She has vowed ‘never to shop there again’ with B&M saying it was a ‘mistake’, adding she was offered a ‘personal, genuine apology’
A mum-of-three says she was “shocked and embarrassed” and ended up “sitting in my car crying” after being asked to leave her “favourite” B&M store when she was mistakenly identified as a shoplifter. Sandra Briggs was a regular shopper at the Brigg branch up until the incident.
Now she has vowed never to set foot in the shop again. Sandra was out with two of her three children, her sons aged 14 and seven, when they went into B&M, in Riverside, Market Place. They were looking to buy buckets and spades for a visit to the beach the next day.
“We were just walking around when a store assistant came up and said, ‘can you leave the store?’. I said, ‘why, what have I done?’
“She said, ‘unfortunately your face has come up on Facewatch’. I said, ‘I beg your pardon?’”
Facewatch is a UK facial recognition retail security system that helps with crime prevention for businesses that choose to use it. Sandra said she was told B&M used the facial recognition database to identify known shoplifters. B&M later told the Scunthorpe Telegraph that “mistakes can happen” and “offered the customer an immediate, personal, genuine apology”.
“I’ve never shoplifted in my life,” said Sandra. She said the photograph of the person showed they were “blonde and had no front teeth”.
She added: “I have always had brown hair and I have got all my own teeth.” Sandra insisted she was not the woman in the picture, saying “she looked nothing like me”.
“The assistant said ‘we believe it’s you, Facewatch wouldn’t go off otherwise’. I said ‘it’s not me’ and it was when she said ‘you must have some features that are the same’ that I got a bit more irate. She said ‘you can’t stay in the store’.
“My seven-year-old was taking everything in. He said to me, ‘have you stolen?’”
Sandra, of Kirton in Lindsey, claimed she and her boys were followed by the assistant to another part of the shop. “It was making us feel really uncomfortable,” she said.
“We literally just got the buckets and spades we went in for. A lady at the checkout said to me to go to the manager about it but they weren’t going to be in until the Monday.
“I went and sat in my car and cried. I was so shocked about what happened and felt so embarrassed in the store with it happening in front of other people, who were staring at me, I was mortified.”
After being “awake all night very upset”, Sandra went back to the shop the following day to speak to the manager. “I said I wanted to speak to head office and she said, ‘you can go home and phone them’; I said, ‘no, you can phone them while I’m here’.”
A series of emails were then exchanged between Sandra and B&M’s customer services, with the mum asked to outline the incident. B&M said in their messages that her concerns had been passed on to the store management but that as she had flagged on Facewatch, Sandra would need to contact them directly “if you believe your details have been uploaded incorrectly”.
The mum’s emailed reply said: “I will not contact Facewatch as that lady wasn’t me. She looked nothing like me.”
In the exchange seen by the Scunthorpe Telegraph, B&M said: “Our B&M store and security teams have a duty of care to all our customers and to our company, and this includes challenging people that they believe are potentially shop lifting. This is an extremely difficult task, and sadly we don’t always get it right, your case would be one of those instances.
“On behalf of B&M please accept my sincere apologies for any embarrassment, inconvenience and upset caused. We would never want this for one of our valued customers, and we hope that in time this incident does not deter you from shopping with B&M.”
Sandra was offered a £15 B&M gift card (which was later elevated to £20) “as a gesture of goodwill” and as an invitation back into B&M stores. She said: “It’s not about the money, it’s the principle.
“I feel I was treated very unfairly and £20 doesn’t cover the cost of the embarrassment and upset they have caused.” Sandra is training to be a midwife and was concerned about the implications of the accusation.
“I chucked the voucher in the cupboard. I’m not ever going to go back into the shop.”
Sandra said she had shopped at the Brigg store for “many years”, particularly for its cleaning products. She also liked to go at Christmas.
“Where we live we are nearer to the Scunthorpe B&M but we always go to Brigg because it’s a littler store. My children love that shop.
“My daughter has cerebral palsy and the Brigg shop is the best B&M to take her to because it’s not so much of a struggle to get in. It’s better for my little boy too as he has a few issues.”
Sandra shared with B&M her younger son’s SEN report, in which he had written that his future goal was to “have a job at B&M”. She told the company: “I’m very nervous of coming back to B&M.
“My son won’t go either, which is very upsetting. He’s loved your shop and even told his school in a recent review he wants to work for you once [he’s] older.
“This experience has upset him massively. This has caused so much upset throughout our family.”
Commenting on the incident, a spokesperson for B&M said: “This was a simple mistake which our store colleague recognised swiftly at the time and offered the customer an immediate, personal, genuine apology. Mistakes can happen, even in the best designed processes, and sadly this was one of those occasions. We apologise to the customer for any upset or inconvenience that was inadvertently caused.”