I Give Up!

My local Tesco is open 24 hours, it is huge, it has a Café, Pharmacy, Car wash, Opticians, Max Spillman, Clothing section, Tesco mobile, Electrician section, Food section and this month will have a Barbers!

Over the years, I’ve seen many people of all ages shop lift from the store, from the very young with the sweets at the self-help selection to the very old from the fruit section, and everything in between. I see those eating the food as they walk around the store, hot chicken from the self-help hot chicken section, handing it out to their kids, the older people simply putting the food into their little bag, the younger woman using her finger as a spoon as she eats the chocolate mousse, then putting the empty small carton on a shelf.

I get a description of them and always go and tell the Security Staff. Sometimes I wish I was a security worker there, but it is a vast place over two floors, how can they possibly watch every single person, on their monitor!

The self help scan, where people scan their own items, it’s SO easy there to not scan everything, I was even shocked when someone at work, told me, “I never pay for garlic or ginger there, I just put it in my bag at the self-scanner, Tesco can afford it.”

And paying for the bag, 5p or 10p, People now, myself included, hold the items their hands and leave the store, I said to the Staff at the till when that first started that we had to pay for the bags, “What happens if someone simply walks out the shop without paying?” He said to me, “We have to trust their good sense to pay for them.” I thought, “The thieves will like that, depending on them to be honest!”

So, it was the self-scanners, then no bags, and then Tesco introduced the hand scanners, where you pick a scanner and scan you Tesco club card into it, then as you shop you scan your item and put it directly you’re your own shopping bag, everything is logged into the hand-held scanner, then you go to a special self-service checkout and pay. I was informed, when it first started, a Staff Member there, at the self-service check out, would take out one item and see if it that was logged and that would then prove that everything else in your shopping bag was logged into your shopping. There is still a Staff Member there, but they don’t always check for that one item, for I’ve been with people who have used it, and their bags were not checked.

This week I was in my local 24 hour Tesco and someone caught my eye, he was a young male, with a hoodie, (not stereotyping him) for he had a shopping trolley, although that did look odd, it was deep and had a drawstring for the opening, it wasn’t quite closed shut, it was open enough for him to choose which bread he wanted, then he simply put it into his deep black trolley, then with his mobile phone in his hand, it gave the impression he had a scanner, he tapped it! It was clear to me, he was stealing the items, for there are shopping trolleys for us all to use with wheels or hand baskets, or you can use your own bags with a hand-held scanner, he had neither.

So, I decided I give up, I don’t care anymore, what is the point? What difference will me going to Security and telling them about this one single Person, when one hundred or more in the store are doing the same thing?

The two very old people I saw recently, on two separate occasions, I did wonder, are they poor and struggling, what right do I have to deny them their basic ‘bread’ and ‘butter,’ so, I let them be, I didn’t report them. Nor will I in future report anyone.