Have any of you failed to scan your shopping at supermarkets self service till? Doing a say fifty quid shop then forget to scan a lump of cheese could mean the supermarkets are losing money. Even though big stores like Asda are making massive profits.

my friend done a shop, scanned it all on self service and forgot to put money in and walked out as we were too busy chatting. Only when she got home she realised.

If you put your items in the bagging area, doesn't it register by weight if any item has not been scanned?

I doubt they're 100% theft proof. So do the supermarkets, which is why they factor this into their costings. As you say, how can they be making profits if they're making massive losses from theft? Tesco have scan-as-you-shop which, if you're that sort of person, makes it very easy to steal and still the bosses seem happy to implement it, so don't feel too concerned for them.

You have to weigh up the losses through using self-service tills versus the savings made by not employing check-out people instead.

Unless they put electronic tags on every item it's going to keep happening. Cameras are watching you. The workers who reset the tills should look in your bag too see if all items correspond with what you have scanned and they don't. I suppose you have too be trusted in this world.

"Unexpected item in baggage area"

Just been listening to Radio 2 on this subject . People phoning in saying how they steal in supermarkets and get round these self service machines . It sounded very easy . And of course if they are challenged or even caught they get away with it , and come back the next day to do the same again . Soft touch Britain .

Then a member of staff comes and resets the till and doesn't look in your bag.

They do sound like a thieves paradise. I noticed the other day that they'd removed them at a Wilko store I sometimes go in. In other stores the staff always seem to be running to help someone out. I'm sure that in reality they must be more trouble than what they're worth.

Security in my local Asda is very lax so it would be easy to steal stuff.

I've had several instances where I could have pinched stuff.

If I buy multiple items and one doesn't scan I switch it for one that did and they never check if its like for like.

The alarm at the door went off once for a tagged item. I thought it was odd because I'd popped to the toilet before leaving the building and they happily told me they turn the alarm off in that area at 7.oopm

I tend to walk out with any tagged items in my hand as the machine frequently doesn't disable it. I just show the item to security and they let me leave without removing the tag and not checking my bag to see if theirs anything else.

More self service checkouts in Tesco, Morrison's etc - profits down.

No self service checkouts in Lidl, Aldi - profits up.

It ain't rocket science.

Trouble is the stores get greedy and force one person to supervise a dozen tills, they barely have time to reset the machine let alone check the shopping.

I think one of the most common scams is putting expensive items through as cheap veg eg weigh a whisky bottle as if it's onions. Presumably theres a small risk of it being seen on CCTV though.

I don't know why people use these things. It's slower than using a regular checkout. All those errors and please remove the last item and waiting for someone to come and reset it. By the time I've faffed around it's quicker to go through a regular checkout. Only time I ever use one is in the Co-Op where the service is non existant.

If you shop early morning at a Tescos Superstore then using a self-service till is the only option. Personally I like using them so I don't have to engage in meaningless chatter with a cashier person, all that "how are you, I'm fine how are you, oh that's too bad" faffying around is just tiresome when all you want to do is buy and leave and nosh. As for using those till so I can steal something <- that's something I'd never dream of doing. Though dinning at their in-store restaurant then walking off with the cutlery, well that's another thing altogether. ...... that I WOULDN'T DREAM OF DOING COS THAT'D BE WRONG AND NAUGHTY, honest guvnor.

She did the oh-so-correct thing and went back and confessed, right?

Very easy to steal I would think. The machine shouts 'unexpected item in bagging area' so often for seemingly no reason that the shop assistants look just as fed up as the customers and just swipe their card and press whatever button it is to tell it to stfu..without asking any questions the majority of the time.

I think it relies a lot on honesty but if it costs more to put checkout staff in instead then I can see why they wouldn't be bothered. The same problem with store security if it will cost you £15,000 a year for a security guard and you only lose £14,000 a year to theft then financially you are better just accepting the loss even though that's completely wrong.

I use the self service if I don't have much items because most of the time I don't have to queue and it's quicker.

Think I'm too honest to try and steal though, but I can see how easy it would be to do.

In our local Asda there are security looking at cameras at entrance. I suppose they can't check everything is going on.

I shop at unsociable hours (usually early mornings) and the 24 hour supermarkets that are open in my area at that time don't have any checkout staff on. I shop daily so it's easy for me to put a few items through the self service till but I have seen someone come to the checkouts with a large full trolley early in the morning and the staff still expected them to use the self service tills. The staff member offered to help them put their items through the self service till but wouldn't open a checkout for them. So sometimes it's not a matter of choice if you keep unsociable hours.

I have never considered cheating them but I have heard lots of stories about people doing it. I think there is one with coupons where you can scan a coupon but then put a different lower priced coupon in the slot without the till realising. But of course there are cameras and usually a staff member is not far away so it is a bit of a risk.

One thing that does bug me with the S-S-Ts is when you're trying to buy a light weighted item and the bagging area's hidden scale thing (the one that stops you scanning a 12pack and plonking down 17 12packs) doesn't realise you've put the item down. I've found plonking me wallet down on top of the item kicks things into gear and gets the item recognize. QED

You mean "are you a thief"?

Well it clearly is to you as there is no correlation between the use of self scan & declining sales.

Tescos and Sainsburys would make a lot of good-will profit if they stopped all this "we've compared the prices of your shop with others and found we're 76p more expensive, here's a voucher for 76p to use during your next stop" business and simply gave you that deduction RIGHT THERE AND THEN, dammit.

- maybe they could get some celebrities to be the voice of the S-S-T - Samuel Jackson going "unknown item in the bagging area muth fkr!!"