Accused of stealing

AskAsk

coffeehound said:

M&S now have some tills with no scales at all, so you just scan stuff straight into your bags with no cross-checking.  If you need to weigh produce, there's a separate scales+printer nearby.

same for waitrose.  there was a lady that walked off with the shopping at our local m&s.  she didn't even get to the pay stage and just took everything without selecting checkout on the machine.  i walked up to the machine after her and alerted the assistant, by which time she had already left the shop.

the assistant went out and found her and brought her back.  she then paid for the shopping and must have come up with an excuse for not paying.  she did have two noisy kids with her so she may have got distracted and wanted to get them out of the shop as soon as possible.

NaughtiusMaximus

AskAsk said:

NaughtiusMaximus said:

AskAsk said:

annabanana82 said:

AskAsk said:

annabanana82 said:

I try not to use them as they always go wrong.
In Asda once queuing for the cashier, the family in front of me fed up of waiting said they were going to the self scan as it was cheaper! 
I did make a member of staff aware, but I assume that it's a common occurrence, but thinking about it I wonder (as an aside) if the reduced staff costs on self service offset a possible uplift in shoplifting losses?

But I think it would be hard to get away with, Sainsbury's and Asda now seem to have visible cameras and you can see yourself, I would have thought Tesco would have some form of surveillance too?

i always use the self service now and only ever go to the till if i have a trolley or need to use vouchers that the self service tills won't accept.  i prefer to scan my own items and skip out the personal interaction altogether.

the machine can scan and you hear a 'beep' noise without it actually registering.  the price does not come up on the machine.  i have had to call the assistant over to say that the machine won't register and they had to manually add the item into the shopping.  so you do have to pay attention.  however, there is a safeguard for this as the machine will ask you to remove the item if you put it down and it had not been added to your shopping.

i read that shops lose a lot of money from theft since they introduced the self service tills but the machines are getting better at security so it is harder to steal using the self service machines.

I do like the scan as you shop, I don't have an issue with those, just the ones where you weigh your bags and all your shopping. 
The scan as you shop do have regular checks, whenever I get one I always panic that I've not scanned something.

i have never used scan while you shop and wonder how they make sure people don't steal as you don't put the items on the till so they can't weigh it.

We used it once, after we'd paid a member of staff rumaged through our bags randomly checking individual items against the receipt. Add that to the time it took to scan them in the first place and it actually resulted in a slower than normal shop.

Oddly enough we decided not to bother after that.

i wouldn't like people going through my bags every time i shop as it would make me feel like i was being searched.  would not make for a pleasant shopping experience.  the whole point for me with these self service payout is the lack of human contact so this would totally defeat the whole purpose.

I wasn't particularly impressed either.

It wouldn't have been so bad if it was just a handful of items but they checked multiple items from every bag in a big monthly shop, even to the point of lifting bags out of the trolley to get at the ones underneath. 

TELLIT01

It's not unreasonable for spot checks to be carried out.  Without them it would be open season for shoplifters.  I don't use self scan because I have always found it more trouble that it's worth.  Items not scanning properly, staff members having to approve the purchase of age limited items etc.  I was in our local M&S, queueing for the till, when one of the staff came over and said "We can do that over here" so I went over the the self scan stations expecting her to do the scanning.  She just stood there looking at me as if I was stupid.  I said to her "You said 'we can do it over here', so I'm expecting you to do the scanning.  Either you do, or I walk out and you can put everything back"  She did scan, with very bad grace.

AskAsk

TELLIT01 said:

It's not unreasonable for spot checks to be carried out.  Without them it would be open season for shoplifters.  I don't use self scan because I have always found it more trouble that it's worth.  Items not scanning properly, staff members having to approve the purchase of age limited items etc.  I was in our local M&S, queueing for the till, when one of the staff came over and said "We can do that over here" so I went over the the self scan stations expecting her to do the scanning.  She just stood there looking at me as if I was stupid.  I said to her "You said 'we can do it over here', so I'm expecting you to do the scanning.  Either you do, or I walk out and you can put everything back"  She did scan, with very bad grace.

i really hate queueing at m&s food hall where we live as most of the customers are OAP and they seem to think that they have all the time in the world.  they take their time to pack and pay so the queue takes a long time to move.

Jaybee_16

Used to use the self-scanning process at my local Tesco but gave up after being the subject of spot checks on four occasions out of eight visits to the store, including one full shopping scan. Assistant wanted to do the full shopping scan at customer services as there was a long queue but I refused and had the scanning done at the till. Probably a 'I feel like being awkward' day  Didn't bother me in the slightest but I made sure the staff member packed the items properly after checking.  

strawb_shortcake

I have seen the self scan checks cause mayhem once as every customer was needing a check, some 10 items and others full checks but the staff weren't happy said it had been like that for over an hour and on a Saturday too. 
I've only been caught on the full scan once, and infrequently on the 10 item. 
I also dropped the scanner once and it broke so everything had to be scanned again. 
The main advantage I find as the scan as you shop is that it ends up better packed rather than trying to keep up with the cashier not sending things down as you placed them

coffeehound

It'll be interesting to see how these new Amazon places pan out where you just pick what you want and walk out.  Not sure how it all works, but surely there'll be mistakes

Barny1979

coffeehound said:

It'll be interesting to see how these new Amazon places pan out where you just pick what you want and walk out.  Not sure how it all works, but surely there'll be mistakes

"mistakes"

techwatcher

Barny1979 said:

coffeehound said:

It'll be interesting to see how these new Amazon places pan out where you just pick what you want and walk out.  Not sure how it all works, but surely there'll be mistakes

"mistakes"

Like with 'normal' self-service this is a risk vs reward situation for the retailer. There will be some losses but they will accept a level of loss as long as the losses are significantly cheaper than employing a person to do the same activity.

Wraithlady

marlene1967 said:

Thanks for your advice. I’m not a member of the union, I’m having to do this on my own. Don’t want to burden a colleague with this

Understand the sentiment, but really, you need to 'burden a colleague with this'. 
Do you have a sympathetic supervisor or someone who you feel you can rely on? Even if they don't do much in the actual meeting, explaining it to them will fix it in your own mind - also make sure you know as much as possible about the details of the accusation. Take Heyhello's advice and make sure you know your rights and how the procedure works before you're called in.