Self-scan shoppers stealing £3BILLION a year from supermarkets
While some Brit shoppers said they had given up trying to pay after the machine wouldn't register their item, others admitted they had stolen something because they knew they could get away with it
BRIT shoppers have admitted to nicking billions of pounds in groceries through self-service tills just because they can.
Two-fifths of people admitted that they were light-fingered when it came to scanning their own items, with new research revealing £3.2billion worth of goods is stolen through the self-scanning tills every year.
But others said that they had not necessarily taken the items due to loose morals, with 62 per cent saying they had not paid because the item wouldn't scan or register.
A further third said they had simply forgotten to pay for the item.
The thefts are having a serious impact on supermarkets, that theft from the self-service checkouts has doubled in four years, with the loss equating to £5 of goods per Brit a month.
conducted the study with spokesman George Charles saying: "I'm sure most of those who now admit to stealing via self-service checkouts didn't initially set out to do so: they may have forgotten to scan something and quickly realised how easy it was to take items without scanning them.
"No doubt there's an element of risk, but when people start stealing it can be difficult to stop, until you get caught, particularly when money might be tight."
He said that supermarkets needed to increase the number of staff monitoring the checkouts.
The most common items to be nicked include toiletries, fruit and veg and dairy products.
The Office of National Statistics has previously revealed that shoplifting has increased by more than 10 per cent in a year.
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It comes after it was revealed that middle-class shoplifters are on the rise - raiding stores for luxury items including cheese, wine and fine chocolate.
Store bosses have reported a spike in “affluent, middle-aged” looters who “get a kick out of not paying for a bottle of wine or their Friday night steak”.
A mum was previously caught stealing £2,700 worth of groceries by sticking fake barcodes on items before scanning them through self-service checkouts.
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