Assaulted at a supermarket by store colleagues

FlaatusGoat

littleboo said:

Were these people dedicated security personnel, or general shop floor staff?

They weren't easily identified as being security. No SIA badge and a different uniform than the regular ASDA one. I'm trying to complain to the SIA but I seem to be making very ltitle progress here. The form on their website is broken and their email contact is very patchy and basic at best.

Albermarle

Teapot55 said:

flossy_splodge said:

Name and shame the company? Always worth doing. Sorry you had such a horrid experience.

I think you have to be wary of ‘name and shame’ on this forum. I have a feeling there’s forum rules forbidding this and you could get into trouble doing it. 

You can name and shame in the same way that consumer champions highlight poor service, not living up to promises, very slow with refunds and cases like this.
What you should avoid is slandering anybody, and making very strong accusations like calling them liars, fraudsters etc unless you are very sure. Even then some companies ( mainly on the fringes of the financial sector) have issued legal warnings asking MSE to take down posts/threads ( as far as I understand anyway) 

Pollycat

Albermarle said:

Teapot55 said:

flossy_splodge said:

Name and shame the company? Always worth doing. Sorry you had such a horrid experience.

I think you have to be wary of ‘name and shame’ on this forum. I have a feeling there’s forum rules forbidding this and you could get into trouble doing it. 

You can name and shame in the same way that consumer champions highlight poor service, not living up to promises, very slow with refunds and cases like this.
What you should avoid is slandering anybody, and making very strong accusations like calling them liars, fraudsters etc unless you are very sure. Even then some companies ( mainly on the fringes of the financial sector) have issued legal warnings asking MSE to take down posts/threads ( as far as I understand anyway) 

I think MSE tend to remove individual people named in threads employed by companies that people are complaining about too.

SevenOfNine

Did they get a bit rough when you started filming?

LightFlare

I may be wrong, but as far as I am aware - store security have zero powers to detain anyone and certainly no powers to lay hands on anyone. In fact, it would be deemed as assault.

Cool story though

Vectis

To go back to the start of your op, why did they think you'd been shoplifting? They don't simply choose someone at random, there has to have been a reason.

Did you give them any cause to think this? Possibly put something in your bag by mistake and later put it back when you realised? Or, maybe it was a case of mistaken identity?

I have to say, if security or an employee in a shop or supermarket asked to look in my bag as they suspected me of not paying for goods, my first thought wouldn't be to get my phone out and start filming. If I was innocent, I'd be cooperating and being as helpful as possible to try to sort out why the confusion had occurred.

In my experience, only as a bystander admittedly, these things usually only escalate when someone decides to get stroppy and not cooperate.

I have been stopped when exiting a store before, but this was because there was something in my shopping which was tagged. I didn't kick up a fuss or start filming the incident, but showed them my receipt and let them look through my shopping. No big deal.

As I said, they don't pick on people for fun. There has to have been a reason why they stopped you. Plus, there must also have been a reason why this all kicked off after you were stopped. Did you cooperate fully with them or did you try to walk off, because that is when they would probably try and physically restrain you?

Ectophile

LightFlare said:

I may be wrong, but as far as I am aware - store security have zero powers to detain anyone and certainly no powers to lay hands on anyone. In fact, it would be deemed as assault.

Cool story though

I take it you didn't read the earlier post by the_lunatic_is_in_my_head.  Anyone may arrest anyone else.  But they will have to be able to justify it, or risk getting charged with false arrest.

FlaatusGoat

SevenOfNine said:

Did they get a bit rough when you started filming?

Oh yes they did and were absolutely threatened by it.

rollingmoon

As you have had no satisfactory response from the company, I suggest posting the video on social media, encouraging others to share it widely. That should have the desired effect.

FlaatusGoat

rollingmoon said:

As you have had no satisfactory response from the company, I suggest posting the video on social media, encouraging others to share it widely. That should have the desired effect.

Was thinking that, unfortunately I'm not a big youtuber or IG/tic tocker so I doubt I'd get many views. Also, I might potential compromise the legal route on this?