Customer or Shop Lifter?
A recent supermarket experience has convinced me that Reform could win the next Welsh elections.
I have been meaning to write about shoplifting for a long time as it is an issue that is crippling retailers in both New Zealand and the UK.
I was also thinking about shoplifting when now disgraced New Zealand MP Golriz Ghahraman admitted to shoplifting (after being caught) from a clothing boutique in a clothes store a stone’s throw from where we used to live in Auckland.
When I returned to Wales I remember a radio segment on the long lasting effects shoplifting has had on retailers in Wrexham, the home to the football club bought by Hollywood star, Ryan Reynolds. The segment talked about the cost to retailers and focussed on one man who owned a shop who had thousands of pounds of stock stolen overnight. His shop was one that recycled designer trainers. What really stood out was how nervous this man had become since the robbery. How he sometimes goes back to his shop (yes drives back) after he has “shut up shop” to check everything is secure. I really felt for him.
The British Retail Consortium reported a whopping GBP2.2 billion in store losses from theft in the 12 months leading up to 2023. In New Zealand it was reported in January 2024 that the amount was NZD1.3billion.
Among victims of shoplifting are “corner shops” also known as “dairies” in New Zealand. I watched one news piece on how they are completely beholden to this shoplifting crisis, with police often not turning up.
When the story came out about Golriz Ghahraman, a middle aged woman and New Zealand’s first refugee elected as an MP, I was reminded of Wynona Ryder, the American actress whose career literally died over her shoplifting.
Shoplifting is a thing, and for some, an addiction.
Having my own children, and I know this is common amongst people of colour, and perhaps in other families, I always tell them to keep the receipt as you never know that you may be accused of stealing. This is a mantra in every household of colour and a mantra that existed long before the arrival of self service tills.
My children spent a large part of their life in Auckland, but even if they had grown up in the UK, I also would have dissuaded them, as I did when they lived in Auckland from going shopping with girls who steal. This was borne out of my own experience.
Albeit in my twenties, I went shopping with a friend, who after we left a London department store, showed me how she had ‘picked up” a piece of make-up. She said, “old habits die hard.”
All I could think of was what if she had put that item in my bag! It was a big enough revelation to stay with me and warn my own children that this is what others can do.
HAVE YOU TAKEN SOMETHING?
Shortly after that incident I then had another revelation in a shop myself. I was living in Rome at the time and liked to go to a gift shop by the Colosseum. But I always had the feeling that I was not welcome there. I had never had that experience before, of not being welcome in a store.
Like many migrants in Rome, I experienced a lot of racism. Talking to my white partner about it, he questioned my experience and questioned the racism. Often when I would go shopping with him he would stand outside a shop and read a New Yorker. One time we decided that he would do the same but watch me as I went round the shop.
It was a Saturday morning and I walked in the shop and immediately the Italian woman started to follow me. I was 25 at the time and just kept on browsing. There were others in the shop but she was looking at me, following me. Then I picked up a bar of soap. She walked towards me, stood in my personal space and asked me in anxious Italian, “Have you taken something?”
One question, yet so many interpretations.
None of them were positive. At worst it was asking me if I was about to steal something, at other worst it meant I should leave.
I put it back, told her that I was browsing and that incident has forever changed my husband’s awareness of racism. Now he enjoys telling people how he had an awakening to racism watching me being stalked in a shop and then being approached.
But of course this happens to people of colour all the time.
And shameful to say it is still happening over 20 years on.
ASDA
A few weeks ago I popped into an Asda, which for those of you afar, is like a Pak’N Save. I went in with my two older girls and we bought some items using the self service system. I put my items through first.
Funnily enough, before I bought the items, I had to tell the lady who used the self service counter before me that she had left her money. She came back for it and I then said to her that she had left a penny. She told me that it was not hers. I bought my item and then made space for my daughter to buy her item. I stood behind my daughter as she bought the item with her card. It was actually an XL candle and a small gift for my mother’s birthday. The machine asked her if she wanted a receipt and when the words came up, we read them in chorus and said yes!
The Candle
Once she took her receipt we noticed the two women staff watching us. They were there the whole time in fact. I left the area before my daughter who was sorting her things out, and putting things away so she could carry the giant candle. As I left the area, the two women staff members gave me and my middle daughter beaming smiles. They also smiled at my daughter with the candle who remained behind us.
My middle daughter and I made for a long-ish walk to the exit. We had not reached the exit when an Asian man, skinny looking and not in security attire, appeared from inside the store away from us. As you walk into this Asda you come upon the clothing and home section in front of you. He was inside that section and I found it odd that someone from inside the store was coming towards me. His face was concerned and he was running towards us. We were scared and confused. I thought he may know me.
The first thing he said to me was “the candle.” This threw me. How did he know we had bought a candle? I did not see him when we purchased it. I moved my middle daughter aside and revealed my eldest who showed him the candle. He then asked in an accusatory tone if we had the receipt. He was out of breath as he had rushed towards us. He was not kind. He was not apologetic. It was an accusation. My daughter showed him the receipt and a look of regret came over his face.
And then I spoke.
And then his face went red.
Because I spoke with a mostly posh English accent and I know I do not have the local Welsh accent.
He had mistakenly assumed that I was one the people from the ethnic minority community who here in Wales are statistically poorer than white people.
I started by saying “No, this is not acceptable.”
His face went from red to ashen.
He wanted me to shut up.
Despite not knowing my rights, as someone who used to practice as a solicitor something made me query him on what grounds we were stopped. With hindsight that was totally right thing to do.
He tried to fob me off but he looked behind us in the direction of the two women who were in the self serve area. Then he muttered that this was all normal acting a like child who had been caught lying and wanting his mother to be quiet.
I will be frank and honest. He looked like an Asian man who had just realised that he had made a terrible mistake in listening to the two women in targeting me, an Asian woman and my daughters.
He realised that we were far from thieves. He realised that he should not have stopped me. As we were speaking a group of white teenage boys were near us. Their products were not checked.
Just ours.
I told the man that what had happened to us was not acceptable. That I was appalled. I told him that I have a solicitor qualification. This made him angry as he tried to fudge that they would stop everyone. Or is it just everyone with candles?
The seriousness with which he approached us was very dramatic.
It was 4.05pm and I had to collect my third child from school, so I left the store, dissatisfied. The man did not offer to call a senior staff member. He just told me that it was normal to check people’s receipts and above all he just wanted me to leave. But we were side swiped.
Seriously? Like some shoddy scene in Starsky and Hutch? Running at three defenceless women.
I left Asda and called customer service and they told me that what happened was wrong and that I needed to complain “in store.” This I found so odd, but nonetheless I was given the number of the store and there, no one had told the duty supervisor what had happened. The supervisor was a kind man, and he instantly believed what had happened to me and could not understand what had happened to us. I told him that I did not want the candle now, and he asked me to come back to Asda and return it for a refund.
When we went back we waited at the customer desk which was by the self service desk. Despite the local demographic of this Asda being very multicultural, all visible staff were white. We watched the two women who had called the man on us and could not help but think that they were watching a black woman with a baby and a pram.
Paul, the duty supervisor came, he was nice but still offered no reason why his staff had done this. The candle was refunded.
We went home and felt pretty crap. We felt this way as we are human and we are not used to being treated in such a rough way.
We are not used to being treated like criminals.
We have had our receipts checked before in shops, and this has happened when everyone else has had them checked too.
Most importantly our receipts have been checked by a man or woman already at the exit. In this case the man came from the clothing aisle, with us in mind. It was pretty scary.
In one case, we went to Waitrose (a posher supermarket) last June and I bought a high end bottle of Japanese gin for a friend as a gift. As I left the till and approached the exit, the security guard who was already at the door stepped towards me. He explained before I could say anything that he was approaching me as he had seen that the cashier had failed to take the security tag off. He was kind and I instinctively offered him my receipt and he refused to see it saying he was sorry for having to stop me when they had not taken the tag off.
That is how you do it!
REFORM
So what has all this got to do with Reform?
I went home and started discussing my experience with people. I learned that the supermarket has no right to stop you until you have left the shop.
I googled some things and came upon a story of a black woman who was racially profiled in Tesco. I also read the tragic story of a black man in Wales who was banned from all Morrison’s (another brand of supermarket for those of you abroad) only for his name to be cleared. In another case, a white man was approached at the bus stop of his nearest Asda and accused of stealing.
I will be honest, I feel that we were racially profiled. It was the way the women smiled at us. Friends and family claimed that they must have thought me and my girls were a gang- I apparently look very young, my fixed braces making me look younger.”
Also what on earth were these women doing throwing me to man like that? Had they thought there was something erroneous, surely it is better for a woman to approach a woman in front of children, not a man?
Why else do I think it was racist? Well no one else had their items checked. We were the only shoppers of colour. It felt racist.
BUT
It also felt that this store would do this to others. Two things can be true at the same time.
I couldn’t help thinking that the treatment we experienced would have been handed to a poor white mum and how she would have her kids watch on as she was interrogated.
WHITE AND POOR?
Wales is a country where 21% of working age adults are in relative income poverty from the financial years 2021 to 2023. Furthermore a household in Wales with a head who is from a black, asian or minority ethnic group is more likely to be in poverty despite such people making up only 5.2% of the population. If you ask google how poor people are in Wales, you will learn that 16% of all adults are materially deprived.
My mind did go to my race but in the next breath went to other people this could happen to. So what I did next was go to the press.
I wanted to raise awareness of what happened so someone else does not experience it.
But I also know that aside from poverty, Wales is turning to Reform, and that going to the press would be a risk.
And in that climate, where more and more people are talking about Reform gaining popularity in Wales, I knew that the responses to any article will not be favourable but more importantly, any article by the media in Wales, could likely throw me to the wolves to appease these people.
Whether it be click bait, or an agenda to strategise for a future Reform government in Wales at the elections which are taking place next year, or whether this is just how the media rolls, I knew that going to the press could result in an editorial missing vital instances about my experience.
So here it is. And guess what? It did.
Please read it for yourself and compare and contrast what happened to me above and what happened in this article.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/i-stopped-security-guards-asda-31022533
And, when I read this article and the bits it missed out and then read the comments, I became convinced that Wales is a Reform haven.
There is no mention of how the man came running at me from inside the store, there is no mention that he had been told to speak to me about the candle, there was no mention that other people around me were not checked for goods and receipts. But above all, and this is the most glaring error in this right wing appeasing journalism, that alongside my belief that I was racially profiled, that I believed in that experience that this could happen to a white person too.
How can such a glaring fact be missed as regards my experience and reaction?
Because balance doesn’t clickbait I guess.
Much more salty to just portray a woman of colour playing the race card yes? If that was not the intention, it is the effect, sadly.
THE RACE CARD?
Forgive me for using that expression, as it is an awful phrase.
As you will see, if you can load the article (as enmeshed in this “pop up book journalism” is a kaleidoscope of pop up adverts that stop the reader from focussing) the comments are overwhelmingly talking about “the race card.”
Bluebibbo maybe you should have?
Firstly that if you are using that term race card, you probably are racist, if you are using that term against someone who has claimed racism, than it is you playing the race card card, not them, and finally and most importantly, if you are using that term to deny someone their claim of racism, than it is you claiming to be a victim of the race card more than the person who has suffered racism.
Thank you Sabrina, but I am just fine here in Wales.
The right wing press likes to paint wokeism as weakness.
But when I shared the article with my network, those empathetic to my situation commented on how brave I am. And I know I am, because I am not a victim of racism in this incident because I did not accept it.
Standing up and speaking out over racism and whatever else does not make you a victim, it does not make you fragile, it does not make you lack resilience, in fact quite the opposite.
The courage lies in pushing it away and saying no.
I had a feeling that the press would do this, and I knew these people would come out with bile.
Freddy took the opportunity to ask for his country back. Can someone please oblige?
Well done MIRL. Yes a woman came up to us and racially abused us in Auckland and received a police caution for doing so. But please do not give up your day job!
USA!!!!!!!!!
And all this just leads me to thinking that Wales, its media, its economy, its poverty and its people, they are ripe to follow America.
Last year Nigel Farage launched his election campaign in Merthyr Tydfil in Wales, a place that has homed the world’s best migrant doctors and which a white consultant neurologist told me had the highest rate of male unemployment in Europe. Menawhile, last week Reform won its first ever council seat in Torfaen with 47% of the vote.
A stone’s throw from where I currently live, Barry, Reform split the Tory vote leading to a Labour win and unwittingly Labour’s first Welsh ethnic minority MP, and I am not sure that he will survive the next election from the Reform voters I have spoken with.
Due to devolution, Labour, since 1999 has had full control of health education and local government in Wales. The next elections of our devolved Welsh government, the parliament of which is the Senedd are next year.
Earlier this month, 25% of Labour members of the Senedd resigned. A few sources have told me that this is because they anticipate losing their seat. Do Labour also anticipate losing control of the Senedd too?
My prediction is that if Reform win, or if they make huge gains, that will be a game changer for Reform’s chances in Westminster. As the world press is looking at Germany’s polls as a game changer for Europe, I think they should be looking at Wales instead.
AND WHAT ABOUT ASDA?
They still have not called me back.
They should have policies and procedures in place around how to approach mothers and children and others. Their staff need training. They simply cannot allow their staff to target people. We were left traumatised. What is so bad in saying that? At the least I deserve an apology.
And, supermarkets need to start employing people.
We were approached in an appalling manner as their lack of faith in their systems led to being led by their biases. In a place like Wales with so much unemployment, supermarkets getting rid of all their self service tills could lead to greater employment and certainly avoid what we are currently seeing, which is the consumer paying the price for the shoplifting problem.
SILVER LINING
While I remain bemused by the Wales Online article missing so many important pieces of information about my experience, the broadcast of my story has resulted in people reaching out sharing their experience of being harassed over items in stores.
And surprise surprise people are telling me (including white males) that self service counters are causing problems for consumers, but worse of all other major retailers are also profiling and also racial profiling, following ethnic minority people in stores and generally ruining the customer experience.
Retailers should be coming together and making pledges to end all profiling in their stores as well as shoplifting.
They should be asking for our help in the shoplifting pandemic and not treating the customer as a criminal.
Thanks for reading, welcome to some new readers, and feel free to comment below.
Ludology