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Hi all, I'm new here and just wondering if anybody can give me some constructive advice on an issue I currently have with Asda?
I've been a regular customer at my local store for years. I often go in alone, but sometimes with other family members. I have disabilities which cause me to have impaired vision (I'm almost blind in one eye, very near sighted in the other) so I can't drive to and from the store, and also can't physically carry anything but a tiny amount of shopping around so I always take my own trolley with me (the kind you usually associate with pensioners) in order to have something to rest my shopping basket on as I'm going around the store, and also to get my shopping home. Either way, I'm only 37 years old so I'm pretty sure that I'd stick out a bit and be fairly recogniseable to any regular staff there.
Anyhow, a couple of weeks ago, on Sunday 30th November I went in their with my sister and 14 year old niece. My niece's school hadn't done any official school photographs this year, but my sister wanted a picture of my niece to put on her living room wall (and another copy to give to her nan). My sister took a picture of my niece on her mobile phone but as she isn't very good with technology, she took me along with her to the photography stand in order to help her use the machine and get a couple of copies of the photograph printed out. We managed it (after a bit of difficulty using the machine), but when we went to the desk, the man serving told us that the lighting looked quite bad on the photograph and it had printed out very 'yellowy', so we left Asda, went back to my sister's house and I helped her to edit the picture slightly (using basic photo editing software) to reduce the colour and make the image a bit clearer. My sister was happy with the result but we weren't able to go back to the store that day. Just over a week later, I visited my sister on Tuesday 9th December but she hadn't had a chance to go back to the Asda yet. As I was going there myself the following day to do a bit of shopping for myself, I offered to take the SD card from her phone in and get another couple of copies of the picture printed out.
I went into the Asda the following morning on Wednesday 10th December, used the terminal to create my order for a couple of photographs and handed my ticket in to the lady serving behind the counter (the man who had been there the previous Sunday wasn't around), told her that I was just quickly popping into the store to get some shopping and I'd see if the photos were ready for me to pick up on the way out.
I went back to pick the photos up after buying my shopping. However, when I arrived at the photograhy stand the lady told me that I had to sign a 'Copyright Release Form', providing my name and address as the photograph looked 'professional'. I tried to explain to her that it wasn't professional at all, and that it was a photograph of my niece that my sister had taken on her mobile phone, but the lady didn't seem very interested, and just pushed the form at me saying 'Sign the form'. I was a bit alarmed at the time but there were other customers around and I didn't want to create a fuss so I signed and completed the form. The lady then gave me the photographs and I left. I gave the printed photographs to my sister when I saw her again the next day and she was really happy with them.
However, at about 1.40pm on Friday 12th December I received a phone call from my sister sounding quite distressed. She had just been contacted by the headmistress at my nieces school as Police Officers had turned up with a copy of my niece's photograph (they knew the school as her school badge is clearly visible in the photo) and asked them to identify her, as there had been a report made by somebody at Asda that a strange looking man had been in printing photographs of a young girl out. They had been given my name and address, which they had also given to my niece's school, and after getting staff at my niece's school to identify her, contacted my sister and made her not only verify who she was herself by making her ring the school back, but also made her give a full description of me including my full name and address. Apparently when she did this, the Police Officer she spoke to sounded extremely relieved, and said something to the effect of 'alarm bells rang when she told us that he’d said that the girl in the photograph was his sister, because of the age gap'. So it appears that the lady in Asda didn't listen to what I said properly and immediately called the police and gave them a copy of my niece's photograph, my name and address (which I now strongly suspect was taken from me under false pretenses) and told them that I'd claimed the girl in the photograph was my sister. As it is, I don't really quite understand the upset over that anyway as her father (my brother in law) is the same age as me, 37, and has a 15 year old brother himself.
To say that I was shocked and sickened that anybody would suspect me of being that kind of person and report me to the police over it is an understatement, and I've lost quite a lot of sleep over it since and feel ill most of the time. My sister, thankfully doesn't think me capable of that at all, and she and my brother in law went straight to the Asda store to make a formal complaint and demanded to speak to a manager. The person who spoke to them claimed to know nothing about the incident, and also claimed not to be able to identify which member of staff would have been serving at the time (even though I still have the receipt with exact time and the person's operator number on) and when my sister asked if the staff had been CRB checked as they'd apparently kept a copy of my niece's photograph to give to police, the manager refused to answer her so my sister left saying that we would seek legal advice. Unfortunately this was quite late on Friday evening, but I wrote down a massive complaint detailing the whole situation myself and sent it directly to Asda Customer Services, explicitly stating that I didn't think the correct policy and procedure for dealing with this kind of matter had been adhered to.
The next morning (Saturday 13th December) my sister telephoned Asda Customer Services to complain and said that the lady she initially spoke to sounded genuinely helpful and apologetic, but she said that she would get somebody to call back, and my sister was then called back by a man who is apparently the General Manager of my local Asda store. My sister said that he was quite rude and aggressive towards her when she tried to detail our complaint to him and kept trying to talk over her and shout her down, using the phrase 'I've listened to you, now you listen to me' and she had to eventually terminate the call with him. He then tried to call me after seeing my email complaint (unfortunately I wasn't able to take the call at the moment) and left me a voicemail message saying that he felt he should call me rather than reply by email and that he would try again shortly (which he never did). He then went on to say 'I've made a call to the store and what seems to have happened is that security...following process...thought that you were acting suspiciously by the photography stand. They then HAVE to refer the issue to the police, and it's the police who made the decision to take it further'. He then thanked me for my email and said goodbye, without sounding one bit sorry or apologetic for what had happened.
I have since made a further complaint to customer services, this time about that general manager and his attitude towards us, and problems with what I have with what he said. I've also requested that Asda retrieve CCTV footage of when me and my sister attended the store on Saturday 30th November to print out the photograph originally, as well as the CCTV footage of when I visited the photography stand on Wednesday 10th December to reprint the picture, as we'd like to come into the store and have it explained to us by whoever necessary what was so suspicious about me during the second visit as opposed to the first visit (asides from there being a woman serving behind the counter the second time as opposed to the man we had spoken to previously, and me being on my own). And we'd also like a police officer present whilst this takes place. My sister is going to ring her daughter's school this morning to find out exactly what the Police Officers said to them as regards the report from Asda about me last week, and are also wondering if we can request a copy of the Police Officer's report on the matter? And we'll also be getting ourselves round and about to get some legal advice from solicitors.
Is there anything else we should be doing, or any other avenues we should be going down? I know that places like Asda have a duty of care to protect children if there is a suspected threat, but I'm quite alarmed at the way things have been handled especially as I'm a regular customer, nobody from security approached me, the lady behind the counter gave me the photographs and let me leave with them without telling me there was any problem (other than this 'copyright' nonsense which I don't believe and think was a ruse to get my name and address) and then the police went straight to my niece's school rather than get in touch with me to verify anything, and according to my sister sounded extremely relieved that I wasn't actually a threat as the report they'd had about me must've made me sound awful
I've located the CEO's email address and I'm also considering contacting him about it. As it is, I've also made it clear that I intend to get in touch with the media if I don't get a satisfactory response and can't guarantee that it wouldn't result in any negative publicity for Asda, but other than that I feel sick to my stomach that the staff in my local Asda apparently think I'm some kind of weirdo who is a potential threat to children, I have no idea what's been said about me or what rumours have been spread, and I'm also pretty sure that my details and mugshot from CCTV have probably been forwarded to other Asda stores to warn them about me, like they do with shoplifters. The whole experience is putting a massive dampner on my Christmas
I've been a regular customer at my local store for years. I often go in alone, but sometimes with other family members. I have disabilities which cause me to have impaired vision (I'm almost blind in one eye, very near sighted in the other) so I can't drive to and from the store, and also can't physically carry anything but a tiny amount of shopping around so I always take my own trolley with me (the kind you usually associate with pensioners) in order to have something to rest my shopping basket on as I'm going around the store, and also to get my shopping home. Either way, I'm only 37 years old so I'm pretty sure that I'd stick out a bit and be fairly recogniseable to any regular staff there.
Anyhow, a couple of weeks ago, on Sunday 30th November I went in their with my sister and 14 year old niece. My niece's school hadn't done any official school photographs this year, but my sister wanted a picture of my niece to put on her living room wall (and another copy to give to her nan). My sister took a picture of my niece on her mobile phone but as she isn't very good with technology, she took me along with her to the photography stand in order to help her use the machine and get a couple of copies of the photograph printed out. We managed it (after a bit of difficulty using the machine), but when we went to the desk, the man serving told us that the lighting looked quite bad on the photograph and it had printed out very 'yellowy', so we left Asda, went back to my sister's house and I helped her to edit the picture slightly (using basic photo editing software) to reduce the colour and make the image a bit clearer. My sister was happy with the result but we weren't able to go back to the store that day. Just over a week later, I visited my sister on Tuesday 9th December but she hadn't had a chance to go back to the Asda yet. As I was going there myself the following day to do a bit of shopping for myself, I offered to take the SD card from her phone in and get another couple of copies of the picture printed out.
I went into the Asda the following morning on Wednesday 10th December, used the terminal to create my order for a couple of photographs and handed my ticket in to the lady serving behind the counter (the man who had been there the previous Sunday wasn't around), told her that I was just quickly popping into the store to get some shopping and I'd see if the photos were ready for me to pick up on the way out.
I went back to pick the photos up after buying my shopping. However, when I arrived at the photograhy stand the lady told me that I had to sign a 'Copyright Release Form', providing my name and address as the photograph looked 'professional'. I tried to explain to her that it wasn't professional at all, and that it was a photograph of my niece that my sister had taken on her mobile phone, but the lady didn't seem very interested, and just pushed the form at me saying 'Sign the form'. I was a bit alarmed at the time but there were other customers around and I didn't want to create a fuss so I signed and completed the form. The lady then gave me the photographs and I left. I gave the printed photographs to my sister when I saw her again the next day and she was really happy with them.
However, at about 1.40pm on Friday 12th December I received a phone call from my sister sounding quite distressed. She had just been contacted by the headmistress at my nieces school as Police Officers had turned up with a copy of my niece's photograph (they knew the school as her school badge is clearly visible in the photo) and asked them to identify her, as there had been a report made by somebody at Asda that a strange looking man had been in printing photographs of a young girl out. They had been given my name and address, which they had also given to my niece's school, and after getting staff at my niece's school to identify her, contacted my sister and made her not only verify who she was herself by making her ring the school back, but also made her give a full description of me including my full name and address. Apparently when she did this, the Police Officer she spoke to sounded extremely relieved, and said something to the effect of 'alarm bells rang when she told us that he’d said that the girl in the photograph was his sister, because of the age gap'. So it appears that the lady in Asda didn't listen to what I said properly and immediately called the police and gave them a copy of my niece's photograph, my name and address (which I now strongly suspect was taken from me under false pretenses) and told them that I'd claimed the girl in the photograph was my sister. As it is, I don't really quite understand the upset over that anyway as her father (my brother in law) is the same age as me, 37, and has a 15 year old brother himself.
To say that I was shocked and sickened that anybody would suspect me of being that kind of person and report me to the police over it is an understatement, and I've lost quite a lot of sleep over it since and feel ill most of the time. My sister, thankfully doesn't think me capable of that at all, and she and my brother in law went straight to the Asda store to make a formal complaint and demanded to speak to a manager. The person who spoke to them claimed to know nothing about the incident, and also claimed not to be able to identify which member of staff would have been serving at the time (even though I still have the receipt with exact time and the person's operator number on) and when my sister asked if the staff had been CRB checked as they'd apparently kept a copy of my niece's photograph to give to police, the manager refused to answer her so my sister left saying that we would seek legal advice. Unfortunately this was quite late on Friday evening, but I wrote down a massive complaint detailing the whole situation myself and sent it directly to Asda Customer Services, explicitly stating that I didn't think the correct policy and procedure for dealing with this kind of matter had been adhered to.
The next morning (Saturday 13th December) my sister telephoned Asda Customer Services to complain and said that the lady she initially spoke to sounded genuinely helpful and apologetic, but she said that she would get somebody to call back, and my sister was then called back by a man who is apparently the General Manager of my local Asda store. My sister said that he was quite rude and aggressive towards her when she tried to detail our complaint to him and kept trying to talk over her and shout her down, using the phrase 'I've listened to you, now you listen to me' and she had to eventually terminate the call with him. He then tried to call me after seeing my email complaint (unfortunately I wasn't able to take the call at the moment) and left me a voicemail message saying that he felt he should call me rather than reply by email and that he would try again shortly (which he never did). He then went on to say 'I've made a call to the store and what seems to have happened is that security...following process...thought that you were acting suspiciously by the photography stand. They then HAVE to refer the issue to the police, and it's the police who made the decision to take it further'. He then thanked me for my email and said goodbye, without sounding one bit sorry or apologetic for what had happened.
I have since made a further complaint to customer services, this time about that general manager and his attitude towards us, and problems with what I have with what he said. I've also requested that Asda retrieve CCTV footage of when me and my sister attended the store on Saturday 30th November to print out the photograph originally, as well as the CCTV footage of when I visited the photography stand on Wednesday 10th December to reprint the picture, as we'd like to come into the store and have it explained to us by whoever necessary what was so suspicious about me during the second visit as opposed to the first visit (asides from there being a woman serving behind the counter the second time as opposed to the man we had spoken to previously, and me being on my own). And we'd also like a police officer present whilst this takes place. My sister is going to ring her daughter's school this morning to find out exactly what the Police Officers said to them as regards the report from Asda about me last week, and are also wondering if we can request a copy of the Police Officer's report on the matter? And we'll also be getting ourselves round and about to get some legal advice from solicitors.
Is there anything else we should be doing, or any other avenues we should be going down? I know that places like Asda have a duty of care to protect children if there is a suspected threat, but I'm quite alarmed at the way things have been handled especially as I'm a regular customer, nobody from security approached me, the lady behind the counter gave me the photographs and let me leave with them without telling me there was any problem (other than this 'copyright' nonsense which I don't believe and think was a ruse to get my name and address) and then the police went straight to my niece's school rather than get in touch with me to verify anything, and according to my sister sounded extremely relieved that I wasn't actually a threat as the report they'd had about me must've made me sound awful
I've located the CEO's email address and I'm also considering contacting him about it. As it is, I've also made it clear that I intend to get in touch with the media if I don't get a satisfactory response and can't guarantee that it wouldn't result in any negative publicity for Asda, but other than that I feel sick to my stomach that the staff in my local Asda apparently think I'm some kind of weirdo who is a potential threat to children, I have no idea what's been said about me or what rumours have been spread, and I'm also pretty sure that my details and mugshot from CCTV have probably been forwarded to other Asda stores to warn them about me, like they do with shoplifters. The whole experience is putting a massive dampner on my Christmas
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