Coles shopper humiliated after being accused of shoplifting
A Coles shopper has been left feeling humiliated after they were forced to lift up their shirt to prove they weren’t shoplifting.
Tony Jones, 39, was about to pay for his groceries at self-checkout on Saturday morning when he was confronted by the employee of the Brisbane Coles who made the accusation.
“And what about what’s under your shirt?” Mr Jones said the staff member loudly asked him, causing the other customers to look around.
Mr Jones has a stoma as a result of having his entire bowel removed from bowel cancer a few years ago, and later developed an “extremely obvious” hernia at the site which “sticks out about 15 centimetres from my stomach”.
“My initial reaction was flat-out shock, because she didn’t say it in a way of asking me, she flat-out accused me,” he told news.com.au.
“She seemed quite proud. Everybody in the self-checkout bay heard what she accused me of, and she walked over to me. I was just stunned, I guess I kind of shut down — I’ve never been accused of being a thief before — so I just lifted my shirt.”
After revealing his condition, Jones was left feeling “violated” as the supermarket worker simply said, “Yeah, sorry, we’ve had a few of those lately,” apparently referring to shoplifting incidents.
Coles has since apologised to Mr Jones, but that hasn’t made up for the trauma he endured in the supermarket.
“I’ve lived here for 12 or 13 years, I’ve been at that Coles plenty,” he said.
“Obviously I don’t expect retail staff to recognise everybody … I assume they’ve had some thefts lately, I’m not sure whether they’ve been given instructions to pull up more people because they don’t have a [security] gate yet.”
Mr Jones took to Reddit to share the story of his encounter, asking those on the social media site, “Is Coles allowed to ask what’s under my shirt? When it’s just my hernia.”
The post quickly went viral, attracting hundreds of comments.
“Former loss prevention officer here — they cannot detain you in any way unless they have witnessed you select the goods and witnessed you not take advantage of a reasonable opportunity to pay,” one person wrote.
Another woman said, “I have a permanent ileostomy and have had retail workers accuse me of stealing too. It’s annoying because most of the time I wear clothes where the top of it pokes out the top and it’s happened when I’ve worn clothes that completely covered it.”
A third person commented, “Gentle reminder Coles turned a record profit in the midst of the Covid recession, then decided to install hard arse security detectors to catch thieves.”
Mr Jones said the whole experience left him feeling rattled and upset, especially as he continues to undergo treatment for his condition and prepare for another surgery.
“I’m not dealing with it great, if I’m truthful,” he said.
“I’m seeing doctors weekly at the moment. Things add up, and getting called out on Saturday, it basically shut me down for the entire day, [left me] for lack of a better word feeling like s**t. I had all eyes on me. I’m not a social person so I just wanted to get out of there to be honest. I don’t think I’ll ever be going back to Coles.”
Image credits: Getty Images