"Unexpected Item In Bagging Area"

The self service checkout is now commonplace in supermarkets up and down the country. While critics may ask why the customer should do the shop's work for them and others may bemoan the fact that these tills probably cost jobs, there is no doubt that they are popular and almost certainly here to stay. They have spawned a whole new range of phrases that have entered our lives, such as:

"Please place you bags in the bagging area and press  Done when finished"

"Did you use any of your own bags?"

"Please scan your Clubcard"

And of course the ubiquitous, "Unexpected item in bagging area." That last is a somewhat ambiguous phrase I always think, either a gentle reminder that you have inadvertently put your umbrella there instead of on the floor, or a more urgent warning that something menacing has infiltrated the store and it is time to evacuate before it does something unspeakable.

When I go to the supermarket and just have a basket I tend to use the self service tills; if I have a trolley load I go to a cashier (some supermarkets don't allow trolleys in the self service area anyway). Inevitably the cashier will ask, "Do you want any help with your packing?" and invariably I say no, that I will be fine. One day I will answer, "Yes please, could you pack it for me, I'm not in the mood," although no doubt if I do I will find the eggs and soft fruit packed underneath 5kg of spuds.  But now my local Tesco have introduced Scan As You Shop, a system whereby the shopper  uses a hand held device and scans their purchases as they move round the store and then uses the scanner to pay for their goods. It isn't a new idea, Sainsburys had it some years ago and in fact are now trialling a version where the shopper scans their items with their smartphone instead of the shop's own device.

I picked up a leaflet from Tesco and decided it might be worth a go. There never seems to be anyone at the Scan as you Shop checkouts so it looks, at first sight, like a quick way of doing bigger shops.  I decided I would register (you have to have a Tesco Clubcard to use the scheme) and looked at the Tesco website. Nothing obvious there about how to register, so I Googled "Tesco scan and shop" and found that you have to do it instore, but more alarmingly, some of the other results and some of Google's autofills suggested some concerns, like "Tesco scan and shop problems."

So I read some of these links and some issues came to light. Now I fully appreciate why Tesco say that they will undertake some random checks when people use Scan as you Shop and also I understand that this may happen more frequently in the first few uses, but there were some somewhat disturbing posts. Some shoppers said that Tesco had treated them badly (like criminals, more than one person said) if they had forgotten to scan an item, or that the store's database was returning incorrect prices.  A few shoppers had been overcharged and some 3 for the price of 2 discounts were not being applied. Then there was the headline "Tesco branded me a shoplifter - and the same could happen to YOU" which brought back memories of the day that Tesco accused me of shoplifting.

It was a Saturday morning in late spring about ten years or so ago. We had been invited to a friend's birthday celebrations and I decided to buy him a nice bottle of Scotch, so when I went to our local Tesco I picked up a bottle along with some other bits and pieces. I wasn't sure which one to pick (and I can't remember now which one I finally settled on), and there was some humming and harring while I made up my mind. I paid for my purchases (including the whisky) and walked out of the store.

Then I heard a voice, quite near, behind me: "Excuse me sir," said the voice, so I turned round to be confronted with two youngish, male, Tesco employees.

 "Have you got a receipt for all of the items in your bag," one asked. "Yes, thank you," I replied. "Well, we think you have items you haven't paid for. Would you like to come to the manager's office to discuss it?" he asked."No thanks," I said, "we can talk about it here." So we did, in the car park.

"My colleague here saw you pick up a bottle of whisky which you did not have when you got to the till," the chap said. The implication presumably being that I had secreted this bottle about my person and left the store without paying for it. Since it was a warm day and I was wearing a very light jacket, the sort that sags when you put as much as a box of matches in a pocket and which was not at that moment sagging (there was nothing in any of the pockets), I dread to think where they thought I had hidden this bottle.

"Yes," I replied, "he did see me pick up a bottle which I didn't have when I got to the till. Had he watched me a little longer he would have seen that this was because I put it back on the shelf and bought this one," I went on, indicating the bottle in my carrier bag.

There was an exchange of glances between the men from Tesco and it obviously dawned on them then that they were mistaken and off I went. Looking back I don't recall any sort of apology; perhaps I should have adopted a Basil Fawlty like tactic and said "I beg your pardon?" and when they replied, "We didn't say anything," I could have said, "Oh, sorry, I could have sworn I heard you apologise."

I don't bear Tesco any grudge, I still shop there. The staff made a mistake, that is all, although I wonder how tolerant their staff are when customers make a mistake and walk out of the store with items they have innocently not scanned when using the Scan as you Shop scheme. And it is for that reason that I really am in two minds on whether to sign up. I'm vacillating and prevaricating, dithering and wavering. On balance I think I'll wait till the New Year because there is no way I'm going to try Scan as you Shop for my Christmas food shopping.