Marks and Spencers and ID

frugallass

I was ID'd in Asda a year or so ago, buying my weekly shop and a 4 pack of Boddingtons - I thought the woman was asking my daughter for ID and I said that I was buying the beer, she said she wanted my ID - my daughter was mortified (she's nearly 17).:cool:

I bought a bread knife from TJ Hughes for work and was asked for ID - the assistant said she thought I was a student buying stuff for my flat :rolleyes:

I'm 40 in July

princessamy86

I once got smacked in the face when I worked at an off licence in a rough bit of town because I refused to serve a woman who turned to her 13 year old son at the till and said "Right, do you want fags or rolling baccy?". I pointed out to her that I wasn't allowed to serve her as she was blatantly buying for her son and she went for me! It's pretty hard being checkout staff, soooo many rules! I actually have a personal licence as well so even worse if I had failed a trading standards visit-which, btw, they deliberately try and catch you out with by sending people in who look old/young just to confuzzle you. Nobody takes student ID cos it's really easy to fake, printed/laminated or whatever. Sad though. The nice old lady at my corner shop IDs me every single time despite the fact I'm in there at least twice a week to support my wino habit :rolleyes:

Gers

moonrakerz wrote: »

That is exactly what I said !

Not it's not.

This is what you said:

If you give it to someone under 18 in the street that is an offence, if you give it to a five year old "in private" (whatever that might encompass !) that is OK.

It's not an offence to 'give it to someone under 18', it's an offence to PURCHASE it for some under under the age of 18 in licensed premises!!

Law is about 1) location and 2) purchasing.

Money_saving_Martyn

KimYeovil wrote: »

Why would a student card be accepted? 25 to 40% of holders could be under-age.

The statistics seems slightly suspicious here, every card holder *could* be under-age, but the idea is at least correct.

There is no minimum age for joining some universities (or if there is, it is less than 18), so those bright students who skipped a year could well be a university student at 17. Consequently they could be a member of the university's student union and, if it's affiliated to the NUS, they could have a valid NUS card underage.

Additionally, I'm sure I was offered the chance to join the NUS when I started 6th form when I was 16...

Really, being refused when you try to by alcohol can be frustrating and embarrassing, but it's something that has to be done. If a cashier accidentally sells alcohol to someone who is under-age, it could literally ruin the rest of his/her life if the maximum punishment is served. Sometimes it's just plain hard to tell....

*insider tip* the more fuss you make, the ruder you are and generally how much you annoy a member of staff can have an affect on the level of service you receive. As an ex-cashier, I know we don't get anything out of refusing products. As staff we want you to buy lots and increase out wages/profit share. What we don't want is a £5k fine for breaking the law. A cashier makes a judgement each time they sell a age restricted product, and sometimes being polite and giving the cashier chance to suss you out can work in your favour.

Oh yeah, and a young person who returned to the store once, after failing to provide ID, took her passport to the member of staff..pushed through the queue and threw her passport at the member of staff shouting "see, I f*cking told you I was old enough" was later banned from the entire shopping centre for using threatening action towards member of staff... play nicely!:T

cally6008

At my work, we get this lass in every Saturday without fail, no ID, is younger than 18 but does look slightly older and always wanting to buy cigs. The way she kicks off when we tell her "no ID, no sale" is so hilarious. Last time she walked out of the shop shouting "I ****ing hate this place"

z1985m

As a shop worker, but not a checkout operator (however, i jump on and off one when the store gets busy) The companys do set rediculous rules. we're supposed to id everyone who looks under 25. I'm 23, i find it easy to judge people who i think are my age and over, but difficult to judge how old people are who are younger than me (I think that makes sense...) But i've always just used my common sense, if i think someone is under 25 but deffo over 18 i won't ask for id, i actually find it extremly embarrasing asking for ID. From shopping in other shops too i can always see that the cashier is embarrased when they ask me for ID, but i just take it as a compliment and know that they pretty much have to do it.

The signs in my work say that if you sell to an underager you can get up to a £5000 fine. whether it has ever came to that, i don't know.

oldone_2

If I were into conspiracies I would suspect this is a deliberate ploy by our Government. Make it more and more difficult to buy more and more products without showing some form of I.D. so that eventually people get so fed up they will gladly accept the plans for a National I.D. card.

Of course initially you would not have to carry this card at all times, but to be effective, legislation would then have to be brought in making it a criminal offence NOT to carry an I.D. card.

I don't think for one moment our Government are doing this since they have a fine record of protecting our civil liberties, even going to the expense of having more CCTV cameras than the rest of Europe put together so that our freedom of movement is protected. :rolleyes:

kizzers

lulaloo wrote: »

An update - I went back to M & S this morning (without my passport - couldn't find it in the rush for work) and there was NO LAMB!! Argh, so anyway I settled for beef.

Grabbed my veg, my apple pie and my vino and scuttled to the self service checkouts. The wine beeped as I put it through and and I turned (as grown-up-ly as I could) to look at the woman who was in charge of the self service tills...

She smiled and pressed the button to let me buy my wine WOO.

On second thoughts, maybe i'm aging so rapidly that I look noticably older today than I did yesterday ... oh dear.


My Student ID does have my date of birth on (all printed and posh and everything) but I knew the cashier wouldn't take it. Nowhere seems to take it as ID these days. I seem to remember when I was 17, you used to be able to apply for fake student cards on the web for about £20. I don't know if it's that easy to get them now, but I suppose this must be the reason nowhere takes them as proper forms of ID.

Anyhoo - I've got my wine and saved £10.51 on my deal.

Lets hope it's a nice bottle...

Is this a bad time to say M&S have the option of substituting a 1L double pack of orange juice for the wine? :P

As for NUS cards-
2 types are available, bulk which are sent to the SU blank, to be filled in by the seller or student, so easy to fake.
other type is online which has no age checks.

around 60% of NUS's student body is in FE further education institutes, which are 16+, so a high chance that most NUS cards are held by 16-17 year olds, with no age checks!

remembered_nights

I understand student cards not being accepted, but can anyone explain the provisional licence one?

tinksy

i get occasionally frustrated with ID laws. im 22 so under the 25 limit and sometimes look like it and sometimes look older! The last time I got ID was in Morrisons for buy a mini bottle of wine and bucks fizz. I had nothing apart from my uni cards which show ive graduated and my car keys. we were buying a whole weeks food shop and my other half had his license. Because I was paying they werent going to let me buy it! i kicked up a fuss, if i was on my own i could understand but I wasnt, i had an ID card showing I had graduated university and my other half had his driving license! sometimes it just gets silly. I mean is an under 18 likely to buy a weeks food shop? x