping because of a 30p bag? Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face.

YABU - the law does not have a screaming baby exemption clause

You could always keep one of those shopping bags that folds down to wallet size in your handbag

YANBU A very similar thing happened to me in Tesco not long ago, I had a tantrumming toddler and a baby and was very frazzled. Realised I needed a bag too late and got called back but the female employee. At first she was stern but when she saw me struggling to get my purse out and routing around for the money on the verge of embarrassed, stressed out tears she said forget about it and I could go. I think done situations cal for kindness.

If you only had a bagful of items why didn’t you just take the items to your car in the trolley and not take a bag?

Obviously the bag belonged to the shop so it wasn't yours to take.

That said, it's hardly the crime of the century. I've definitely not paid for all the bags I've had in my life. Some the assistant just gave to me and others I've fumbled at the checkout and not put through by mistake.

If I had a miserable young baby with me and all the stress that goes with it, I don't think a 30p bag would be my favourite thing to deal with extra stress about.

You tried to steal a bag and got caught. You need to pay for items from shops, obviously. Would you walk out with your bread and milk because your baby was crying? And how else would you pay for it except by scanning it?

Not voting. It's true that the shop staff are meant to make sure that you pay for things, but in the case of a carrier bag, when you were clearly getting a bit frazzled, you tried to offer 30p cash, and I'm not sure that she couldn't have scanned and put it in using a different bag, or that they can't have a code for that purpose when people do pay but it's hard to scan it, eg having put shopping in.

But I had a bit of a drama in Lidl a few months ago. I was carrying a battered old backpack which was originally DP's, but he has new ones in better condition - this has broken zip compartments (that's dp's fault) but I use it for library books as I can put more into it more easily than any other bag in the house, and if it's raining I might put them in carrier bags in there for added protection. I may or may not have had spare bags in there but as I was buying small items and nothing too liquid or damp I rang them through self service and put them on top of my books in the backpack. Then stupidly I forgot to take the receipt.

I got stopped on the way out and disbelieved - was probably looking quite scruffy and the backpack has definitely seen better days. The door guy called a colleague. Fortunately, I knew which self service till I had used and the colleague, I think a manager, finally went back to have a look - he wouldn't let me near the till in question but my receipt which I hadn't thought to pick up was luckily still there - it was also just as well that I'd used the corner till and knew which one it was. They'd made me unpack my little selection of purchases and were guarding it, but they looked at it and it did prove that I was genuinely scatty/foolish/ whatever but not trying to steal.

I don't drive but I do try to take spare carrier or cloth tote bags with me in case I venture into somewhere I might need them. And I remind DP who does a lot of our shopping because we have too many plastic bags in the house and I don't want any more, nearly as much as because of the money - when he gets more bags he gets the more expensive stronger bags for 80p or more too!

I am definitely trying to remember to take my receipts. I am trying to use staffed tills more - on my last visit I needed the till anyway because I was getting a calculator for DS2 that was tagged, and I realised I'd overlooked a security tag on some underwear I was getting too, sooo glad I hadn't tried to just stick with self-service on that one. And If you've got a crying kid it might be easier to do that than to run the risk of only remembering after you've paid that you have no bag. I know it's offputting if others have huge trolleys, but it varies - and the cashiers are much more efficient than me at scanning my shopping.

YABU

Your attitude sucks as well as the cashier was just doing her job!

No-one is calling her entitled because she forgot a bag. They're calling her entitled because she expected to be able to help herself to something that isn't free, and then came on here to complain that the shop dared to insist she pay for it rather than let her walk out with it because she had a crying baby with her.

Twice now I have paid for bottles at self-service in our local Tesco and got them home to find the security tag still on them. One was the store lady getting distracted and forgetting, (and me too), and the other was a whisky bottle in a cardboard carton. Neither time had the gates made a noise.

Yanbu.

YABU

You were being unreasonable she was just doing her job. Just because you had a screaming baby doesn’t mean you should get away with not paying.

Also it sounds like you fully intended to not pay at all, I’m glad the shop assistant stopped you.

Storming off is just childish as well.

Lol only because the shop assistant stopped you.

YABU

OP should have paid for the bag, but it is likely that the staff member picked on her because she does not pose a threat to them. A man walked into my local tesco, stuffed his coat with expensive lindt chocolates and walked out again. No one batted an eye lid.

You have to pay if you had forgotten to scan a freddo would you expect to get it for free? I always have some bags for life in my bag. Never know when I will need some.

Where do they draw the line though? Stressed out Mums? Mums with newborns? Elderly people who are confused? Wheelchair users? People who don’t speak English and didn’t realise you had to pay for bags. They must see about 100 flustered Mums with babies everyday.

So if your kids start whining, you can slip
a bottle of Baileys under your frock?