Waitrose incident.

[SensitiveSallySue]

I am not sure if I am being sensitive or if I should complain.

Every Sunday morning I go out for a coffee and read my book, then do the weekly shop without the children. I like to be back before midday so I can spend the rest of the time with my children, including 9 month old baby. We have every supermarket local to us, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, M&S, Asda, Tesco, and I always use the ‘scan and shop’ to make the shopping as quick and easy as possible. I’ve never had an issue until today in Waitrose. I’ve only used it a couple of times in Waitrose and never for a big shop.

After scanning my entire shop, strategically packing it so it’s easy to unload at home, I went to pay. When I beeped the scanner, it flagged up as needing to be checked. I thought that was fair enough, it happens sometimes, and I haven’t done a weekly shop in Waitrose before using the ‘scan and shop’ option. The worker came over and said she needed to rescan 30/58 items. I thought that was ridiculous, in every other shop they scan a random selection of a few items, not over half your shop. It seemed pointless to me to have even used the option in the first place, but I didn’t say anything and the worker started to empty shopping bags full to rescan items. This was taking ages, but I just stood patiently waiting for her to finish.

Then, she came across one that I apparently hadn’t scanned. I know I did, but it was a yellow sticker packet so I can only assume that it hadn’t registered properly. She repeatedly asked me if I had scanned it, and I repeatedly told her I had but it clearly hadn’t registered.

She told me she would need to rescan my entire shopping trolley, then took me over to a till, and I stood on the end whilst she unpacked every single one of my bags and scanned every item individually. It was completely unsubtle, in front of all of the other customers, and obvious that they were rescanning the entire shop in case I was attempting to steal things. I felt like an idiot and a thief. To make matters worse, I am a small business owner working with children, and had already bumped into several of my clients in the shop. I was absolutely mortified thinking that they may think I am a thief.

I was thoroughly embarrassed and teary eyed, and hastily shoved everything back into bags whilst the Waitrose worker apologised. Half of my shopping is crushed as I was shoving things back into the bags indiscriminately. I promptly paid and left but it has really upset me. By that point, I’d spent around 20 minutes having everything rescanned.

AIBU to think that if Waitrose are going to have a system that is open to abuse, they need to have a solution that doesn’t involve treating customers like thieves? I have never had an experience like this in any other store and whilst I realise they have to protect themselves from theft, surely this is not the correct way to go about. It’s not the Waitrose workers fault, it just seems like a very poor system and they shouldn’t offer ‘scan and shop’ if this is the way they treat customers.

My goodness, how dramatic. You crushed your shopping and cried because the worker was doing their job?

Horrible experience for you but if I saw someone I know having their shopping rescanned I wouldn't assume they were stealing

Try not to take it personally as it is standard procedure in every supermarket. My friend has been stopped three consecutive times!

Annoying but no need to be embarassed when you knew that you were not stealing.

What exactly would your complaint be? You hadn’t scanned something correctly so it seems fair enough that the supermarket would want to do a full re-scan to check it was a genuine mistake and there weren’t multiple items not being paid for. I’m struggling to understand what the shop worker did wrong or how she could have been more ‘subtle’?

So you failed to scan an item but then got upset because they had to recheck all your shopping. You need to pay more attention to what you’re doing.

And what exactly would the complaint be?
The cashier was doing her job, what would have been the alternative?

Lesson is to always make sure you scan things properly I suppose.

I don't think yabu. Stores introduce these self service mechanisms purely to save money on staff.

If they don't trust their customers, then go back to fully manned tills and stop making customers do the store's job.

why not just go through the till of you have a problem with being checked? It is hardly a major issue.

It just sounds like a bit of bad luck OP. I’ve never used scan and shop and would have no idea if somebody was getting their shopping rescanned what with just wanting to get on with my own day when I’m in a supermarket. Have a and forget about it.

I’m sorry that happened to you. These systems are imperfect and it’s horrible to be made to feel that it is your fault and that you need to make up for their choice to use a dumb/smart system.

Scan and shop does periodic checks - I do find if I do a hugely different shop (massive or small!) it can sometimes flag for a check.

The cashier was doing her job, you had an item that didn't scan / you hadn't scanned so had to re scan everything.

I've never paid attention to who's getting what scanned or when at those checkouts. How you dealt with that and your feelings around the situation aren't the responsibility of the staff member, it's not their fault you felt embarrassed/crushed your shopping when repacking.

Sorry you went through this experience. Unfortunately you had failed to correctly scan an item, so humiliation is probably what they are aiming for to prevent unintentional theft by people not paying attention.

Unless someone you knew witnessed the initial discovery of an unscanned item, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

Thisnhappens ro me on tesco all the time and every single time every item has been scanned. Ive stopped using self scan now and gone back to normal checkout, its quicker.

I also stopped doing it at my local Sainsbury's when the woman accuaed me of stealing soemthing that id already paid for and picked up from the in store Argos.

You're clearly not the Waitrose type and they knew it.

Yes, this is an insane overreaction. It's completely standard procedure. The staff member apologised for the inconvenience. You're the one who decided this was some kind of public humiliation, got weepy, and crushed half your shopping by not repacking it carefully. No one is going to suspect you're a thief any more than they would when a garment you've just bought sets off the alarm at the door of a clothes ship.

Im not sure what an alternative way of doing this is? Unless they completely get rid of self scan and scan as you shop

Also, you hadn't paid for one of your items so good for Waitrose that they chose to check you, even if this is completely random, it shows that it is needed as self scan isnt a perfect system

It’s not the Waitrose workers fault, it just seems like a very poor system and they shouldn’t offer ‘scan and shop’ if this is the way they treat customers

For all of those jumping on the OP, saying she is blaming staff, maybe read the OP's post properly. She clearly says she doesn't blame the staff.

Essentially, If you don't like the idea of having checks then don't use scan and shop.

In your case, you did miss an item and any supermarket would have rescanned the whole shop if they'd picked this up in a random check.

This is fairly standard in most supermarkets, particularly the first few times you use the scan and shop. If they come across something that hasn’t scanned properly of course they need to then scan the whole shop, you should be checking the items have gone through onto the handset correctly as you scan not just assuming if you’ve held the scanner near the barcode it’s registered. What did you expect should have happened after the worker found an item that hadn’t been scanned? I can’t think of an alternative system to scanning everything to check that you haven’t missed anything else, whether purposefully or accidentally. It doesn’t sound like there was any accusation you were a thief, they don’t just check because people can steal but also because it’s easy to accidentally mis-scan or forget an item etc, they’re checking for accidental user error as much as purposeful error.

I understand how it made you feel but honestly you're over reacting. What else are they going to do if you'd miss scanned an item?

It happened to me/my Dad recently. I passed him 3 blocks of cheddar to scan and he didn't realise one was a different strength to the other two so just scanned one of them 3 times. Unfortunately the odd one out was the one they picked up on the test so she had to rescan the whole shop. Just one of those things and she was lovely about it (and we'll pay more attention next time!).

Sometimes the thing comes up as needing to rescan the whole shop so no one is going to judge you for it.

It’s happened to us in Tesco. Full trolley check at times, yes, its inconvenient but it happens. I certainly wouldn’t look at people and think they’d been shoplifting.

I think you’re making a big deal out of nothing. If I was your client, I would assume you’d mis-scanned, not that you were a thief. Or I wouldn’t have even noticed or thought anything of it.

So what would be your solution to stop people who steal items accidentally fail to scan items properly?

I knew there was a reason I don’t use the scanning bollocks