Spill the beans...on your self-service checkout tips (beep)

System

charmedlassie wrote: »

Sometimes they can, yeah. I've caught a lot of people putting pick and mix sweets through as something cheaper. There isn't much we can do when that happens, just need to keep an eye out for fraud. Luckily I take that quite seriously as I HATE thieves (in general, not just from my work) so make sure I'm always watching but when it's crazy busy it's not always possible.

okay, it just seemed really easy to do, I would never do it to be honest but there must be some who have

Middy

berbastrike wrote: »

charmedlassie or other self checkout supervisors...

say someone is buying 1kg of loose carrots...

how do you react when they put through the carrots which are supposed to cost £3 per kg for example as onions which cost £1 per kg for example, hence "saving"(or really stealing) £2.

Do they get away with it?

I have caught customers doing this as seen in the previous posts - new potatoes (£3/kg) with carrots (85p/kg) and worse - a joint of beef (I think it was £8.99 a kg at the time) with onions (85p). I say to them 'That is not (product that they have selected instead what they have bought)' and voided it off and weighed it with the correct product(and with the beef scanned the barcode).

As soon as the customer has paid and left the ss area, I get a duplicate receipt for security to look at. As it clearly states that if a customer tried to buy 700g of loose new potatoes as carrots, there would be a item on the receipt saying 700g of new potatoes were purchased along with the 700g of carrots voided off.

With the beef - if the 1.3kg of onions were scanned and later voided off with a beef joint at £11.59 scanned - the security can work out that the beef was weighed as onions.

We had a couple of customers being banned from the store because of this.

flubberyzing

I seem to be in the minority of people who actually like the self-service checkouts!
For me bigger weekend shops, I always used a manned till, just because it's a pain to scan and bag a lot of stuff. But if I've only got a basket then I always S.S. It's SO MUCH FASTER! Usually I'm on my way home from work, I don't want to hang in the supermarket when theres a comfy sofa waiting for me, I want to be in and out as fast as possible. I don't want to make small talk with the cashier, I don't want to wait for the old dear in front of me to pay in 5p coins, I want to GET OUT!
Personally I'm pleased that people don't like S.S. Because it means I can get out faster!

Jabba_flabba

I just wanted to air my view on the self-service checkouts and at what point the discounts are applied:

I tend to shop at various chain supermarkets and I've noticed that Marks & Spencer's and Sainsbury's self-service checkouts operate in the same way - the discounts are applied at the end. I think this is misleading and can cause confusion, viz. it leads me to think that the discounts were not applied, and to have to enquire with a member of staff. This doesn't occur at Morrison's self-service checkout - the discounts are applied on-the-fly as you scan the items in. If it's a 2-4-1 offer then the last item scanned triggers the discount to be applied. Of course, once you know that it works one way for one supermarket and another for another then this is not really a problem...but still it's down to the customer to remember these little differences.


With manned checkouts you wouldn't see the applied discounts until you get your receipt anyway — after you've parted with your cash — so perhaps a valid argument against changing the way it works.

Lieja

I almost never use a human checkout now - I'm usually too embarrassed that the majority of my stuff is covered in yellow stickers! Of course this backfires when the yellow sticker won't scan, and a team of three or four assistants have to come and help.

Otherwise, I much prefer to do it myself, and there's hardly ever a queue!

Uplink

Lieja wrote: »

I almost never use a human checkout now - I'm usually too embarrassed that the majority of my stuff is covered in yellow stickers! Of course this backfires when the yellow sticker won't scan, and a team of three or four assistants have to come and help.

Otherwise, I much prefer to do it myself, and there's hardly ever a queue!

When getting any quantity of discounted products, it's always better to use an unmanned till. Plenty of times I've scanned the wrong bar code, and I wouldn't have noticed when using a manned till.

Many of times this wrong code wasn't the full price one either, but one of the other "choose your discount" yellow stickers that were there. I've had a problem with getting a refund when a discount wasn't applied once and I'm wary now: They claimed they were unable to find out if an offer was available in store a day earlier, when I made my purchase, even though that same offer was still on on the day I went to customer services, with a new purchase of the same items just to make sure sure the computers were messed up.

To top it off, just the other day I got what I thought was a meal deal (wrong product over meal deal price label), and the member of staff who was sorting it for me was really helpful to take the item out of my bag, but not out of my bill.

May have not noticed any of these at a manned till. I'd rather get somebody cancel items that won't discount or scanned the wrong way there and then - in the hope that enough of these will get a report out to supervisors and they'll get fixed (hopeful thinking, I have not seen this happen yet). I'll be all "I'm sorry", "I'm very sorry" (mind continuation: for doing this to you) when I do this, and they'd all be "it's alright" back at me, but I find it better than the alternative

Lum

here's one I discovered the other day, when you are scanning a really light item, such as hair ties, that it refuses to accept that you have put in the bagging area; instead of waiting for staff, just put something else lightweight down. I use my pill organiser which is always in my bag, but something like an empty drinks bottle works too, it will then decide you've finally put the hair ties down and let you carry on scanning.

LairyMary

Stick to self service for a few items only - it's the only way to do it! Have your bags separated ready and check where the bar code actually is, rather than flinging the item around wildly trying to get it to scan

"Unexpected item in the bagging area" is one of the most infuriating noises!

Uplink

LairyMary wrote: »

"Unexpected item in the bagging area" is one of the most infuriating noises!

Especially when the only thing you scanned is your Clubcard or equivalent

fionajbanana

[QUOTE=LairyMary;62740841

"Unexpected item in the bagging area" is one of the most infuriating noises![/QUOTE]

One self scan in the Sainsburys I shop says this when I just pressed the start button with nothing in the bagging area. Cashier then has to verify fresh air!