Would you object if Aldi staff checked your personal bag?

[vruskin]

Are you aware that ALDI has a policy of treating cuztomers like thieves.
I was at ALDI Caterham yesterday.
The cashier checked my empty plastic bag inside even though it was very obvious that there was nothing in it.
I then complained to a manager who didn’t even apologise and said that it is their policy to treat every customer like they were thieves.
Would you object to it? I felt disrespected and humiliated. How would you feel?

As my dad always says if you haven’t got anything to hide there’s no problem. Wouldn’t bother me. I would be pleased they are doing something to try to keep the costs down and shoplifting low.

I was so unused to it, that the first time I went in, I’d stuffed the receipt in a bag and then had to juggle around several bags and disgorge the contents to find it, when I realised I couldn’t get out! None of the other stores I use - Sainsbury’s, Tesco, Waitrose - have a physical barrier to exit the self-checkouts.

That is absolutely appalling and exactly why everyone's bags should be checked, if anyone's have to be.

Our Lidl has had this for a long time, and Sainsburys. It's annoying as people forget and shove the receipts in their pockets/bags and have to get them out again, then they don't scan very well so a queue builds up.

The thing that makes me roll my eyes at this stuff is the thieves are so bloody blatant and nobody stops them and yet middle aged women trying to get some shopping, pay for it and go home are easy pickings to stop and search. Reminds me of the story of the litter wardens fining some old bloke for spitting out a leaf that had blown in his mouth and the story of the person that poured coffee residue into a drain before putting their cup in the bin. It’s low hanging fruit while everywhere else is burning.

Aldi were doing this a couple of years ago but seem to have stopped now. Your anger should be aimed at the professional thieves, we pay for insurance to protect our possessions against theft, maybe we shouldn't.
All shops should be publishing on as many platforms as possible pictures of the thieves who are blighting the country, if it offends their 'uman right, tough, criminals should have fewer rights than decent people, like me.

Don’t like it. Shops elsewhere

I’ve been listening to too much Harry Hill but this just made me laugh. Nice catchphrase 🤭

If the request is made politely then, no, I wouldn't have any objection.

It’s very common! I’ve definitely experienced it here too

Oh, OP, thank you for giving me a huge laugh this morning with "favourite cutlery". 😊I know that wasn't the intention, so I'm sorry, as well, just a little bit 😂 because you are so cross.

I'm picturing your (former) friends saying polite goodnights while trying to negotiate your front steps with the weight of your "favourite cutlery" in a granny shopping trolley. Two more of your guests are bent double, staggering all over the place, carrying out your (favourite) 18th century century sideboard on their backs, turtle-fashion. You look around: there are bare patches on the walls, and people you thought of as friends are legging it down the drive with your paintings! You've had to notify the police and the insurance people, and cross the entire Cholmondeley-Warner clan off the guest list, for ever. That's the carol concert down a couple of trebles, and the Beetle Drive is fucked. And now one of those thieving, double-barrelled bastards has fallen into your haha, and will probably put in an insurance claim against you.

Favourite cutlery 😂

Back to your original question, OP...

If anyone working in a supermarket has to check my bags, my handbag included, as part of their job, why would I care in the slightest? It's nothing. Or/and it's an opportunity for a good-natured human connection. It happens at museums and galleries too, all the time.

However, it's easy to be insouciant about things like bag checks, or being trailed around a shop by a security guard, when you have a privilege you don't even realise you have.

A security guard followed me around a large store recently. I was looking for a friend, and must have appeared suspicious (clueless, more like). All highly amusing, to me. Ha ha, such larks. But would it be amusing to @caramelsauce and her partner? It's not for me to answer: she's told you herself.

It wouldn't bother me, but I'm a shop owner, so used to dealing with shoplifters. Honestly, not giving people the opportunity to steal in the first place is the way forward. I keep an eye on everyone and you see some people keep looking to see if anyone is watching them. Once they realise they can't get away with stealing, they normally leave pretty quickly. This is much easier than trying to prise my stock out of their sticky fingers once they've put it in their jacket or bag.

I've had a couple of sniffy reviews from people saying they don't like being watched. Noone is sat there staring at them, but if they can't understand why shop assistants need to keep an eye on what's happening to prevent theft, then I don't really care about losing their custom tbh.

I do avoid shopping in places that treat me like a thief. The profits supermarkets made during COVID, and since, make their owners the real thieves, imho. Profiteering under the guise of needing to cover shoplifting is absolute bollocks.

I shop at Aldi occasionally and have never objected to the staff glancing into my empty carrier bags before they start scanning. Some of them are almost apologetic when they ask to do it.
What I did object to was an incompetent member of staff doing a check of my bags after going through the self scan checkout at Waitrose. She took ages searching my shopping and loudly claimed to have found an unscanned pack of bread rolls . She was incorrect and it was easy for me to find on the receipt which mirrored my journey up and down the aisles. My trolley also had much more expensive cleaning products and wine which had I been dishonest I would have neglected to scan.
I complained online to Waitrose and received a swift apology.
My point to them was that the supermarkets have pressured us all to self scan to reduce their operating costs. They have so few staffed checkouts it’s almost mandatory.
They must of course do random checks and I have no objection to that. I did object to being loudly called out as not having paid for something in front of other shoppers.
The employee was wrong, I had paid. But had I missed scanning something it would have been an honest mistake. They need to have better staff training.
Shoplifting has reached epidemic levels and it makes my blood boil. I was shocked recently when my hairdresser, a lady in her fifties, told me that people in her circle are now openly admitting to taking things without paying. Not food or essentials but costume jewellery from Sainsburys and bunches of tulips which they gifted her when she hosted a dinner party. These same people would be very quick to say that crime is out of control because of immigrants 😡

I'm so used to having my bag checked at the theatre or going into stadiums for concerts or the football, that another bag check at Aldi or wherever doesn't bother me in the slightest.

Standard in most Aldi’s I’ve been to. I just open them and show them.
they get a lot of abuse from members of the public over it.

It honestly wouldn’t bother me at all.

Retail theft is rising and supermarkets have to absorb those losses somewhere, usually through higher prices for everyone else. Staff on the tills don’t know who is or isn’t a thief, so they follow blanket policies to protect the business and their customers.

If you’ve done nothing wrong, there’s nothing to worry about. It’s just a quick check and you carry on with your day.

I wouldn’t object but I would demand that they take me to a private room, with the manager then I would demand the name
of the mangers manager etc and sent a huge formal
complaint and well as
Record the entire thing to put on social media.
and for the record, Aldis IS NOT THAT CHEAP anymore their prices are coming into line with other supermarkets as is Lidls so there’s stance on not hiring security is not sitting anymore.

So is your post. Absolute bollocks.

On the one hand you imply that the advertised right to inspect customers' bags is out of order. Presumably do this to discourage shoplifting.

On the other hand you claim "profiteering", by implication the raising of prices to cover losses is also out of order?

What do you think they should do? In your own time.

They check the bags in the trolley. I assume you mean this ?

not your actual personal handbag over shoulder @vruskin

normal. Happens every time I go

Not sure why I engaged tbh. Best get on with something useful.

Maybe it differs according to which area you’re in, then!

I've never had a bag checked so have no idea whether I would think 'oh! fair enough' or start to shop elsewhere.

I had a very similar experience. I walked in with a few items (and the receipt) in my handbag to M&S then picked up more than i intended and balanced them in my hands. I then got a bag at the checkout and bought my enw items and left. The shop manager actually followed me out the door and took a photo of me. I looked at him and said 'if you think I have stolen something then you go back right now and check your CCTV. You don't take photos of me'. Not least because this was in our village M&S and the manager lives two doors down from me so it was hardly likely he did not know who I was.

I have been back since then but actually I make a point if I am going to that M&S I never take a handbag of any sort- I just take my card in my pocket.

Thing is- surely the beeper security machines you walk through would have gone off. So i WAS pissed off tbh.

Typical Mumsnet. Loads of threads complaining about shoplifters stealing with impunity. Stores do something about it, and that's not right either.

But how was that staff member supposed to know the items weren’t shoplifted without any proof of purchase?

Putting items under a buggy is actually a really common shoplifting tactic, so from their point of view it probably raised a red flag. All it would have taken was showing a receipt from the other shop and the situation likely would’ve been resolved quickly.

If you know you’re going into multiple shops, it’s kind of on you to keep hold of your receipt for exactly this reason. Shoplifting is a crime, and the staff were just doing their job based on what they could see at the time.