Anonymous
I went to purchase an item from the Stirling B&Q today. Had my 17yr old son & his girlfriend with me. We were in the store for all of 5 mins looking at some lights we were considering buying when one of the workers approached my son very ubruptly and stared at him for an awkward length of time before asking in an unfriendly & rude manner if he could help him?!! My son replied no. The worker stood there and continued to stare at my son which made us both feel uncomfortable & weird. I wish now I had asked the man (Mark) if there was a problem?!! But...we walked away (thinking he was a very strange man) to look for what we came for, only to find that we were being followed by Mark & several other staff. This felt very intimidating. There were then radio messages (which I could hear through the workers earpiece, yes...they were that close to us!) & talk between the staff about someone stealing. At this point it was very obvious that they thought it was us! The only reason that I can think of for this is that my son had his camera (which he takes everywhere to film clips for his YouTube channel), his phone & wallet in his pockets which made them look a bit bulky. Surely this is no reason to assume someone is stealing? I heard through the talk that footage was being checked, if this was correct they would have seen us entering the store & my son's "bulky pockets!" My son's girlfriend had picked up afew items to buy but put them back so we could leave as we all felt very uncomfortable & embarrassed as it was not only obvious to us that they had targeted us but also to the other customers! When we were leaving the store all eyes were on us, everyone we passed scanning our bodies/ pockets for stolen goods. When we reached the car my son noticed that a group of staff had gathered at the exit door to watch us getting into our car. So, we went back to speak to them when all but 1 scampered away! We asked if there was a problem? We were told no but were not given any explanation or apology. My son offered to show the man what was in his pockets but the man declined. We left to go purchase what we needed in a different store. During this I felt myself being paranoid incase the workers in this store thought we might be stealing too! At this point I thought that it isn't right that we have been made to feel the way we were. We all felt as if we had done something wrong, it really put us all in a low mood. I decided to go back to the store to speak to the duty manager to give some feedback. I explained the embarrassment & that I felt the situation could have been dealt with alot better. I would have felt better if someone had approached us and asked us straight out to empty our pockets! I told the manager that if someone in the store was stealing his staff done nothing to prevent it. They spoke out loud & let everyone know someone in the store was stealing, followed us (the wrong people) around instead of the person who was actually stealing & then let us walk out the door & go to the car (thinking we had stolen goods) without stopping us! The manager was ok & half heartedly apologised on behalf of B&Q but continued to play the situation down and tried to make out that this wasn't the case & that we seen so many staff around because it was a shift change. Then started to ramble about irrelevant nonsense that was nothing to do with my complaint. This makes me angry because I was treated like I am stupid which im not! Man up & own your mistake! Anyway, I corrected him by telling him we were being followed & watched very openly & obviously & that it was embarrassing & had an effect on us. I suggested that there may be better ways to deal with a situation like this. It was awful, I still feel awful. It's terrible that going into a shop for something can change your whole day & make you feel paranoid to go into another store. Hopefully B&Q can learn from this & the staff can be properly trained on how to deal with situations. I won't be back in the Stirling B&Q. The staff...including the manager are in inadequate! Absolutely ridiculous!
5 years ago
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B&Q has a 2.2 average rating from 2,461 reviews

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