Tesco ********s.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please take the time to read this.
Lifted from the BASC magazine.
Author, Bill Harriman.
Tesco is Britain's biggest supermarket chain with a huge slice of the market and a turnover of about £3bn. In terms of customer service, Tesco tells us that it's staff will bend over backwards to ensure that we have a happy experience when we shop at one if it's stores and that it offers all kind of services.
However, there is one little know service which Tesco provides but which it keeps very quiet about and that it's In-store Denouncement to the Police!
Last year, a BASC member whom I shall call Andy visited his local store in Barnstable to drop off a film to be developed.
His snaps showed his Labrador and Hawk as well as shots with him kneeling beside 2 Deer which he had shot. There was also a picture of a Stags head with an impressive set of antlers.
Andy was wearing camouflage gear and had his sound moderated rifle beside him when the photo's were taken.
Some time later his girlfriend picked up his prints and drove home. The very next day 2 Police officers turned up at his home with a second set of photo's which they had said had been passed to them by Tesco.
After satisfying themselves that he was a certificate holder and had not broken the law, they left but still retained the 2nd set of pictures.
It's good to know that Devon and Cornwall Constabulary have really got on top of crime to such a degree that they can afford to send 2 officers to check out something which could have been verified by just a couple of phone calls!
Andy reckons that when his girlfriend left the shop, some wannabee sleuth followed her from Tesco and that her cars registration had been noted and passed onto the Police. As you might imagine, Andy was livid by this shabby treatment and asked BASC to intervene.
Tesco's action raises all kinds of issues- especially customer confidentiality and preservation of personal intellectual property.
It is very worrying that staff at a supermarket who were entrusted with the personal details of a customer should make a unilateral decision to pass this onto a third party without express permission.
With this in mind, I had a look at Tesco's privacy policy states unequivocally that ''We will never pass your personal data to anyone else. except for any successors in title to our business...''
Either this undertaking has not filtered down as far as Barnstable or someone chose to ignore it.
I wrote to Sir Terry Leahy, Tesco's Chief Executive, on Andy's behalf and suggested that Tesco in Barnstable had not treated him very well. Sir Terry was very sorry for the upset caused by the Police visit but the Barnstable stores Management Team decided that the pictures gave 'cause for concern' and had contacted the Police. I was assured that Tesco had policies regarding the printing of obscene or offensive material.
These were based upon relevant legislation and included photographs of firearms. Thank you for writing; customer's letters are very important to us, blah blah blah.
I can spot a fob-off letter written by a PA at a mile, so I wrote to Sir Terry again in tough but polite terms. I asked for reassurance that Tesco's had no policy against legitimate firearms owners and fieldsports participants. Please might I also have a copy of the policy for printing photographs, as I was hard pressed to see how pictures of fieldsports could be construed as being obscene or offensive?
I should also be obliged if he would tell me the title and section of the Act which which made it unlawfull to take pictures of guns.
These not unreasonable requests were obviously beyond the wit of our Grocer-in-chief as the next communication I had was from the Customer Services dept in Aberdeen. It's tone was unfriendly and defensive. Of course Tesco's didn't have a policy of discrimination. No, I could not have a copy of the policy on printing photographs as it doesn't exist. Thank you for your valued communication but you can Talk to the Hand as the Head ain't listening.
Tesco's market dominance has clearly gone to it's head and it's response was dismissive and arrogant. When we raised similar issues with Boots the Chemist, we were given a helpful response and an assurance that such incidents would never happen again.
My advice would be very careful where you send your films to be developed because you simply do not know who within our increasingly paranoid society will bubble you to the cops for having pictures of guns or dead animals.
Thoughts?
Tesco ********s.
