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.

Then you haven't been into most Sainsbury's where scanning to exit self serve is now routine.

So I'm a liar now as well as 'chippy and a 'thief'. Nice...

It’s a random check , if you don’t like it either stop using self scan or if it crops up again just say you don’t have time to wait and leave the shopping , all of these checks are before you pay so you don’t own the goods. If there were less shoplifters these checks wouldn’t be needed .

🤣 for example. Not for ex!! Thank you so much you made me laugh out loud giving me the mental image of him cruising the supermarket getting tomatoes for his ex.

What about any frozen stuff with an extra 20 mins added on. I’d ask them to put it all back!

I always use the self scan and occasionally get selected for a check - absolutely normal

I get most of mine online, the service is much better, I would have left the shopping if I had been in a hurry and wouldn't have kept the frozen stuff anyway

The fact my son’s shopping was rescanned to the exact amount he had recorded on the self scanning device shows he hadn’t missed anything and, according to other posters, the computer randomly decides how many items need to be rescanned.
I have no idea how many items he bought or how many of these items the cashier was able to scan per minute. However, I do believe my son when he said it took 20 minutes from the time he should have been able to pay and leave to the time he was finally able to pay and leave after having to walk with his 3 young children to the manned tills, the staff got everything unpacked and rescanned, then him having to manage a whining toddler and a 4 year old with a crying baby strapped to his chest while repacking a trolley full of shopping.

It’s a random check. There’s no reason to be embarrassed, though I agree it’s inconvenient if he’s also trying to handle the small children.

Self serve tills and spot checks aren’t going anywhere as it saves so much money for the supermarket chains. It’s the same as reducing quality controls in manufacturing, and letting customers find / return / replace the dodgy items that get through: despite the disgruntled individual customers, the overall savings make it worthwhile.

They won’t just waive the check because he’s got kids with him, I don’t know why you keep bringing them up.

How on earth are you getting that I think you're a liar?

I haven't been in any Sainsburys where you have to scan your receipt, never mind most of them, that exactly what I said and I can't imagine what would make it so onerous that you'd have to make up stories and sulk out of a different exit, it just sounds a very odd way to behave

I think it’s entirely reasonable not to know about random checks unless someone is great at reading all the small print in everything they sign up for (research shows this is rarely done) or the first time it happens to them or someone they know (in this case my son). This was the first time it had happened to him, hence him saying now he knows about this he won’t be using this system again and neither will I.

Its takes me more than 20 minutes to drive back from the supermarket some weeks, why would that be an issue for my frozen food. Do people who dont live near shops not buy frozen stuff?

I have never felt like a criminal, and I love self-service tills. So much better than having to listen to listen to the mindless drivel some staff and customers indulge in. Shopping is dull, so I want to be in and out quickly, with zero chat - the machine facilitates that.

😂😂, I see, that's not an abbreviation I was familiar with, it does make a lot more sense 😂

It's an inconvenience but better than unloading a trolley on a conveyor belt every time you shop.

Spot checks are random. Staff cannot override the checks.

I believe fraud and shrinkage have gone up a lot since self scans and scan n pack has introduced.

More fool supermarkets for not customising the options on self scans of things the store doesn’t sell. Remember a news story where a man put everything through as loose onions when the store didn’t sell onions - only in nets of 3 and 1kg bags.

Some of the rescans are genuine mistakes. Scan 3 cans of chopped tomatoes. Decided about 30 seconds later that you take another can. Which you forgot to scan.

I do wish customers would not shout, swear and act horrible to the assistants who are in the self scan/scan n go areas. As they are not the ones who decide that who gets checks. They are just doing their jobs. Think retailers as a whole need to ban more customers who are abusive to staff for things beyond their control. Or those who want to make staff break the law- buying cigs by proxy as refused sale as got no ID, yet their mate or sibling tries to buy them on their behalf.

So you’ve decided neither of you will use it again. Problem solved then, not sure why you’re still going on about it to be honest… I just couldn’t get so worked up about this and I think you’re giving it too much thought….

Those saying get used to it because it's not going away might not be correct. Some very strong evidence that mistakes and deliberate theft and people avoiding the shop are making this less viable for shops than they think. Add the pathetic price differentials with data gathering, screwing suppliers and profiteering and treating staff like crap and there is a serious backlash developing against big supermarkets. If you compare the cost of getting to the out of town shithole supermarket and the food waste buying too much, the high street independent is competitive and better.

Yeah, its the way they do it. I dont mind if its 5 or 10 items and they re pack them, crack on. But if they say full trolley check or come over to the till I say forget it don't worry and leave them the trolley and go somwhere else later when I have more time.

Yeah i agree with you I never use them either can't stand them and I also would have walked out and left the trolley full for them to deal with

I would have told them where to go if i was your son op! I would have been fuming!

It takes me 20 mins too but that’s my point, I do t want magnums left out for 40mins!

Exactly this

Only use them if I have a handful of stuff. Can't stand them.

Plus I'm a bit ditzy and would definitely end up stealing items as forgot to scan them, so just use normal tills as it saves the embarrassment. Luckily they still have them in the 2 local supermarkets I use (as well as self scanners).

That's why I never buy ice creams in the supermarket, I thought you meant there was a food hygiene reason 😁Not that I suppose many magnums were sold today, it's turned quite cold where I am