It’s just theft isn’t it?

[HiRen]

Am back in the UK for my annual summer break. Just back from the supermarket. Stood behind a pretty old (going to guess at least 80yo) woman who was weighing fennel in the veggies aisle, to get a barcoded sticker that she could self-scan. She did one sticker, then a second, then a third. I moved over to the right a step, intending to lean over to offer help (I’m crap with tech, reasonable assumption she might be too). Immediately clocked she was holding the fennel up a bit, ie semi-lifting it off the scales. Then I watched her select “potatoes” on her fourth attempt. Saw her do it again on her fifth attempt - she’d lifted the fennel higher.

Basically, she was deciding what she wanted to pay for the fennel. She left four stickers behind, all decreasing in price, all for potatoes.

I’m normally all for being empathetic towards people on a budget, especially a fixed budget like an pension, and I know about the col crisis. But this was fennel, in Waitrose. She was LOADED with gold jewelry and had a small LV crossbody bag. She can afford 98p (the fifth sticker price) for a bulb of fennel. It made me half want to tell someone on my way out to double check her shopping scan.

No AIBU I suppose. I’m just properly cross. This isn’t the 80s anymore. Things cost more than they used to. Fennel shouldn’t be expensive - but it is. That’s how it is for everyone, and for more essential stuff than bloody vegetables. They don’t steal. She was blatantly stealing, and it was the repeated effort, and the sneakiness and slyness in the way she did it that made me so cross.

Has it? Oh well. Shit happens.

Oh give up, will you. The woman was old enough to know what she was doing.

Oh so it's not about the popcorn?

ETA: I didn't realise you had a problem with two of my posts, in quick succession.

Keep eating your popcorn. 🍿🍿

Apparently on mumsnet lots of people think this is okay ‘cost of living’ ‘just trying to make ends meet’ blah blah
I’m with you OP, it’s fucking theft and people who do it or condone it should be ashamed of themselves.

Sorry, its been done to death 👍

I’m with you too OP. We have rules so we can live in a peaceful, safe and stable society. That was theft. It doesn’t matter if it’s an older person or a younger person, doesn’t somehow make it sweet or comical that she’s nicking fennel rather than cider.

It does, it increases prices for the rest of us . . .

I think just a liiiittttle way before that… 😂

So has the thumbs up emoji. I’m guessing your age is about the same as the woman stealing.

I don’t think there’s think the OP comes across as self-righteous at all. She just doesn’t agree with shoplifting! BTW I don’t think you come across very well. 🤔

Getting personal, are we?

It is 100% stealing. I can only assume the posters trying to say it isn't do the same themselves. Depressing.

Try not to feel in it though, OP. All we can do is try to surround ourselves with kind and honest friends/family and do our best to ignore the crazy outside world.

Say to her “Can I help you dear? That’s not a potato it’s fennel. It’s easy to get confused with all these buttons and all these veggies. Shall I get a member of staff to help?” Or just “Oi that’s stealing!”

Having thought further on it, the point about whether supermarkets are profiteering bastards or not is almost irrelevant to me in this instance. The question of age is totally irrelevant to me, I added that as a precursor to offering help. What bothered me was that this woman did not need to save 98p. Yes it could have been a fake bag and fake gold blah blah: if I were asked to describe this woman for police purposes (obvs not for stealing fennel 😅, I’m making a point) I would say they weren’t. Just from the whole way she was put together and her demeanour and where she was and what she was buying etc etc: more likely than not, they weren’t fake. This is a wealthy suburb of London - think Richmond village (but not). People do things like this, when they’re minted, because they’re making a point out of superiority. Fennel shouldn’t cost this much and I’m jolly well not going to pay it - come and get me, I’m right and you’re wrong. It’s the petty superiority that irked, when the news I consume - and so much of what I read on MN, which I use as a resource to inform myself of what life’s really like here when I cast my vote - is nothing but austerity, Col crisis, public sector cuts, NHS on its knees, can’t find a dentist, teachers grossly underpaid, parents struggling to make ends meet because childcare is so expensive. And on and on. It was this woman stealing - fennel, of all things - when actual people actually struggle. That pissed me off.

Anyway, it’s off my chest now. She was out of order and if I had been on the ball I would have liked to point out to her that she needs to rest her produce on the scale for it to register fully, and that actually she was holding fennel, lest she be confused tonight as to why her mash tastes funny.

Get a life

Best post.

You don't have to push the love reaction emoji @fruitflavouredmilk . We know why MN disposed of the funny emoji, don't we?

This is a really good hack. I wonder if she has a Tik Tok channel?

So if I ever see you being mugged in the street, or your children being abducted, or your parents being scammed, you want me to mind my own business and move on with my life?

Or, you know, I could actually give a shit because we live in a shared society.

😆 🤣

Shoplifting and theft isn't okay

Calm down, it’s a fennel bulb in Waitrose 😂😂
Peak MN 😂

Theft is theft and is wrong

and every time someone steals form a supermarket , the cost is passed into those of us who actually pay

YANBU OP it's proper scummy people that do this and absolutely it's theft!

But don't worry. Supermarkets are rapidly cottoning on - at my local there is now camera above the scales and you have to put your veg on and you don't get to tell the machine what it is - it uses AI to recognise it, and just pings out the sticker. So you can't tell it that Fennel is a cheap potato.

Some people are just trash, and yes, it means the rest of us have to pay more