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.

A certain percentage are checked randomly. I had a real issue in Asda the other day whereby the handset was on a go slow and i'd scan something, nothing would happen, so i'd do it again and then the handset would put two through. So I was constantly removing items from the basket, I just knew that it'd select me for a check when I got to the till, which it did.

No big deal. Certainly nothing to get teary over.

This happened to me at Tesco, two crying kids and I genuinely forgot to scan a pack of Crisps!

I was honest and apologetic and my club card flagged up to be checked when shopping the next few times.

I didn't cry and get angry or smash my shopping..

I find this so interesting. To my mind, that's a complete failure on Asda's part - they are running a system that basically wasn't working, which ended up inconveniencing you and taking away any actual advantage of using the thing. But you think it's fine. My guess is, if it had been a staff member constantly getting things wrong, rather than handset, you'd be a bit less forgiving?

Come on OP this is hardly an “incident“ is it. I thought you were going to say you were attacked or something! It’s a pain in the arse yes but you’ve definitely overreacted here sorry.

I had this happen a year or so ago in Sainsburys and it was a reduced item. I had a trolley absolutely full to the brim so the rescan took quite a while. I had definitely scanned the item as I look at the gadget each time I do so.

The reduced item was £1.20. If I wanted to shoplift I would be stealing higher value items than that.

When I went on the Sainsburys facebook page a good number of people said the same had happened to them and there was definitely something wrong with the scanners when it came to reduced items.

I don't shop in Sainsburys any more

Do your shopping first, then coffee and book, after.

My DH would have at being told 30 of 58, would have said. You are wasting my time , since u are unpacking all … I would like to return all items. thank you & I will shop elsewhere.
He likes to be the one with the power.

I had this more than once. The first time I thought I was scanning something like 4 cherry yogurts, so I put 4 in the trolley and scanned the last one 4 times. But it turned out that one of them was strawberry and it triggered a whole shop scan. Another time I just missed an item. So I decided I'm not attentive enough for that system and I only used staffed checkouts.

We use the self scan at our local Sainsbury's. The first 4 or 5 times we used it we were selected for a re-scan, only on 15 items though. I commented to the assistant it was making me a bit paranoid and we've never been selected since. Probably coincidence but it's a horrible feeling whilst you're waiting for them to complete. And so easy to forget to scan an item - I'm constantly checking the scanner all the way round. Are we watched on camera somewhere?

Nope Like i said earlier im already paying for the goods with my money. Im not paying with my time as well

I'm Black so I always just go to a till because even if nothing in my bag sets of the 'random' check with self scan it's just easier for me. I empathise with you OP, because I do wish your reaction/assumption was the universal experience - so I get when that illusion is shaken it does almost break something internally. But the staff member apologised after all was said and done so not all illusions were lost. You'll get over it in no time, it's just very annoying in the moment.

You are being over sensitive
The number to check is fairly random.
If somethinbnis miscanned for whatever reason the need to rescan the full shop.
Same happened to me when I had 2 different flavour pizza and scanned one twice rather that each once.
Your clients would be more put off by you reacting in a childish manner than thinking in any way be thinking you are a thief

Jeez you need to relax, this has happened to me a few times when I haven’t scanned something, by mistake I hasten to add.

its no big deal.

this might be the perfect Waitrose/Mumsnet Venn diagram 🤣🤣🤣

How do you propose that Waitrose manage this situation? One customer gets teary and feels like they’re being judged and another yet the next customer might stand proud knowing they have done nothing wrong. Like you’ve said they were doing their job, the issue is how you reacted.

I'd expect them to manage the situation by having a service that isn't utterly shit.

Pull that stunt 83 000 times and you are close to £100k of stolen produce. Next things next, you are on the ferry boat to Northen Ireland to then enter the EU by the back door. Johnny foreigner wants his reduced bisto on tap and you have granules of brown gold to turn his tap on. Three years later you are sipping gravy on a superyaught on the med toasting the falty scanner at Sainsbury’s, Morecombe.

@SensitiveSallySue so you saw the big screen where it asks you if everything scanned correctly then?

and presumably answered YES

I get checked occasionally, one of the regular staff makes a joke about guessing how many items, once it was something like 15 and he did a really sad face 🤣 Usually it is 6 at the most.

I always check reduced items to make sure the price has gone through right.

We did a shop in waitrose yesterday, 29 items using the self scan option, while we were paying we got selected for a rescan and the only 2 other people at the tills doing shop and scan were also being checked. They scanned 12 items of ours. I was worried that we might have missed something but luckily it was ok.

I do think that it is pretty inevitable that customers will innocently scan and item and it won't register or that they will scan one item twice and if shops are offering such a service then they probably do need to expect that people will make mistakes now and then so to not treat them like criminals when that happens or else the system just won't work. I use self service options often but it does feel like it could so easily all go wrong!

This happened to me in sainsburys once with a really small absolutely howling baby to boot. I was fuming because half the time I was attempting to scan thing the handset kept losing signal but made the beep so I was having to double check everything went through everytime the signal came back. I'd obviously missed double scanning one and got the exact same treatment. I've not gone back to that particular branch again because of said shitty signal experience

😂

I feel you OP. It feels like bad faith - if we’re trusted to be honest enough to save the supermarket paying more people proper wages then why can’t companies be kind enough to their customers to acknowledge in their dealings with us that people fuck up?

I had this in Tesco, also a yellow label - courgettes, reduced to 19p. Fair enough, staff have a duty to check but some are nicer than others and the last woman I had gave me a ticking off about how I need to pay more attention, when I joked I was embarrassed people would think I was stealing that particular item of veg. When I said ‘we all make mistakes’ I got a big moody HRUMPH. Then she picked up, from a bag on the seat, a large empty biscuit tin I’d bought from a charity shop. I said ‘that’s not from here.’ She nonetheless went ‘THIS ISN’T SHOWING UP EITHER’. When I said yeah that’s cos I didn’t buy it here, look, the price is written on top of the barcode in pen, she was visibly fucked off and said how was she meant to know😂

It took forever to do, and I was, in the end, out by 19p. I was considering telling her to keep the whole £70 shop but the thought of going and doing it again elsewhere was too much that day. Never felt comfortable doing my own scan since though, am clearly not up to the emotional turmoil either, so I just queue for ages instead. Also don’t go into Tesco as much either.

Supermarket scans shopping
Shopper feels uncomfortable

Shopper doesn’t blame staff
Shopper doesn’t complain
How is that shit

#firstworldproblems

Exactly what I wanted to say @BallaiLuimni if the system is so crap that it needs to carry out rescans it should be scrapped. Customers shouldn’t be expected to just accept a poor level of service.
The system I would invent is a sort of conveyor belt thing that moves your unloaded items along to a person sitting at a till. This person then scans your items then you pack them. You then pay the person at the till for the said items. I think this system might work well😂.
As for the OP’s reaction I suppose she’s entitled to feel how she felt. We are all different. Some of us are easily embarrassed, get weepy, whatever. Some of us are tough old boots who wouldn’t care less.