FabSwingers.com forum: I'd like to commend Iceland

By (user no longer on site) OP
38 weeks ago

I'd like to commend Iceland

I'd like to commend Iceland for putting a price on shoplifting.

Apparently, it's a quid.

So, basically if I wander into Iceland and notice another shopper stealing from the store, Iceland will give me a £1 credit on my bonus card.

Tomorrow morning I am heading off to Iceland where I will steal a packet of noodles worth 25p. Although I will, of course, pay for the noodles on my way out.

I will then report myself to Iceland as a potential shoplifter and receive a credit of £1.

Now, who says that crime doesn't pay?

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By *vbride1963TV/TS
38 weeks ago

E.K . Glasgow

"I'd like to commend Iceland

I'd like to commend Iceland for putting a price on shoplifting.

Apparently, it's a quid.

So, basically if I wander into Iceland and notice another shopper stealing from the store, Iceland will give me a £1 credit on my bonus card.

Tomorrow morning I am heading off to Iceland where I will steal a packet of noodles worth 25p. Although I will, of course, pay for the noodles on my way out.

I will then report myself to Iceland as a potential shoplifter and receive a credit of £1.

Now, who says that crime doesn't pay?"

If you manage to share the branch maybe we could report you and get a quid I’d consider a donation of 10% to you .

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By (user no longer on site) OP
38 weeks ago

"I'd like to commend Iceland

I'd like to commend Iceland for putting a price on shoplifting.

Apparently, it's a quid.

So, basically if I wander into Iceland and notice another shopper stealing from the store, Iceland will give me a £1 credit on my bonus card.

Tomorrow morning I am heading off to Iceland where I will steal a packet of noodles worth 25p. Although I will, of course, pay for the noodles on my way out.

I will then report myself to Iceland as a potential shoplifter and receive a credit of £1.

Now, who says that crime doesn't pay?

If you manage to share the branch maybe we could report you and get a quid I’d consider a donation of 10% to you .

Ya can feck off. Only I am standing outside the front door of the Rhyl branch, asking to see the receipts of everyone who leaves.

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By *ophieslutTV/TS
Forum Mod
38 weeks ago

Central

[Removed by poster at 16/08/25 00:09:27]

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By *ophieslutTV/TS
Forum Mod
38 weeks ago

Central

It sounds hugely below national minimum wage

I'm still waiting for my pay and annual leave from supermarkets, for all of the work I've done as an unpaid employee, scanning food items at tills. I'm expecting a pension for it too

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By *otMe66Man
38 weeks ago

Terra Firma

"It sounds hugely below national minimum wage

I'm still waiting for my pay and annual leave from supermarkets, for all of the work I've done as an unpaid employee, scanning food items at tills. I'm expecting a pension for it too"

You have hit a nail right on the head for me... Golden nugget.

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By *vbride1963TV/TS
38 weeks ago

E.K . Glasgow

"It sounds hugely below national minimum wage

I'm still waiting for my pay and annual leave from supermarkets, for all of the work I've done as an unpaid employee, scanning food items at tills. I'm expecting a pension for it too

You have hit a nail right on the head for me... Golden nugget.

Devils advocate here most stores still have a cashier to put through your shopping and pay you could choose to use those .

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By *icecouple561Couple
Forum Mod
38 weeks ago

East Sussex

Cheaper than employing extra staff I suppose

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By *otMe66Man
38 weeks ago

Terra Firma

"Cheaper than employing extra staff I suppose"

That is the reason, and the driver being people expect cheap food.

It would be an interesting experiment to add a surcharge onto the final bill for using a staffed till, a little like a restaurant tip. Would people pay a 12% surcharge, that could be fed back into the headcount / staff wages, or would the acceptance of self service tills suddenly be widely accepted.

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By *icecouple561Couple
Forum Mod
38 weeks ago

East Sussex

"Cheaper than employing extra staff I suppose

That is the reason, and the driver being people expect cheap food.

I think its much more complicated than that but it's easier to blame the customer for wanting decent service and reasonably priced food.

I wasn't referring to self service tills though, I was talking about paying people to report shoplifters. Iceland is losing £20 million a year to shoplifters apparently that's enough to employ security guards in the worst of their 892 stores I would have thought.

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By *otMe66Man
38 weeks ago

Terra Firma

"Cheaper than employing extra staff I suppose

That is the reason, and the driver being people expect cheap food.

I think its much more complicated than that but it's easier to blame the customer for wanting decent service and reasonably priced food.

Ah I see

I saw the idea of paying customers to report shoplifters as good bit of marketing that would deter the opportunist shoplifters, knowing they could have all eyes on them.

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By *vbride1963TV/TS
38 weeks ago

E.K . Glasgow

"Cheaper than employing extra staff I suppose

That is the reason, and the driver being people expect cheap food.

If I were spending £100 on shopping I’d be saying where to shove the 12% . I’d say better to be a fixed charge 50p for over fifteen items then those that want to be quick can self scan . Aside from that there would still need to be a checkout for unemployed oap’s and the disabled with no extra charge .

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By (user no longer on site)
38 weeks ago

I thought we were talking about the country.

Given it has virtually no crime seemed a bit of a waste of time scheme.

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By *icecouple561Couple
Forum Mod
38 weeks ago

East Sussex

"Cheaper than employing extra staff I suppose

That is the reason, and the driver being people expect cheap food.

I think its much more complicated than that but it's easier to blame the customer for wanting decent service and reasonably priced food.

Ah I see

I saw the idea of paying customers to report shoplifters as good bit of marketing that would deter the opportunist shoplifters, knowing they could have all eyes on them."

Who knows. I just wonder why the people who are so against surveillance by government feel it's ok to be watched by our peers.

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By *icecouple561Couple
Forum Mod
38 weeks ago

East Sussex

"I'd like to commend Iceland

I'd like to commend Iceland for putting a price on shoplifting.

Apparently, it's a quid.

So, basically if I wander into Iceland and notice another shopper stealing from the store, Iceland will give me a £1 credit on my bonus card.

Tomorrow morning I am heading off to Iceland where I will steal a packet of noodles worth 25p. Although I will, of course, pay for the noodles on my way out.

I will then report myself to Iceland as a potential shoplifter and receive a credit of £1.

Now, who says that crime doesn't pay?"

This is an excellent idea. If you go to every Iceland in the UK you will have £892

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By *uffolkcouple-bi onlyCouple
38 weeks ago

West Suffolk

The problem with employing security guards is they are powerless.

They have no power over a member of the public to demand to see a receipt. Sure they can ask but there’s no legal obligation to even talk to them.

Also, part of the SIA license trains them to “observe and report”. Whilst they can use physical force under certain circumstances, if they get it wrong they can lose their licence. I believe the threshold is the person has to be using violence or the threat of violence. Or the potential offence to be indictable ie lead to trial by jury. That’s not the case with shoplifting.

So someone who walks into a shop, grabs themselves some goodies and attempts to walk out without paying can only be physically stopped by a police Constable. The security guard can follow them but how much stuff is gonna go missing while they peruse £10 worth goodies? Sounds like a good job for a decoy.

The bottom line is law abiding citizens pay extra for their shopping to fund the thieves.

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By (user no longer on site)
38 weeks ago

Have you tried tackling poverty?

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By *agan_guyMan
37 weeks ago

nearby

People going about their business should not need reward for stepping in and stopping crime where they can.

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By *ornucopiaMan
37 weeks ago

Bexley

"I thought we were talking about the country.

Given it has virtually no crime seemed a bit of a waste of time scheme."

..Didn't think they used the pound there, either.

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By *ornucopiaMan
37 weeks ago

Bexley

"Have you tried tackling poverty?"

Do you believe that all these dodgy characters who nick rump steak and then start hawking it virtually outside wherever they have st0len it from are genuinely poor?

Neither, probably, are the cheapskates who buy it knowing full well what they are complicit in.

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By *icecouple561Couple
Forum Mod
37 weeks ago

East Sussex

I don't know how this will work because £1 is hardly an incentive and the report will have to be verified according to the article I've read.

That will stop malicious reporting or people just reporting to get the quid.

I guess that alerting a member of staff to people putting stuff in pockets or inside their coats etc could work but as I understand it individuals can't be stopped until they actually leave the store. I suppose a staff member could approach them and ask help them to the till.

I reckon as mentioned earlier it's more of a deterrent to people if they think others are watching them .

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By *rDiscretionXXXMan
37 weeks ago

Gilfach

"I guess that alerting a member of staff to people putting stuff in pockets or inside their coats etc could work but as I understand it individuals can't be stopped until they actually leave the store."

Staff can accuse someone they suspect of shoplifting at any time. It's just that they can't be prosecuted unless they bypass the tills.

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By *icecouple561Couple
Forum Mod
37 weeks ago

East Sussex

Staff can accuse someone they suspect of shoplifting at any time. It's just that they can't be prosecuted unless they bypass the tills."

Ah ok. So they could be asked to hand the stuff over. That might work.

I know shoplifting is a huge problem.

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By (user no longer on site) OP
37 weeks ago

For me, this whole situation has some very, very dark undertones.

I was born in the 1960's grew up in the 1980's.

I have some vague recollections of the fall of the Berlin Wall somewhere around 1990. My only knowledge in those days was what school taught me and what the public broadcaster taught me on radio and telly.

Apparently, the population and residents of East Germany and East Berlin were controlled by a state system which was feared by the residents because apparently every word the residents said was recorded by the state using hidden microphones. Every word they wrote was recorded by the state because every letter they posted was secretly opened and read by a member of the state.

Every telephone call they made was recorded by the state.

The population of East Germany lived in total fear of the state.

But the state provided for every need of the population. So long as they complied, they could save up to buy a Trabant. They could cross the border to work in West Berlin. They could buy bread, potatoes and beer in their local neighbourhood.

But there was a problem.

A sector of the state employed some 90,000 people to constantly monitor the post, the phone calls, the movements and the friendships of the entire population which was about 18 million people.

The maths reveal that every employee of the monitoring organisation was responsible for monitoring the entire communications and connections of 204 people. However, not everyone in the monitoring organisation was actually monitoring. There would be managers, organisers, publicisers and many more.

Let's look at this sensibly. If 1 employee of the monitoring organisation spends 1 hour listening to one telephone conversation of 1 member of the population, then that listener has missed the telephone conversations of at least 239 other members of the population.

This was clearly unsustainable and so in East Germany, the monitoring organisations began to employ / pay member of the public to snitch / report their fellow member of the public.

This built mistrust of each other, of friends and of family amongst the population.

It also cemented the trust in and power of the government of East Germany.

Just sayin!

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By *agan_guyMan
37 weeks ago

nearby

So you’re saying we shouldn’t watch out for and try to step in where possible on petty crimes lest we become a socialist state ? Bit of a leap.

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By (user no longer on site) OP
37 weeks ago

"So you’re saying we shouldn’t watch out for and try to step in where possible on petty crimes lest we become a socialist state ? Bit of a leap. "

I believe that getting civilians to do the job of the Police for them is all round bad policy.

Whilst a supermarket chain asking their customers to report shop lifters IS a huge leap away from a socialist state.

But buying 1 brick is also a huge leap away from building a house.

It takes typically 7,000 or more bricks to build a house. However, buying 1 brick a day for 20 years is enough to build a house.

It is important to always remind ourselves of the errors in the past so that we don't end up falling into a trap of sliding into a socialist or any other kind of bad state.

That is why I think it important to reflect on the potential impact of Iceland asking their customers to snitch and spy on their fellow customers.

Another point is what would happen if a thief overheard a customer reporting them to the shop staff? There's surely a huge risk of that thief waiting outside the shop to possibly attack?

Another point is if granny is slipping her shopping into her own shopping bag whilst walking round the shop. She might have every intention of taking it from her own bag and putting it on the conveyor belt, but are other shoppers to know this or would other shoppers make a false accusation if they simply see granny dropping shopping into her own bag.

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By *ulie.your. bottom. slutTV/TS
37 weeks ago

Near Glasgow

"So you’re saying we shouldn’t watch out for and try to step in where possible on petty crimes lest we become a socialist state ? Bit of a leap.

I believe that getting civilians to do the job of the Police for them is all round bad policy.

Whilst a supermarket chain asking their customers to report shop lifters IS a huge leap away from a socialist state.

But buying 1 brick is also a huge leap away from building a house.

It takes typically 7,000 or more bricks to build a house. However, buying 1 brick a day for 20 years is enough to build a house.

It is important to always remind ourselves of the errors in the past so that we don't end up falling into a trap of sliding into a socialist or any other kind of bad state.

That is why I think it important to reflect on the potential impact of Iceland asking their customers to snitch and spy on their fellow customers.

Another point is what would happen if a thief overheard a customer reporting them to the shop staff? There's surely a huge risk of that thief waiting outside the shop to possibly attack?

So bottom line is, if you witness a crime being committed, don't report it. Or maybe your saying theft isn't a crime.

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By (user no longer on site) OP
37 weeks ago

"So bottom line is, if you witness a crime being committed, don't report it. Or maybe your saying theft isn't a crime."

No. This topic revolves around a supermarket chain which is paying customers to report other customers who are thieving.

For decades, shop workers have been strictly instructed by many many shop chains, not to confront shoplifters. 1 because the shops have insurance to cover the losses and 2 because the risk of injury to staff is too high.

Why do shops have so many CCTV cameras?

Yet, Iceland is supposedly wanting to pay its own customers to report shoplifters.

I would never intervene if I witnessed someone walking out of a supermarket without paying.

And at the checkout, I would certainly not announce to the checkout operator that the next guy in the queue has slipped a bottle of whiskey into his backpack.

Why? Because I'd be putting myself at a great risk, a risk the supermarket wouldn't put its own staff at.

However, for clarity, if I was walking round a supermarket and I witnessed someone being attacked, I would have no hesitation to both dial 999 and to intervene. Or if it was late at night and I witnessed a supermarket being ram raided, I would dial 999 straight away.

I do believe there is a necessity to judge a situation and make a decision whether or not to report a crime.

If I reported a crime every time I smelled a strong smell on the bus, or every time I saw a cyclist slip through a red light, then the Police would be locking ME up.

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By *ophieslutTV/TS
Forum Mod
37 weeks ago

Central

[Removed by poster at 17/08/25 17:42:15]

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By *ophieslutTV/TS
Forum Mod
37 weeks ago

Central

"Cheaper than employing extra staff I suppose

That is the reason, and the driver being people expect cheap food.

I think its much more complicated than that but it's easier to blame the customer for wanting decent service and reasonably priced food.

Ah I see

I saw the idea of paying customers to report shoplifters as good bit of marketing that would deter the opportunist shoplifters, knowing they could have all eyes on them.

Who knows. I just wonder why the people who are so against surveillance by government feel it's ok to be watched by our peers.

It could become like the Hunger Game, if they increase the bounty

People following anyone about who they perceived as morally dubious etc

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By *agan_guyMan
37 weeks ago

nearby

It would definitely reduce opportunity, thieves rely on opportunity and people not getting involved. It’s time more people kept an awareness out, reduced opportunity and helped shine a light on the shadowy places. The only people that prosper when you turn a blind eye are the criminals.

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By (user no longer on site) OP
37 weeks ago

It could become like the Hunger Game, if they increase the bounty

People following anyone about who they perceived as morally dubious etc"

And in there is one of the kickers in this whole thing.

I don't have an Iceland loyalty card, so I couldn't be given my £1 reward!

Oh, love the Hunger Game analogy as well .... hunger ..... Iceland IS a food store ......

Increase the bounty, hmmm. Is that the taste of Paradise? ..... a 4 pack of coconut & chocolate bars instead of £1?

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By *agan_guyMan
37 weeks ago

nearby

Why do you need a reward for doing the right thing ?

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By (user no longer on site) OP
37 weeks ago

"It would definitely reduce opportunity, thieves rely on opportunity and people not getting involved. It’s time more people kept an awareness out, reduced opportunity and helped shine a light on the shadowy places. The only people that prosper when you turn a blind eye are the criminals. "

Yes, but I'm not suggesting turning a blind eye to all crime.

Here is another scenario. If I went into a supermarket and witnessed someone who I knew the name and address of slipping a bottle of whiskey into their backpack, then I might consider contacting the Police after I got home to advise them. Especially if I witnessed that person doing the same thing multiple times.

However, if that person pushed past me at the checkout queue, would I wrestle them to the ground? Hell NO! Not worth the risk.

However, if my council tax was to increase by 1% AND that 1% funded Police regularly (and by regular, I mean all day every day) patrolling supermarkets, then I would be happy with that. Because the Police and only the Police have the power to arrest shoplifters.

And it is true to say that a shoplifter is only a shoplifter AFTER they've LEFT the shop.

Encouraging the public to intervene in any way is not a good idea.

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By *agan_guyMan
37 weeks ago

nearby

Police have the power to arrest, everyone has the power to intervene, detain or help out. The “I’m not getting involved” mentality is what’s opening the door to crime.

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By (user no longer on site) OP
37 weeks ago

"Police have the power to arrest, everyone has the power to intervene, detain or help out. The “I’m not getting involved” mentality is what’s opening the door to crime. "

True.

But if I see someone slipping a bottle of whiskey into their backpack in the supermarket, then the reasons why I'm not getting involved include

1) The supermarket wouldn't allow their own staff to get involved

2) The Police are gonna get hacked off very quickly if they have to attend a supermarket every time someone nicks a bottle of whiskey or slab of cheddar or jar of coffee.

3) It could easily be resolved if supermarkets took out self checkouts and did away with the self service idea. Put the stock behind a counter and a person on the counter to hand the goods over.

4) Criminals already know much of this and I am sure most carry knives or more in order to fight off someone like me who tries to intervene.

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By *agan_guyMan
37 weeks ago

nearby

So you’re a coward, got it.

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By (user no longer on site) OP
37 weeks ago

"So you’re a coward, got it."

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By *rDiscretionXXXMan
37 weeks ago

Gilfach

"... everyone has the power to intervene, detain or help out."

No they don't. Detaining someone against their will can get you jailed for False Imprisonment, and laying hands on someone will get you in court on an assault charge.

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