Hi there, I wonder if someone can help me with a saga thats being going on almost a year now. Just before Christmas 2010 I tried to order a toy worth about £93.00 for my sons on the woolworths.co.uk website. I put the order through and used my credit card as payment details but each time I pressed the 'confirm your order' button the site crashed. After numerous attempts I gave up and went elsewhere. I heard nothing until January when my credit card company rang me up to say I was over my card limit. Although money is very tight right now I knew fully well that I should have at least £150.00 remaining on there. After some investigation of my online card statement I saw not one but two payents for Woolworths of £93.00 that had gone through on the same day. There has been numerous letters and calls between me, woolworths and shop direct (which I assume are part of them), the short version being that they have paid me one lot of £93.00 back to my credit card but have said they never received the other £93.00 (Even though I have sent them a copy of my statement). The grammar/spelling in some of the replies is laughable but thats outside the scope of this. I am still out of pocket with my £93.00, and they have probably damaged my already poor credit history by making me go over my limit. Can anyone advise how I should get this £93 back ? Should I just try and go it through my credit card company wather than Woolworths who seem to be completely unwilling to help even though their website took my money ! (Which they apparantly never got). Kind regards.

I can certainly ask..

Dear All, Both very sad tales. I was discussing something similar with a friend a few months back which you might find interesting. I told him that I had once been caught shoplifting and how I felt it was quite traumatic waiting to hear from RLP, and he relayed a story along these lines to me. He was shopping at a Tesco's in the Midlands area a couple of years ago and decided to steal some goods for whatever reason. Anyway he was caught exiting the store and asked to go back inside, at which point he decided to try and leg it. He managed about 10 yards before he was 'floored' by an employee and cracked his head on the floor. He said at least two Tescos employees essentially sat on him right in the middle of the store and he started having what he thinks was a panic attack/asthma attack and could not breath. He remembers them saying 'he's putting it on', but at the same time he heard someoen else saying get him an ambulance he's going purple. He was then carried by his arms and legs right through the middle of the store to what I would assume was the managers/security office. On the way he beleives he passed out as he has a few gaps he can't remember. Flash forward and he recovers in the security room, is charged by the police. During this he nearly passes out again and the police officers are quite worried about him and even take him outside for fresh air, but he didn't think to question any of what had happened. The funny thing is that the store seemingly never took it any further - he was never 'banned' and he never received anything from RLP. Makes you think the store might have looked at the CCTV footage and thought ooops.... ?

Dear All,

Hi LOLO, Sorry to hear that - Its been an extremely stressful experiance if I'm being honest - Dealing with the Police was nothing in comparison to the weight this puts on your shoulders. Its been just over a year now and I've seen no letter as yet so I am sincerely hoping thats the end of it, however I do appreciate that they could still send one to me at any time. The goods I stole were worth less than £20.00 and although I have learnt a valuable lesson I really do feel that this is in essence, bullying. That amount of money is nothing to Tescos but RLP appear to be the parasites that try and make money from this. I beleive letters are normally sent out about two weeks after the event, but I have heard of them being received years later. As long as you have also learnt a lesson from this experiance I do sincerely wish you the best of luck. There are lots of kind people on this forum that may be able to help you if you do receive a letter.

They also make an annual PROFIT of around three billion as I understand it.

Dear All, Thankyou again for your comments. Its now been about a year since this happened and I've still received nothing. Although I understand they have three years to take action so I could still find a letter one day, I'm hoping this is the end to it and feel a bit better about things. I have been to a debt advisor regarding my financial issues and have a payment plan in place so am slowly paying off the debts I had - Its going to take about ten years but I'm working hard and am on the right road. I have never stolen anything since - In fact I found a purse whilst walking my dog just before Christmas with over three hundred pound in it and managed to track the owner and returned it to them in full on Christmas Eve - Hopefully my karma has levelled now. Oh and I thought I would miss my local Tescos store as I did all my shopping there, but I've switched to a Sainsburys who are now getting all my business - your loss Tescos. Thanks again to you all for taking time to help myself and others. With the greatest respect I hope I don't have to post another update on here again. Fingers crossed for case closed. D.

Hi Shanty, Thinking back I don't think they had my vehicle reg before the incident. They asked me if it was xxxxxx after I had been in the room some time so I'm assuming they must have played back the tape of me coming into the store to identify it in case I did a runner. Its been about two months now and I still haven't received the letter. I know most of you will not have a lot of sympathy for a 'shoplifter' and I understand that, but this is absolutely killing me as I'm having to get to the post first every morning, and if it arrives after I have left for work I'm stressing all day in case my wife or son have received and opened it. My relationship is not in the best of places right now so this could be the final straw. Anyway, thanks for your advice so far. I will keep you updated.

Many thanks for your advice everyone. I havent seen anything from them yet but will keep you all informed.

Hi All, I wonder if you can offer me some advice. I was recently caught shoplifting in my local Tescos store which seeing as I am a 37 year old father of two, I am very embarrased and disgusted about. I'm in full time employment but in a lot of debt (courtesy of an ex girlfriend from years back) and for some reason decided to try and hide some items in my coat - worth around 15 pound. They stopped me as I left the shop and once in the holding room they called the police despite my attempts to stop them. They were actually (for tescos staff) very intimidating. The police turned up and I admitted all and got a 80 fixed penalty. The police officers could see how upset I was and were actually very understanding of my situation. As they left they warned me I was likely to get a 12 month ban and a civil recovery action. As I'm not in the best financial position I asked them how much this was likely to be and they 'estimated' about 150 quid but said that was just a guess based on previous dealings with them. OK so the police leave and I'm now resigned to the fact that I will have a hefty bill along with the indignity of the whole thing, but I've learned my lesson. The serurity supervisor takes it from here, overhearing all this (And beleive me this guy was a nasty man), and tells me that the bill will be far more than that as they had me 'acting suspiciously' on CCTV on several previous occasions and he told me that I was a 'serial shoplifter'. They even had a note of my car number plate !. There is no point me lieing to you and I hold my hand on my heart when I say this is the first time I had ever done this. This is (was - as I'm now banned) my local store and I would usually pop in on my way home from work every few days. I told the guy he has no evidence as I know he could not possibly have any, but he said items had gone missing from thestore when I had been there and that was all he needed. This is a BIG Tescos store.. A minor concen is how long does it take for the letter to come through as I'm dreading my family finding out, but more importantly that I will be hit with a much large bill based on what was said to me. I really don't wan't to go to court as I'm trying to keep this away from my family. Any advice you can give would be appreciated.