Boots - not Mum friendly. word of warning.

[CarolineFin]

Went into boots last week to swap a pack of nappies to a bigger size. Ended up not taking them straight to the till, thought i'd check they had the size 1st. I got distracted by some perfume, mothers day presents and my phone. Went to the till and paid, walked out of the store. Was standing outside sending a text and got stopped by securtity. When i'd been talking to the cashier and taking stuff out of the buggy basket i'd missed a gift set i'd put in. To cut a long story shorrt i was in the office for 2 hours, they called the police and everything. i was morfified and called hubby in tears.

Really i just wanted to warn you, I'm sure you all know how easy it is to stuff bits in your buggy basket as your doing your shopping. I've also been banned from Boots stores for 12 months, which is crazy seeing though i'm a member of the mother and baby club and buy a lot of food, nappies etc. They also accused me of taking the nappies i'd swapped and just wouldn't listen to me, even when they'd seen the cctv.

Anyway, thought i'd share, really wouldn't want it to happen to anyone, but they don't seem to trust harressed stressed out mums in a rush. mistakes don't happen....

A most pissed off caroline xx

Or in fact buy a buggy with handles to hang things off!

When you're pg for the first time and buying things, no-one tells you this stuff! my first buggy didn't have any handles to hang stuff off and the first time I went to the supermarket i was pretty ... right... um... etc

crackfox I don't think she was questioned by the police for 2 hours, she was held by the shop for 2 hours and they wouldn't let her call her DH.

I'm not sure it's worth totally shitting people up when they have their children with them is it? What's wrong with treating people reasonably and leaving it to the police?

That one where a woman and her child were locked in a room and shouted at for ages was just awful. You'd be scared to go out after that.

I used to work for a well known book shop/stationers and someone tried to 'bring back' a book for a 'refund', but we discovered that he was a proof reader as he'd left notes on a piece of paper inside it and was trying it on. He was left for a few minutes in the office with the evidence, which he proceeded to eat!!! was very funny!

it was a joke Habbibu - I actually sympathised with the op. I have been in her situation (leaving with unpaid items a couple of times) and I wasnt even using the underchair basket. I didnt know the handles would come in handy for baskets - I was too busy mourning not getting the seperate chasis/seat/carrycot combo.

Once I was in M&S with BF and ds looking at underwear....looked down on the floor to see a pile of corset style items on the floor. I thought it was left there by an assistant.

Then an assistant rushed up and scooped them in her arms, gave me a filthy look, then signalled to another woman,obviously security, who gave me more evils, whispered in her walkie talkie then followed me around the food hall as I shopped. Clearly they thought I had been in the middle of nicking about 20 corsets when rumbled...

BF and I were in stitches. It was the height of summer. I had jeans and a tightish t shirt on and no bag. Where on earth did she think I was planning to stash my enormous armful of ill gotten gains?

Perhaps I was planning to artfully fashion them into a Phillip Treacy-style hat and sashay out with great elan.... or drape them in an inconspicuous way about my ds' person...

Buggy with 2 handles:hook basket over them.
Buggy with one handle: is easily steered one handed while you carry basket with other hand.
Simple.

A bit confused at everyone recommending hanging shopping baskets / bags etc on the handles of a buggy / pushchair. I know the manufacturers of my lightweight Maclaren pushchair strongly recommend against doing this as it can tip the pushchair backwards. I certainly struggle doing the shopping with a pushchair, and usually pile groceries in the hood, with any overspill going in the basket. Afraid I'm too much of a weakling to cart the family shopping around in a basket whilst pushing a buggy. Had no idea others might view me as a shoplifter (but so far have been lucky enough not to wander out of a shop with unpaid for items still in the basket).

It wont tip; you dont let go!
Weekly shopping isnt that much volumewise; if I need more than usual I take my 75litre rucksack to carry it home in on the bus. Or we do an online shop once a month for £3 delivery (ie £1 more than my bus to tescos and back), then I buy bits and bobs as and when.

If it's in a supermarket, what I used to do was put the buggy in the lockers for trolleys by the cafe (our Morrisons and Tescos have them). The £1.00 is refundable and then transfer dc to supermarket trolley.

All these things are enough to make you agoraphobic and only buy everything online, don't you think! Shops probably should be nicer to new mums, if they are they'd probably get grateful customers for life. When you are sleep deprived after a C section or whatever you could do with an assistant carrying your basket round for you, wonder if they would do that if you asked?

I was v v annoyed once in Boots pre-children, was looking for a birthday gift for a friend so was walking around the small highish value items (perfume, fancy make-up etc.) picking things up and looking at them, security guard was following me round, in the end he asked, "Can I help you?" so I replied, "Is this hypoallergenic?" and obviously he didn't know. I was so cross I e-mailed Boots afterwards to complain, it really spoiled the shopping experience and the guard could have sent an assistant over to help even if he had security concerns. I got no response from Boots Customer Services so I avoided that particular shop after that.

Sorry, oldenglish, I was playing along with your joke and taking the piss out of M&P (and me!). Clearly I wasn't being quite as pithy as I thought...

Also, oldenglish - separates combo a bit of a PITA, tbh. Went for a sling with dc2!

In fact, this is MN- how is it possible that no-one has suggested to Caroline to get a sling?!

well, i have found, whilst in Tesco, that i had left M&S without paying for something, and promptly went back and paid for it... this kind of thing can happen to anyone with the occasional lapse of presence of mind.

though i normally balance a basket on top of the hood of the pushchair, or carry everything in my arms.

i do think if a policeman said 'obviously an honest mistake' that should have been how the store saw it too, rather than putting you through all that. the dcs often 'hide' things under them in the trolley, which is why (when using car seat in trolley arangement) we lift to check..but its very easy to miss things.

What about one of these?
that way you don't have to have bags hanging from handles as well.

It IS a nightmare to hold a basket with a buggy if it's P and T; nowher to hook it.

sorry you that this experience op. i dont do the basket-under-buggy thing. my problem is my 3 dcs! from memory they have variously 'acquired':

sweets (loads of times)
sunglasses
a school uniform pinafore
condoms (wtf!)
a toothbrush
pepperami
hairbands
a scooter
flashing toothbrush

thats all i can remember for now.

so as a first time mum, my advice to you is to do your best to enjoy your ds. be assured that you're doing a fab job. none of us know it all; we're all doing our best to do the best that we can. tha's all that can be expected from us - even from ourselves. you'll get loads of advice, support and laughs on here. even if you decide not to post again for a while, please do lurk. mn is a minefield of good info.

all the best to, hope youre feeling less shaken now.

Hope you complained that it took 2 hours.

Habbibu - I misread your post and couple after. thought my irony had been missed. Thats the problem when I skim.

Never mind Caroline old thing. You know it was just a mistake and you're a decent person really. Sucks to be banned from Boots though, you may have to stick to Superdrug for a bit (ew).

I hope your DH is giving you lots of support and looking after you nicely!

I was leaving Boots once when a printer cartridge I had previously bought in WHSmith set off the store alarms (printer cartridges notoriously do that). The security man stopped me and searched my bag in full view of two gawping pensioners. When it was apparent that I had a receipt for every item I was 'allowed' to go without a word of apology...so I am with you in your condemnation of Boots!

Hope you are ok Caroline,what a horrible experience for you and your wee one,and totally undeserved.Thanks for the warning to other mums,will bear in mind when next in Boots!Really feel for you...hope you're feeling a bit less shaken now and taking some time out at home with your beautiful baby.x

I work for Boots & yes the majority of our shop lifters have been mums with buggies & school girls after make up.

What they do in our store is take the double packs of nappies & put them underneath the buggie,then they go up the baby aisle to remove the magnetic tags off anyhting they have managed to acquire.Honestly we find at least 5-10 tags every day on this aisle.

A favourite at the moment is the packs of pregnancy vitamins.

Then they come to the till,pay for the nappies but dont pay for their other freebies.

Did you have to wait 2 hrs for the police to turn up? I dont think it was Boots being malicious making you wait that long,you would have had to wait for the police to be free.

You made a mistake & i think you have been a bit unfair to brand Boots as being un-mum friendly,we always do our best to help mums in our store.

my kids were rubbish, they never nicked anything useful - dd once nicked a bag of stuff to make your washes whiter ( she was about 1) - not even washing powder ffs -and we were proper skint too.

The one time I used the basked under the buggy while I was shopping I ended up accidentally shoplifting too.

I'd put a bottle of wine in the basket as I had no more hands and no basket and was almost at the till so thought I'd take it out seconds later. Then the baby lost a sock and I had to go back for it, forgot the wine and didn't discover it til I got home.

I did phone tesco to explain and they seemed a bit baffled about why I was calling them. I have to say, if I'd been spotted, it would have been a fair cop, even though it was not intentional. So I wouldn't ever use the buggy for shopping.

ignore all the people on here who have never made a mistake

Whoever said about pushing a p and t with a basket is right- really not easy and even with bag clips (if you can get them to stay on~) the bags hit the child sitting underneath.

I end up putting things on the triangle at the front- took two packs of nappies and a box of washing tablets from asda the other week like that by mistake