Aldi Bag Search

[pfifes 309]

1 hour ago, RollingJ said:

Who's belittling anyone? My personal take on this is that some people on this topic are just being argumentative for reasons best known to themselves.

There’s been an implication that if people don’t just accept this practice that they are being over sensitive and unreasonable and I don’t believe that is the case.  I’m not repeating the reasons again.

[RollingJ 2,066]

24 minutes ago, pfifes said:

There’s been an implication that if people don’t just accept this practice that they are being over sensitive and unreasonable and I don’t believe that is the case.  I’m not repeating the reasons again.

You don't - I do!

[ECCOnoob 1,053]

19 minutes ago, pfifes said:

But that’s missing the point isn’t it?  It’s the failure to go after the big boys and concentrate on easy targets instead which plays a big role in the increase in shoplifting.  

Going after the big boys and the professional shoplifting gangs, doing it to order requires input from other agencies far outside the remit of some security guards in the doorway.

 

The shops themselves can only do so much and besides that's no reason for them to be stopping pursuit of the lower level so called 'soft target' shoplifters anyway.

 

I don't disagree that more action needs to be taken properly to stop what seems to be a epidemic of shop theft.  However, it requires action from the police force who are actually prepared to take the time and spend the funds to deal with these things, it requires a CPS to have the enthusiasm, budget and balls to actually prosecute shoplifting properly, it requires a government to bring in stronger laws and sentencing for people convicted of such an offence, particular serial offenders.

 

It also requires quite a lot of the wider general public to stop treating it as some trivial issue and see it for what it is, theft.  There needs to be far less of 'oh well it's only a £1 pack of chips' or 'everyone sneaks stuff through' or 'who cares since the shops are ripping us off anyway' or 'serves them right for bringing in self-checkouts' or excuse making nonsense like 'its the cost of living crisis' or 'they're only stealing to feed their family'...

[pfifes 309]

Just now, ECCOnoob said:

Going after the big boys and the professional shoplifting gangs, doing it to order requires input from other agencies far outside the remit of some security guards in the doorway.

 

The shops themselves can only do so much and besides that's no reason for them to be stopping pursuit of the lower level so called 'soft target' shoplifters anyway.

 

I don't disagree that more action needs to be taken properly to stop what seems to be a epidemic of shop theft.  However, it requires action from the police force who are actually prepared to take the time and spend the funds to deal with these things, it requires a CPS to have the enthusiasm, budget and balls to actually prosecute shoplifting properly, it requires a government to bring in stronger laws and sentencing for people convicted of such an offence, particular serial offenders.

 

It also requires quite a lot of the wider general public to stop treating it as some trivial issue and see it for what it is, theft.  There needs to be far less of 'oh well it's only a £1 pack of chips' or 'everyone sneaks stuff through' or 'who cares since the shops are ripping us off anyway' or 'serves them right for bringing in self-checkouts' or excuse making nonsense like 'its the cost of living crisis' or 'they're only stealing to feed their family'...

I agree that outside agencies need much more input.  I don’t believe it’s beyond the wit of store management though to come up with more effective ways of dealing with this matter.  For every few quid they might save catching someone trying it on ‘forgetting’ to pay for something in the bag searching, they will have made many of customers unhappy and a professional thief will have helped themselves to much more than a packet of batteries.  
I think Morrisons are generally quite good on this, they have one way barriers you have push to get in store and a security guard sitting near the exit.  Plus barriers on exit from the self checkouts.  It all seems to work well without any routine bag searching or other unpleasant tactics like loud tannoy announcements to shoplifters or trolleys with locking wheels at the exit.  

[RollingJ 2,066]

2 minutes ago, pfifes said:

I agree that outside agencies need much more input.  I don’t believe it’s beyond the wit of store management though to come up with more effective ways of dealing with this matter.  For every few quid they might save catching someone trying it on ‘forgetting’ to pay for something in the bag searching, they will have made many of customers unhappy and a professional thief will have helped themselves to much more than a packet of batteries.  
I think Morrisons are generally quite good on this, they have one way barriers you have push to get in store and a security guard sitting near the exit.  Plus barriers on exit from the self checkouts.  It all seems to work well without any routine bag searching or other unpleasant tactics like loud tannoy announcements to shoplifters or trolleys with locking wheels at the exit.  

One of the better ideas they came up with -these usually lock at site entrances - leaving the stores property within their property, rather than littering the streets.

[redruby 280]

6 minutes ago, RollingJ said:

One of the better ideas they came up with -these usually lock at site entrances - leaving the stores property within their property, rather than littering the streets.

I think the ones that lock outside the car park have been around a long time.  There still seems to be quite a lot ending up dumped though unfortunately so not sure how well that works.  
The ones that lock up when people leave the store are quite new though and think it’s probably only a matter of time before a supermarket is sued when someone injures themselves banging into the trolley when it suddenly locks up!!

[Padders 2,891]

You'd think the boffins would have come up with an answer using technology...

[ECCOnoob 1,053]

54 minutes ago, pfifes said:

I think Morrisons are generally quite good on this, they have one way barriers you have push to get in store and a security guard sitting near the exit.  Plus barriers on exit from the self checkouts.  

Yet, when Sainsbury's and Primark have done something similar - it's made national press with everyone has being "outraged" and "furious"  and "hitting back" complaining they are being treated like criminals, making life harder and declaring it entrapment.

 

Seems a pattern here. The stores can't win no matter what they do to try and prevent theft.  

 

That was outrage when stores increased security presence.

There was outrage when they installed CCTV

There was outrage when stores installed barriers.

There was outrage when stores put security tags on lower value products. 

There was outrage when stores mandated receipts for all transactions.

There was outrage when certain products were locked in cabinets requiring assistants to open.

There was outrage when stores try to use RFID tags.

There was outrage when they tried using facial recognition technology.

[Colin Foster 72]

Don't go in Aldi then. Personally I much prefer Waitrose.

[redruby 280]

5 hours ago, ECCOnoob said:

Yet, when Sainsbury's and Primark have done something similar - it's made national press with everyone has being "outraged" and "furious"  and "hitting back" complaining they are being treated like criminals, making life harder and declaring it entrapment.

 

Seems a pattern here. The stores can't win no matter what they do to try and prevent theft.  

 

That was outrage when stores increased security presence.

There was outrage when they installed CCTV

There was outrage when stores installed barriers.

There was outrage when stores put security tags on lower value products. 

There was outrage when stores mandated receipts for all transactions.

There was outrage when certain products were locked in cabinets requiring assistants to open.

There was outrage when stores try to use RFID tags.

There was outrage when they tried using facial recognition technology.

All I can say is that I don’t care about any tactics that single me out personally and cause inconvenience.  I think that’s probably similar to most people who have raised concerns. So for example, I’ve no problem with stores using security tags if they have an efficient system for removing these at checkout.  I do however have a problem if there are self checkouts and no staff available to remove them. Or if you go to staffed till and staff don’t remove them and you end up activating an alarm.  I know we all make mistakes but this seems to happen too frequently- I recently sat in a cafe at Meadowhall and saw 3 customers have the alarm go off.  None of them had pinched stuff as they all immediately turned round and went back in to get it removed as no member of staff was near the door. All in the time it took to drink a coffee.

 

[Irene Swaine 1,073]

2 hours ago, redruby said:

All I can say is that I don’t care about any tactics that single me out personally and cause inconvenience.  I think that’s probably similar to most people who have raised concerns. So for example, I’ve no problem with stores using security tags if they have an efficient system for removing these at checkout.  I do however have a problem if there are self checkouts and no staff available to remove them. Or if you go to staffed till and staff don’t remove them and you end up activating an alarm.  I know we all make mistakes but this seems to happen too frequently- I recently sat in a cafe at Meadowhall and saw 3 customers have the alarm go off.  None of them had pinched stuff as they all immediately turned round and went back in to get it removed as no member of staff was near the door. All in the time it took to drink a coffee.

 

What annoys me about Tesco is all of their self service tills are card only and the manned tills is often not manned, so I often have to wait. But then I've started seeing people using the manned till and paying card. 🤦 They should make the manned till cash only, as it's bad enough having to wait for the one member of staff to serve us. 

 

I don't mind the security tags, they keep the scumbags from stealing I suppose. I do find it humourous when I see blocks of cheese with them on or jars of coffee. 

[redruby 280]

29 minutes ago, Irene Swaine said:

What annoys me about Tesco is all of their self service tills are card only and the manned tills is often not manned, so I often have to wait. But then I've started seeing people using the manned till and paying card. 🤦 They should make the manned till cash only, as it's bad enough having to wait for the one member of staff to serve us. 

 

I don't mind the security tags, they keep the scumbags from stealing I suppose. I do find it humourous when I see blocks of cheese with them on or jars of coffee. 

I don’t mind self service tills, they are good for if you are just buying a few bits and don’t want to get stuck behind a slow person.  I always use a staffed till for a trolley load or if buying alcohol or anything else that needs age verification.

 

I don’t think making the staff tilled cash only would work.  What they could do though is stop phasing out cash on self service!

 

I don’t mind the tags as long as there are staff to remove them and they aren’t careless and forget. 

Edited March 11 by redruby