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.

If that happened in front of me in the queue I’d be massively pissed off. I’ve already stood there more times than I care to mention while someone attempts to scan their phone and it doesn’t work. Then they try it a couple more times. Then they start tapping it and trying again, rebooting the app or whatever. It’s the equivalent of waiting for someone to count 2p coins out of their purse one at a time. One woman called her husband who was waiting in the car park and we all had to wait until he came up the travelator at 2 miles a century and paid. Another one just abandoned her shopping. Technology is brilliant when it works and I’m all for it, but it’s crap when it stalls for whatever reason. I have thought about switching over from paying by card, but I have a tendency to forget my phone. And, despite the concerns of the poster upthread, I have survived😆

That only works if you are healthy and able bodied enough to walk and hour or so home though.

But it still hasn't stopped your car breaking down and you could still ask for help

It's a bit cheeky to expect you'd let her charge it, and if company policy doesn't allow it then fair enough, but I'd allow it if I could.

Women have been managing to travel on their own without phones for centuries. It's not the first thing that would occur to me.

However, it just seems to me common sense for a supermarket to allow someone to charge their phone enough to pay for their goods, given the inconvenience to them of putting everything back. They could even use it as.a moneymaking opportunity, charging a pound a time.

What liability risks?

True. But I was specifically referring to the walking part, which not everyone has the luxury of being able to do.

True there were more phone boxes, but there’s generally either a house or a person nearby that you can ask to borrow a phone. Although it is also true back in the day people were less hysterical about the fact that everyone was a serial killer.

In those cases, people are more than likely never going to find themselves without a phone.

It's all in the approach surely.

I'm so sorry I thought I had my cards with me but I don't, I can pay using apple pay but my phone is dead, could I possibly charge my phone for a couple of minutes just to get enough to do that please? - Fine

I need a charger, well how else do you expect me to pay!! - not fine

I was in the arse end of nowhere 😄 I live v rurally. So yes, i could call the recovery service from my phone.
I've also broken down, years ago, in town and despite blocking traffic and asking for help there was little forthcoming. This was pre mobile phones and not having access to one then made a difficult situation much harder.
Point is, whether rightly or wrongly, many people's lives are in their phones now and they rely on them. Saying "how did we manage before?" is irrelevant - NOW they are useful and routinely used for many things.

Exactly. How many people will just stroll up to a stranger or a strange house and ask to use their phone? And I certainly wouldn’t be handing my phone to a stranger to make a call.

However, I still don’t think it’s a disaster to go out without a phone, especially if you’re just popping to the shops.

Vanishingly unlikely, and easily dealt with by a standard disclaimer from the shop.

Was he able to serve other customers while waiting for your phone to charge?

Again..... how exactly was she expecting her phone to be charged?
Did she have her own charger?
If not... was she expecting someone to have a compatible one?
Where was she going to charge it?
If it was a personal charger without a valid PAT test- it shouldnt be used in the workplace....

Probably completely missing the point but forgetting the insurance side of charging a customer’s phone, where on earth would they actually charge it?!

In which event having a phone is unlikely to be of much use.

How does this work in reality? He effectively closed down his till for a few minutes? Or he voided your transaction and rescanned a few minutes later?

Either way seems an inconvenience, though very kind of that shop worker

Yes, I always keep a £20 note in my car sun visor pocket for emergencies.

Exactly. How many people will just stroll up to a stranger or a strange house and ask to use their phone? And I certainly wouldn’t be handing my phone to a stranger to make a call.

This just highlights the difference between living in a rural/ remote place and in a town/city. Where I live people help each other. I absolutely would "stroll up to a stranger" and ask to use their phone. And I can pretty much guarantee they'd let me use it. I've had people knock on my door asking for help or to use my phone. It's a sad state of affairs if people won't ask for or offer help.

If a supermarket had that sort of policy, then it would probably allow customers to use the supermarket's chargers. It would make much more sense, given that the problem with phones running out of charge unexpectedly isn't that uncommon.

No. I wouldn’t. I’d block the phone. A Iphone doesn’t have the actual card details in it.

It’s not unique to remote places, I live in London and have asked to use people’s phone. In my experience, most people like to be helpful, whether in a city or village.

Well the alternative would be someone having to replace all her shopping (and I'm not sure if they can even do that with the frozen stuff) which would take longer than the few minutes of charging

Yes.