Tesco ‘humiliated' political campaigner staff accused of shoplifting

Telegraph

23-04-2025

A shopper who claims Tesco staff wrongly accused him of not paying for his groceries says the supermarket left him 'humiliated'.
Andrew Kennedy says he was told by staff at a branch of the supermarket giant that he had not paid for his shopping, despite his phone banking app showing a transaction of £75.92 at the self-service till.
After arguing with staff, including an assistant manager, at the Hurst Park store in Molesey, Surrey, Mr Kennedy abandoned his shopping trolley and left.
He says he was then told five days after the Good Friday incident that he would have to make a 120-mile round trip to the store from his home in Kent if he wanted to claim a refund.
Mr Kennedy, a political consultant who was field director for Liz Truss's Conservative leadership campaign, said he was left 'humiliated' by the experience and has demanded an apology.
He said that as he left the store after paying for his groceries using his Apple Pay, an assistant came after him to tell him he had not paid.
Mr Kennedy, 58, said: 'She did this quietly and discreetly and thinking there was an error, I happily went back inside.'
But Mr Kennedy says once he was back inside, a supervisor told a colleague: 'You need to watch out for this. Quite often they do two identical shops, pay for one then use the payment to avoid paying for the second.'
In a social media thread, he claimed: 'The supervisor then dismissively said to me, 'It's a pending transaction, it won't go through. If you want your groceries you'll have to pay again.'
'At this point I was angry, humiliated and running out of time, so I agreed to pay again as I just wanted to leave.'
But when he tried to pay again, the transaction was declined, and he left without the shopping. On Wednesday, he rang Hurst Park Tesco to ask for a refund, only to be told he would 'need to provide evidence that he hadn't taken the groceries'.
Friends of Mr Kennedy have contrasted the treatment he said he received with a recent spike in shoplifting carried out by brazen criminals, with shop staff apparently helpless to intervene.
Addressing Tesco bosses, Mr Kennedy wrote: 'So to summarise: (i) you accused me of shoplifting, (ii) you humiliated me in front of other people, (iii) you wasted my time and forced me to be late for a reunion, (iv) your incompetence led to my card being blocked, (v) you took £75.92 from my bank account.
'And now you are expecting me to travel three hours and spend £35 on petrol to get back the money you took from my account in the first place. At every level on this, you and your staff have comprehensively failed.'
Mr Kennedy has urged Tesco to retrain its staff 'on how to treat people with respect' and make a donation of £100 to Young Minds, a charity.
He claimed that, in its latest communication, Tesco's customer service department told him there would be no written apology as the incident had been 'all the fault of the employee and not the company'.
Sources said the supermarket chain had offered now Mr Kennedy the option of obtaining a refund at a Tesco store of his choosing, as it was unable to refund payment remotely because of bank security procedures.
It is also arranging a donation to Young Minds.
A spokesman for Tesco said: 'Unfortunately, a fault with a scan as you shop handset at our [Hurst Park] West Moseley Superstore meant that it incorrectly indicated that Mr Kennedy's payment had not been completed.
'We are really sorry that this happened and have reached out to Mr Kennedy to apologise for how the matter was handled as it fell below the high standards that we would expect.'