AIBU to think stores wanting us to use self-scanning devices and self-service tills should not make customers feel like criminals?

[Nenen]

I want to start by saying I understand shops need to prevent shoplifting and if any store had a legitimate reason to suspect me of doing so I would be happy to let them search me. However, AIBU to feel aggrieved that stores using self-service tills and scanning systems can dispense with the premise of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ and insist on doing random checks on customers using the systems they do their best to get us to use in the first place?

My adult son (who had his 3 little daughters with him at the time) has just been stopped in a supermarket when he went to pay for a full trolley of goods he had used the store self-scanning device for. Security staff told him they had to do a ‘random spot check’. He and the girls (a baby, a 2-year old and a 4-year old) were led by security staff to a staffed till where all his goods were unloaded from the bags he had filled as he went round scanning. Staff then rescanned each item to check the total. This took the staff 20 minutes, during which time the baby started crying and the 2-year old got understandably fed up! At no time did the shop staff try to help my son pacify the children or apologise for the inconvenience. Suffice to say, his scanning had been absolutely accurate so he was allowed to pay and leave. However, the gross inconvenience and embarrassment factor of being publicly stopped and checked like this was enough to make him say he will never use self-service tills and scanners ever again.

If something like this ever happened to me, I think I’d refuse to cooperate and tell the manager they either trust me to scan my items or they don’t! If they don’t then I’m leaving and they can keep the whole trolley load! If they don’t trust customers who have not done anything suspicious then IMO they should not let them use the scanning devices in the first place. They can’t have it both ways, surely? These stores want it all their own way without any customer care at all.

I dislike using self-service tills for many other reasons too, not least because every time I’ve tried to use one, something has happened that resulted in me having to stand and wait for a member of staff to come and sort out an issue (often more than once for a single load of shopping). Therefore, I am prepared to queue for a little longer to pay at a staffed till.

My biggest gripe until now has been that several times I have waited in a queue for the staffed till at our local CoOp, only for the member of staff to leave their queue waiting to go and sort out a problem another customer was having at a (supposedly) self-service till! These customers had waltzed straight past the serviced queue and then got preferential service while we waited even longer!

To add insult to injury, self-service mechanisms obviously reduce the company spending on staff wages but I’ve yet to see any reduction in the prices I’m paying for their goods.

It's a random check made by the computer and to be that obstructive would be very unfair on the staff who are just doing their jobs. Everyone who uses the self scan knows there are random checks. If you don't like it, don't use it.

I love self service. On the whole it is quicker and I don't have to engage in conversation with someone.

I no longer regularly use my two local Sainsbury branches as they have removed almost all the checkouts just to replace them with self scanners.

There is one left and every time it's open it has a queue whilst the self scan area is empty. I've just walked out a couple of times now.

Many customers really hate them but the supermarkets are not listening.

For the random checks: it's not the employees who decide when to do them. It's the system that is programmed to announce random checks and the employees find it as bothersome as the clients (except a witch at my local supermarket who loves it😅). Personally I don't use the scan but DH does it every week and I know he has no clue what kind of tomatoes his buying for ex. He just picks the first he sees and once got in trouble for having picked the expensive ones but paid for the cheap. But when he came home I saw that he paid for ecological apples but had picked Granny's. Nobody had pointed that out while doing the check..

It’s not hugely embarrassing. If your adult son and a father is embarrassed by having his bags searched at self checkout then he hasn’t taken the kids out by himself enough because there is no way that’s more embarrassing the poonamis or the kids shouting “you doing a poo daddy?”

Some people don’t like self service and that’s fine, don’t use them. Some people do like self service. Personally my biggest gripe is waiting in the queue at coop and having a conversation about how the checkout assistant has been to the dentist this morning and now they need a filling.

There was another thread like this not long ago. YANBU. Treating customers like this is crap and I don't know why people think it is OK.

If the supermarkets want us to completely do their job for them, then they can suck up the losses from the few people who will be dishonest. If they don't want to do this then employ more staff, have more manned tills and man the self service tills properly too.

Thank you for your alternative view. Firstly, I understand staff are just doing their job, hence my comment that I would tell the manager (rather than floor staff) I’m not prepared to cooperate and wait around being presumed guilty until proven innocent. Secondly, your comment that ‘everyone who uses the self scan knows there are random checks’ is simply not accurate. I certainly didn’t know that and neither did my son until this just happened to him.

Finally, as I mentioned in my last point, I always try to avoid self service tills but then I invariably get caught in ever longer queues while staff are involved in sorting out self service problems. It’s great you love self service but it would be lovely if stores could provide a decent level of serviced options for those who don’t.

I use self scanners every week and never been made to feel like a criminal, the random checks are chosen by the stores conputer, it's nothing personal if I get one

Of course it's annoying when it happens but overall it's a price I'm prepared to pay to be able to shop quickly 49 weeks out of 52 or however many it works out at

Its not embarrassing at all. Your sone encountered rude staff and I find it hard to believe it took 20 minutes to scan even an overloaded trolley

If you do not like self scanning use the cashier desks and choose a store that has better customer service. I find them quick and convenient for small shops but would use the manned tills for a large shop

That is awful! I wouldn't be rude but I would not wait 20 minutes with young children.

I do think shoplifting has reached ridiculous levels here but they'd be better with better surveillance at self checkout /it's probably not where the peak shoplifting is taking place. We bought some shopping at ASDA recently - when you enter something without a barcode (think it was bananas), you then get a camera image from 3 sides of where you loaded them flash up like a mugshot to prove it was actually bananas and not something else 😂

To contrast it, a sibling used to work at a high street clothing shop. Two women once literally walked in, went up to the first rack, grabbed full armfuls of the clothes on there and walked out. They only realised when they saw the huge gap in the rail at the front (no security guard!)

I'm surprised neither of you were aware that supermarkets do random checks, which shop was it?

Totally agree

And don't belittle me

I know how to frickin scan, it's not rocket science

Is your arguement that beause you know how to scan shoplifting isn't a thing that shops might want to deter by doing random checks? How are the two things connected?

Just queue up for a till then? It's not like in the halcyon days before self service, there was never a queue for a till - there have always been queues for tills.

I am afraid that your son clearly didn't read the T&Cs when he signed up for self scan, because they are VERY clear that self-scanned shops will be subject to random checks. You have to agree to this when you sign up for the service, if you disagree with it then just don't use the service.

Your son has nothing to be embarrassed about and no reason to feel like a criminal, but maybe needs to learn the lesson that you should always read T&Cs before agreeing to them.

They do it really well in Costco by quickly counting the number of trolley items and the number of items listed on the receipt. It's super quick, and they do it for most customers.

Meh.

So many of these threads where people need smelling salts because shop staff had the audacity to do their jobs.

Better get used to it as self scan certainly isn't going away.

I'm assuming thats an autocorrect, they do it for everyone but I don't think theyre attempting to check everything, isn't it just a reasonableness check and on the items that stay on the trolley

The only time I've had to have my whole shop rescanned was when my dd put something in the trolley without me scanning it. They did a spot check which was 7 items and one of them was a pot of Fage Greek yogurt unscanned, thanks dd. Usually if there's a spot check it's just 5 or 6 items. I love self scanning so happily put up with any dystopian vibes.

Exactly, the outrage if the Aldi cashier asks to check that you bags are empty is insane. Some people must exhaust themselves on a daily basis by making everything about them

Yes you may know how to self scan, but others either don’t or are shoplifting as they go. The shops should be able to do random spot checks without someone thinking they are being presumed guilty of shoplifting.

Do you approach airport security this way too? Refuse to cooperate when they want to scan your bags and you because it’s presuming you’re guilty of intent to hijack a plane?

Yes I saw someone kick off about this last week. It was embarrassing for them.

So did he just get a re-scan at the till then ? Surely this is normal practice.

I was just going to say this. It's part of the agreement when you sign up to use it. You always get more checks when you are new to it too.

You can’t not use them in our Sainsbury’s, there isn’t an alternative.

Self service or self scanning?

With a scanner as they go round?