Customer demands to charge her phone at supermarket

[Jdot]

She came into the supermarket wanted to pay for her shopping on Apple Pay but her phone is dead. I saw her talking on the phone in the store.

Supermarkets and other places that people pay for products and services - restaurants, retailers, leisure places etc are NOT responsible for people’s mobile batteries and them not carrying their physical cards on them.

I would see it as:
-politely asking- yes, sure you can charge your phone for a bit.
-rudely asking- nope!

This happened to me at a Tesco Express recently after I was returning from a long work event. I didn't have a ton of shopping (literally just loo roll and a few bits) and the cashier had his phone on charge at the counter, he literally just offered to plug mine in so I could use the contactless quickly.

I didn't expect it at all and I probably wouldn't have asked him to do it, but I was really grateful after a long day!

I completely understand why she carries the card - that's not the issue as our exchange already demonstrates. I don't understand why she carries it in her phone cover, which is an unnecessary risk to take and one that's easy to reduce.

A friend of mine pays for everything via her phone but she keeps her bank card in the phone cover just in case she needs it. That seems sensible to me.

By exactly the same token it seems the height of dimness. Because when you've lost your phone....

Christ you've got a real bee in your bonnet about this Katy. To each their own.

Oh yes, but that’s not the same as cancelling the cards. They just de-authorise the DPAN associating the cards with the device in my experience. And, with Apple at least, you can remotely suspend cards any way and wipe the device if you want to.

You may have led people to believe you don't have to notify the bank at all

They may have risk assessed it & provide safer charging options eg USB port but I would have thought many are breaching their insurance conditions & fire safety assessments.

The biggest cause of fire in the company where I work is now battery charging, so a bigger risk to life & property than cigarettes or arson.

Charge it where exactly? She could have plugged it in her car and boosted it on her way home. That’s the trouble with so much reliance on phones, not having a card to pay for her shopping with.

@Jdot you are being extremely frustrating by refusing to answer the blatant questions being asked so you YABU

Neither, incidentally, does the word 'self' in that sentence.

"The biggest cause of fire in retail shops is now charging devices"

That is such rubbish - why make things up? If you want to look at the top five cause of fire in retail, maybe take a look at the latest report of the London Fire Brigade specifically on this topic. Nowhere do charging devices feature

My phone doesn’t have a physical SIM card in it and SMS (not that I really use them) are in iCloud. Your post is like a throwback from the 2000s.

I agree but you know what, we all fuck up from time to time and as long as she was apologetic / polite about it, I don’t see much of an issue. Better for the store to get her cash than for her to walk out.

Ah, so you think everyone has the same phone as you then?
Setting a SIM password is current advice because the overwhelming majority of mobiles do have SIM cards - even Apple didn't start phasing them out until three years ago (but still produce handsets with physical SIMs in some regions), so hardly a throwback to the 2000s.
Maybe try not to think the world revolves around you. 🙄

But does nobody in the UK carry a backup credit or debit card?

I do but it’s in the car, the one time this happened to me, they offered to quickly charge it up. It was faster to accept tbh but wouldn’t of been a big deal either way.

Funnily it’s the mobile phone that’s attracting risk - you might get mugged for it.

Usually but i hadn't expected to go shopping but on the way home DH asked me to get some stuff.

...separate from their phone ?

Phones run out of juice or are lost or go bung. All this talk of safety; safest thing is always to have other forms of payment to hand.

And just women!

Men are massively more likely to be attacked, mugged, a victim of violent crime at all, and murdered. If it's for safety, at least include those even more likely to need it.

Well said!

Where would she have got the charger from?

That's just ridiculous you don't need a phone all the time because you're a woman on your own. I never take my phone to work and I walk there and back