Egg Scam

I only buy organic eggs so I expect I could have been scammed!

The story was in the Times on Saturday and the supermarket mentioned was Waitrose but I bought mine in the local Sainsburys. I usually go to my butcher for them. I don't think it would be too hard to swap. You could put two cartons of differently priced eggs in your trolley and swap them as you shop away from the egg bit. Who actually notices someone seeming to check the eggs for cracks but actually swapping them? Easy to pass the egg bit again and replace the carton you don't need. It seems to be a 'till' scam in that why change at all if you are planning on doing a runner. The ones I bought had a lion on which didn't raise my suspicions as I was unaware of the crown stamp until yesterday. Throughout my long life the lion has been a fixture. Anyway, I have flagged up the scam for those of you who like to know what you are buying.

Georgesgran, I found your post interesting. The lengths people will go to to get a bargain.

Yes Devorgilla. At the time the chicken was £2 or £3 cheaper than the beef, so DD2 was told to slide the sleeve to check that a more expensive joint hadn’t been substituted. I guess it also prevented an innocent party buying beef, only to discover later it was chicken!

How do they manage to get away with it though? Shops are practically infested with CCTV?

Be careful Primrose one of my best friends is a Bulgarian you cannot tar a whole country to fit your story.

Devongrilla I really can’t imagine someone walking around changing 6 eggs bit by bit in their trolly as the trot around I m not saying it didn’t happen just saying it’s far from an easy thing to do, much easier to pick up a whole carton and put it in a bag or something if they are thieves

BlueBelle, I think the point is this is a middle class scam. They somehow switch the eggs into a cheaper carton and take it through the till. Even if a security guard checks them, they have a receipt saying they bought eggs. Who knows what else they are switching, the motto seeming to be - 'better food at a cheaper price'. I'm now toying with the idea that there is a scammers' website giving tips that the rest of us know nothing about.

BlueBelle

Be careful Primrose one of my best friends is a Bulgarian you cannot tar a whole country to fit your story.

Devongrilla I really can’t imagine someone walking around changing 6 eggs bit by bit in their trolly as the trot around I m not saying it didn’t happen just saying it’s far from an easy thing to do, much easier to pick up a whole carton and put it in a bag or something if they are thieves

I am only repeating what the Police and genuine Oil collection companies report.

My previous dentist was Bulgarian and pretty sure he didn’t go round pinching cooking oil either. 🤣

It w as your sentence “mainly Bulgarians, they operate all over the country” made it sound as if every Bulgarian was a thief

Just ‘written words’ sometimes come across wrongly

Primrose53

These days there are scams for everything. The other day I was reading about a Bulgarian man who was travelling around in a big van picking up used cooking oil from care homes etc without permission. Apparently it’s worth quite a lot. Police found him with huge barrels of it.

I do t understand. How was he picking it up, surely he'd have to be given access to it.

theworriedwell

Primrose53

These days there are scams for everything. The other day I was reading about a Bulgarian man who was travelling around in a big van picking up used cooking oil from care homes etc without permission. Apparently it’s worth quite a lot. Police found him with huge barrels of it.

I do t understand. How was he picking it up, surely he'd have to be given access to it.

Nor me, and I don’t understand it being called a scam!
There are companies which pay for used oil, so if care homes were intending to sell their used oil and those pesky Bulgarians managed to get it first, then surely that was theft, rather than a scam?
Incidentally, my friend’s (non Bulgarian ) son and his wife have built up an extremely successful business collecting and selling used cooking oil, which is used for biodiesel and renewable fuel.

That's good to recycle it but as you say it sounds like theft.

Don't know how you could get away with actually standing in a supermarket and exchanging eggs from one carton to another. Also why bother, an egg is an egg is an egg - to me !

fancyflowers

Who could be bothered doing this? Call me an idiot, but to me an egg is an egg.

They're either large or small. I use large for scrambled eggs and small for boiled or fried eggs. I honestly couldn't care much about what stamp they have on them.

Obviously this is done by those who want the larger eggs for the price of the smaller.

Dishonest, yes, just as taking one Mars bar out of a packet is, or one packet of cat food out of each carton on the shelves, but these petty thefts happen.

nanna8

I get Aldi free range here - they are cheaper than all our other supermarkets. About $4.50 a dozen for nice large eggs.

Aldi here are 29p each, Sainsbury 19p, but large Duchy originals are 46p, so I guess someone thinks it is worth it.

Used to buy from a local farm but became too expensive compared to supermarket. As for free range, the only free range I know of is huge barn like buildings containing thousands of birds. They can move about indoors. The free range part is that there are holes in the walls to allow hens to go outside if they want to. Sadly hens follow the pack and if no one goes out neither do the others. Large chicken business in north of county where I live, have yet to see a chicken outside never mind a few thousand.

I looked it up online and the Clarence Court site says "The Clarence Court crown simply replaces the lion stamp you see on other free range eggs". Nothing about the eggs being higher quality, though they are definitely more expensive.
I think that most eggs are free range now, the Ocado ones seem to be, unless there is bird flu around and the hens can't go outside.
I usually poach our breakfast eggs and the only difference I've found between the different brands is that the freshest ones hold together best.
Of course eggs from a local farm would always be ultra fresh but sadly most of us can't access these.

fancyflowers

Who could be bothered doing this? Call me an idiot, but to me an egg is an egg.

They're either large or small. I use large for scrambled eggs and small for boiled or fried eggs. I honestly couldn't care much about what stamp they have on them.

Absolutely agree, other than size and age there is no difference.

The free range eggs we buy are most definitely free range - there are a few little smallholdings near us where the chickens roam freely in their pastures. The eggs are no more expensive than supermarket free range ones - in fact, the chap we buy ours from most often charges £1 per half dozen.

BlueBelle

Sounds like the care home was in on it too
I think MacDs advertise that they reuse their cooking oil, after something is done to it, to use in their vans and lorries. I believe there is money in collecting used cooking oil I suppose he was being clever to try and start up a business in it
How can you pick up cooking oil without permission ?? Break into the kitchen at night time ???

If you've ever heard of bio fuel, it has an element of re-cycled cooking oil in it.

I used to run Isuzu Trooper 4x4s on fresh cooking oil which was tax free. It was cheaper than diesel before the Ukraine war but the price went up quite significantly then. The market for recycled oil increased but it became impractical to mess about with the filtering at home, but on an industrial scale it's still very economical.

McDonald's recycle their oil and the majority of their truck fleet run on it now. If you watch a delivery at a McD's you'll see that at the end of it, the entire deep fat fryer unit is loaded back into the truck as a sealed unit for return to the depot and re-cycling of the contents.

My local French shops are still suffering from a shortage of eggs, Avian.

I knew someone who did this for years! He could well afford groceries. He did it for fun and excitement. Could never be dissuaded.

cc

I looked it up online and the Clarence Court site says "The Clarence Court crown simply replaces the lion stamp you see on other free range eggs". Nothing about the eggs being higher quality, though they are definitely more expensive.
I think that most eggs are free range now, the Ocado ones seem to be, unless there is bird flu around and the hens can't go outside.
I usually poach our breakfast eggs and the only difference I've found between the different brands is that the freshest ones hold together best.
Of course eggs from a local farm would always be ultra fresh but sadly most of us can't access these.

Yes there is basically no difference between the nutritional value of any eggs you buy (from wherever). The colour of the yolks is down to an additive to the chicken feed - egg producers can choose from a 'colour chart' what shade of yellow they want the yolks. The older an egg the more it spreads in the pan etc. You can also tell the age of an egg by the size of the air sac inside the shell - the bigger the sac the older the egg.

I am for some reason a bit averse to white eggs......though again nutritionally they are no different to brown. Brown shells tend to be tougher, but egg shells thin and become 'rough' as the hens get older. I usually buy what is the best price and what I like the look of (yes I always look inside the box and wobble them around too - checking for cracks etc). I was an egg producer for 20 years (commercially) - so think I know the score!

50 or 60 years ago we used to have a guy called Tam the Chicken Man who went round the doors selling eggs, all with double yokes.