To be really sick of supermarkets treating paying customers like scum

[OptimismvsRealism]

Sainsbury's traps you in the self service pen of shame until you scan your receipt like a good little girl

Tesco won't take the security tags off your wine until you've not only paid but they've examined your receipt in detail to make sure your wine is paid for - sort of a performance so you remember your place

Waitrose makes a bit song and dance about doing the rescan of self scanning shops (I don't do self scanning because why would I sign up for this extra work?)

Just in Lidl and my wine set off the security alarm even though I've had the tags taken off and the security guard chased me out the door to try to get me to show him inside my bags (er no fuck off pal)

Aldi staff try to look in your shopping bags as you queue

Does anywhere NOT get a kick out of treating their profit drivers like filth any more?

I will probably just have to live off UHPs from the local Greggs at this rate

@Gogogo12345 if a station is unmanned they are meant to leave the barriers open.

Total overreaction,

Why blame the supermarkets… Blame the scummy people who steal and make the additional checks necessary.

I know this but it hadn't happened or the person. Manning the station gave gone off somewhere

Wait? People actually campaign to stop ticket barriers in stations because it "spoils the look"? That's wild!

it would appear so!

Just to say, no, what I wrote was true.

I find it really quite bizarre you think someone might take the time to lie, anonymously, on Mumsnet, about something like that. Why would anyone do that?

Strange. But, well, not important.

where was this station that bowed to the local community and didn’t install ticket barriers?

in @yoteyak ‘s imagination

Lots of stations don't have barriers though. Don't know why people are disbelieving that someone would protest against them and it be upheld

Apparently people in Berlin boycotted a supermarket which introduced self-service and they changed it back.

I actually like self-service, it's convenient and quick when it works. But I also want staff around who can deal with an age-restricted purchase QUICKLY. And I also want to be able to bag as I go. And not have to scan receipts that I otherwise wouldn't even need to take and waste paper. It should work for the customer.

I find them super-annoying as well, especially when you have luggage or you want to get onto the platform to meet someone.

On the plus side, they do keep the beggars off the trains. When I was in Germany a few weeks ago it was noticeable how many people were on trains asking for money. You rarely get that in the UK where there are ticket barriers. So there are advantages.

There are no advantages to trapping me in a shop to scan my receipt. Therefore I won't use shops that do it.

And of course, the rail companies have a monopoly so you have to go along with it or not use rail. There aren't any sensible alternatives. Thankfully, for supermarkets, there are other brands. At least until they all start doing it. Then I might just have to shop online.

Interesting. Our local station was rebuilt without ticket barriers, which surprised a lot of us. In 2017 the franchise changed and the new company first started checking everyone's tickets all the time, and then installed ticket barriers. They said the government insisted on it, Of course it did, it wants to track journeys. Few people buy a paper ticket with cash these days so if they have barriers they know exactly where and when people are travelling.

I don't think anyone protested because they didn't think there was any point. Interesting you were able to defeat it. Although if you are going to London you still need to use the barriers at the other end, so you might as well have them at ours. The really annoying thing is that there are so few gates, so if you're not first off the train you are in a queue.

And you have to walk all the way up the platform and all the way back again to get to the car park. Heaven forbid that there's an exit by the car park for people!

I subscribe to a Substack newsletter called Decrapifying work. We need customer service to be decrapified as well.

The rail companies do sometimes listen to local pressure.

But with ours they said the government had said it was a condition of the franchise. I believe them for the reasons I gave in my other response.

It kind of is. You need to pass through a barrier, so you show your ticket there. You get on the train, and someone asks to see your ticket again. If it's a longer journey there might be a change of crew, so the new crew asks to see it again. And then you need to show it at the other end!