Eating without paying

totally agree with op - seeing mums taking sweets / sandwiches etc giving to their kids to eat walking round - I have shamed a few by asking them will they pay at checkout - most just ignore but know one or 2 paid

The hygiene people have actually tested foods left out, eg. bowls of nuts on pub counters, and they are covered in faeces. Yuk! I wouldn't buy anything sold uncovered from a supermarket unless it could be washed, eg. bread rolls. I have seen people pick their noses and then pick up loose bread, and as Dame says, sneezing over foods. Eeeuuw!

Is blatant shoplifting a feature of Aldi, ASDA, Tesco or Sainsbury's?

...please name your store.

Well, I'm amazed! I've never seen any of this. Either I'm very unobservant or people round here are unusually honest!
I can't see what's dishonest about letting a child eat or drink round the shop and then paying for it at the till athough I agree I wouldn't encourage it. A lot of children these days seem to graze continually between meals which I don't think is good.

I've never seen anyone helping themselves, I'm probably too preoccupied to notice.
Like you Dame I wouldn't either.
Many years when I worked in a pub they would bring left over snack through to the lounge left over from darts etc. I just would say, No thanks I'm not hungry (yuk all those men who don't wash their hands after the loo)

I have never understood why people need to "graze" whilst shopping. It doesn't take that long to go around the shop and pay - so if you are that hungry then wait until you have finished shopping. I also don't agree with giving children sweets and snacks whilst shopping because they never learn they have to wait until something is paid for.

Have seen in shoe department of M&S twice neatly arranged old pairs of shoes left by thieves when they have walked off with a new pair.

Interestingly, at my local Waitrose, customers can claim the £1 parking fee back if they spend £5 or more. At the self checkout till, there's a little box in which to place the parking voucher when customers click the parking fee icon and the money is deducted from the bill. Clearly people have been touching the icon and deducting the £1 without a valid parking ticket, so now the store has introduced a system whereby an assistant has to be summoned by way of a flashing light, in order that they can validate the parking voucher! The customer doesn't lose any money, they simply lose time, but it goes to show that there are dishonest people all around us all the time.

Our local Tesco has just fitted a new bread counter, the fresh bread is no longer covered and you need to use a piece of greaseproof to pick it up, how many people do this,how many people have taken a loaf out and decided put it back. It looks nice but not very hygienic I think.

I have never and won't ever buy anything that a customer can help themselves to. I won't even buy salads from an open bar. People walk by and sneeze and those germs are going straight onto that food. No ways!!

I occasionally take a bottle of drink from the shelf and drink it on my way around Waitrose, I always put it through the till when I pay for my shopping.

I saw a man in Morrisons squeezing all the bread rolls. I told him to stop it and he said 'I want to know if they are fresh'. He really couldn't see what he was doing wrong.
A little while ago I was in a queue in New Look. A woman in front of me was buying a handbag and necklace. She put the handbag in front of her own and put the necklace in her own bag. She looked at me as she did it and although she was hiding it she really didn't care if she was seen. There was no security and the overworked staff at the till would not have been happy if I had gone to the front of the queue to tell them. I hate it though. Any kind of criminality. The necklace probably cost less than a fiver and she couldn't have needed it.

used to hear the kids heading into woolworths saying we're going to the pick and nick now hear the same thing at wilkinsons.

I was in Marks and Spencer early this year, in the changing rooms, when my friend saw a woman rip a tag off an item, put it in her bag and go out. She immediately went to a member of staff but they said there was nothing they could do. They were under-staffed. We were horrified. I don't know if this is company policy but like you say, we are paying for these losses to the company, and it's not fair.

When I worked in a supermarket about 20 years ago I saw an old lady helping herself to all the pick and mix. When I told one of the security guards he wasn't the slightest bit interested!

This goes on at the supermarket I work at. 99% who have a little munch on the way round (sometimes let the children have a biscuit etc) do always put the empty packets on the belt and say "sorry she /he was hungry" and pay for the items.
The other 1% deliberately choose to snack and when I say snack I mean.... packs of sandwiches, snacks as in picnic eggs, pies etc and! a drink! make no effort to pay and hide their packages on various shelves, or leave them in the trolley..Our security people do! watch them and if possible confront them ! and take their packages to the till and put them on with their shopping.

And there was a time we hanged people for stealing a loaf of bread

It is disgusting and it is theft, I would be tempted to photograph them and put them on FB.

We once saw a family in a supermarket get a hot rotisserie chicken. They pulled it apart with their hands and ate it on the way around the shop. The empty ,greasy bag was just left on a shelf before they left the shop.

Tch ...policy, not picture.

I was glad to see that in the supermarket my DD1 uses they have a picture of offering free fruit for children. Nice and healthy and HAS is very happily occupied for the duration of a shop. I do think that some parents will simply give in to giving their children something off the shelf to keep them quiet.

I have seen customers presenting empty packets at the tills to pay for them. usually it is food that parents have given children to eat to occupy them, while sitting in the toddler seat on the trolley.

We have a co-op near us where shop lifting is rife. The staff have more or less given up as there have been violent encounters.
As you say, we are all paying for it.

This shocks me as I have never seen it.
I must say I have seen empty sweet packets on shelves.
I agree though with the OP, we are paying for this.

I don't see this as much as I did say twenty years ago. I myself am aware of cameras everywhere and would think this may cut some of it out? Then again why have cameras if the staff don't want to cause trouble?