WAITROSE

I've been a Waitrose customer for over 40 years shopping at Beaconsfield, Ramsgate and now Canterbury - the nearest Waitrose to where I currently live.  I don't do all my shopping there and usually do a big shop at Waitrose monthly.  I do understand the need to check people because there is so much shoplifting.  I do the  Click and shop because I can load my bags as I wish and don't have to put everything on the loader at the till and then reload into my bags ( usually hurriedly so as not to hold up the next customer). For months now I've been stopped for a search at nearly every shopping day and it happened again on Sunday - it was even the same pleasant young man - Will - who had to do the checking and even he expressed surprise and remembered me from the previous search.

I've never stolen a thing in my life.  When I was little I found sixpence and insisted on taking it to the police station!!  I bought 4 Holy pictures for 6d and found I had one extra and walked back to the shop to return it.  When we actually used cash, I've sometimes been given too much change and have pointed it out and given it back.  I'm not likely to slip an extra packet of something into my Waitrose trolley am I?

I expressed my chagrin to Will who suggested that I might need to change my card and gave me the customer services number.  I explained my problem and that I would like to change my card in case it had become corrupted in any way.  Not a simple thing to do.  Firstly I had to explain it all to one woman who then put me through to another department.  The lady was polite but had a strong accent and I'm not totally sure she fully understood my predicament.  However I cannot speak to the department who authorize cards and I'm afraid I don't have much faith in people passing on messages correctly.  

Reminds me of the apocryphal story of a messenger sent to ask for Reinforcements - by the time the message was passed from one person to another it ended up as 'Send Three and Fourpence'😀

I've also had a similar problem with Sainsbury's where the stopping and scanning has become so regular I'm on first name terms with one of the staff and when I see her say 'I'm bound to be stopped today because you are on duty'. It's a sort of joke but it is intensely annoying and time consuming.

I repeat I do understand the need for arbitrary scanning but not when is it  so regular as not to be Arbitrary!

I tried to avoid self scanning for as long as possible and was quite happy to queue and pass the time of day with the assistant but there are so few pay counters now in any shops that, for speed and for ease of packing, I self scan.

I presume supermarkets thought that by cutting down on Counters, they would reduce the staff bills but the amount of shoplifting which takes place must eradicate any savings.

This leads me to the worrying question of what jobs are there going to be in the future with so much automation

Sorry but I simply had to 'blow off steam'.  Really don't like the way the world is going as we are pushed further and further onto Apps and the Internet and are at the mercy of Cyber criminals.  Just think of M &S, the Co-Op and Harrods at the moment.