Absolutely disgraceful experience at Aldi Brighton (London Road). I was singled out (the only customer picked, as far as I could see) and asked to have my bag searched under their so-called anti-shoplifting policy. I never even opened my bag while in the store, so there was zero reason for suspicion of theft. I was not provided any rational explanation for why I had my bag searched and other customers were not. I have no idea if I was picked because I am a foreign national, but so far, this has never happened to me, anywhere. But since I haven't done anything that could raise any sort of suspicion, I can only guess why I was singled out. I left feeling embarrassed, humiliated, and judged. To make it worse, she proceeded to speak behind my back with a colleague at a distance I could hear them, which is also not a nice thing to do. The manager came to speak to me with a patronising attitude, but was unable to provide an explanation for why I was singled out with absolute no reason or evidence of wrong-doing, and kept repeating that she was doing that to everyone, contrary to what I have seen, and when asked why weren't other staff doing the same, he replied that it's because they weren't doing their job right, which doesn't make sense in this surrealistic experience.No customer should ever be treated this way. I have no idea on what legal ground anyone, apart from the police, is allowed to single you out and ask to search your personal property without a single reason or any plausible cause. It's a violation of your private rights and liberties. If Aldi thinks randomly targeting innocent shoppers and publicly humiliating them is acceptable, then they’ve lost all respect for the people who spend money in their store and have a quite diminished sense of social responsibility, as a business. As a small business owner myself, I have nothing against genuine anti-theft measures, but you must have reasonable grounds and concrete evidence to ask for the search of a customer's personal property. That's not what happened in this case; I was singled out with no legitimate motive AT ALL. I suggest that they review this unacceptable, intrusive, abusive, unfair, discriminatory and humiliating policy. This is even more serious when vulnerable or minority people are singled out for no reason because it perpetuates prejudice, discrimination, and stereotypes.Whoever thought this was acceptable should be put in the same position I was today to understand how wrong this is. I am truly disgusted by this experience, and surely I won't be putting one foot in this store anytime soon, if ever. I prefer to pay a bit more and go to places where there is respect for people's rights and liberties. I don't feel that Aldi met these requirements today, and I'm not inclined to go through an episode as egregious as this one again.
Claim your business profile now and gain access to all features and respond to customer reviews.
