Tesco: Taking away without the owner’s permission.
In the UK, if some yob drives away with your car, you cannot call it ‘stealing’. As the yob does not ‘intend to permanently deprive you of your property’, it is not ‘theft’, it is ‘taking away without the owner’s permission’.
If you buy petrol from a Tesco petrol station, and Tesco’s credit/debit card machine screws up and does not complete the transaction, then you may be unpleasantly surprised to discover that the money is ‘locked’ up in your card account, awaiting Tesco’s pleasure, and you can no longer access that cash. If you try to use the card again, and you now have insufficient funds (you had ‘sufficient’ before Tesco’s card machine blew them away into cash card purgatory), you then have to find some other way to pay for the petrol.
Embarassment, awkwardness, holding up a queue, etc. etc. And don’t think of leaving – you would then be accused of ‘stealing’ the petrol that you would have paid for if Tesco had not got it all wrong!
Tesco’s attitude? After all the stupid excuses …
‘You (YOU!) must have taken your card out too quick.’
‘It’s the computer’s fault.’
You probably have heard them all before.
You go to Tesco and complain.
It’s not their fault. They’ve done nothing wrong. It’s your card. You’ll get the money back in 8 ( or 15, or whenever ) days. They have not charged you anything so they have nothing to return to you.
It is not stealing, but it is ‘taking away without the owner’s permission’.
And in the car world, that is a criminal offence.
In Tesco, it’s just tough luck! They are big and you are small.
I cannot, therefore call Tesco thieves.
I can call them a store that people should avoid like the plague.
I can call them a store that seems not to care for the customer.
And I can tell this story to the world.
It is not only Tesco that plays games with credit/debit cards.
If you use your card to pay at the actual pump, Tesco can (and has on more than one occasion) lock up £50 of your money. That is why you must have a minimum balance of £50 in your account. (Read the small print on the pump!)
Where did Tesco learn this nasty little trick? Possibly from the USA and their gasoline purveyors.
In the USA, if you pay at the pump, it often locks up $50 of your money. When they get round to actually take the money, they have been known to forget (?) to unlock the $50. After a previous trip to the USA, I had to clear nearly $200 worth of my own money.
Petrol/gasoline sellers. They put up the prices every time the local currency fluctuates, but take their own sweet time putting the prices down.
The government adds a penny in tax and they add their own ‘take’.
Their old, antique pumps are so out-of-kilter with inflated prices that the pump gearing is unable to cope. How many times have you watched the pump clock up another one, two or even three pence AFTER you have stopped filling.
When it comes to Public Relations, the filling station owners have all the skill and tact of a dead-rat sandwich.
Never mind! In 100 years, the only use for petrol will be as a ‘natural’ remedy for some obscure ailment.
We will NOT mourn their passing.