Britain is a nation of secret shoplifters with one in eight nicking from stores by cheating at self-service tills.
At least six million consumers are guilty of using the so-called “banana trick” that lets them choose a cheaper item on checkout screens than the one they actually take.
Thieves usually pick fruit or vegetables as their bogus item, and a survey has also shown nearly 50% of Brits don’t think their offence should be considered a criminal act.
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Self-service robberies are so rife in the UK that the biggest chains are now rowing back on their use of self-checkouts, with Morrisons admitting it took the concept “a bit too far”.
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Rami Baitiéh, the supermarket’s chief executive, said it is “reviewing the balance between self-checkouts and manned tills”.
The study of 1,099 shoppers’ habits by Ipsos discovered 8% of Brits take items worth up to £10 without paying at all. It also revealed 13% said they had pinched an item valued at up to £1.
Despite shoplifting carrying a maximum sentence of seven years and costing shops nearly £8billion in lost revenue in 2023 alone, 26% of shoppers believe lifting goods worth under a tenner shouldn’t be classed as illegal.
And 47% said the same about shoplifting items worth less than £1. Shoplifting is now at an epidemic level in the UK, with 443,995 of the offences committed in the 12 months up to March.
It’s equal to 50 per hour, the highest total in 20 years. The figure is 30% higher than during the previous 12 months.
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Along with the cost of living crisis, many industry experts blame the introduction of self-service checkouts for the huge spike in thefts.
Britain now has 80,000 of the tills, despite chains in the US returning to staffed counters to stamp out shoplifting. Northern supermarket chain Booths announced in November it was scrapping its self-service tills.
Asda recently declared it was investing in more checkout staff. Under the Theft Act 1968, a person caught shoplifting may be arrested and put on trial.
The maximum sentence for stealing goods worth less than £200 is six months in jail – though this is usually dealt with by the imposition of a postal fine.
For the theft of items worth more than £200 the maximum sentence is seven years in prison.