Tesco‘s new anti-shoplifting devices have left customers bewildered as they question how a piece of plastic could deter would-be thieves.
The contraptions are positioned loosely in front of store items and in footage uploaded to social media are seen being freely slid from left to right to uncover the goods.
A strange creaking noise is also a feature of the appliances which in the video shield boxes of chocolate like Ferrero Rocher and Milk Tray.
Taking to TikTok, many users had strong opinions on Tesco’s latest initiative.
One person said: ‘How does this stop shoplifting?’
Another added: ‘So you can slide it over and get what you need. So how is going to stop shop lifters?’
Others said they believed a solution would be to make the items more ‘affordable’ rather than upping the security.
Someone said sarcastically: ‘Let’s not try and just simply make this affordable so people buy instead of stealing.’
Others feared the devices looked flimsy and that they could easily ‘snap’.
One person commented: ‘Thieves don’t care, they’ll just break them off or take longer to take things. Doesn’t matter whether barriers, gates, these, tags. They’ll steal if they want to steal.’
But not everyone was so critical. George Young claimed he used to have the devices in his store and they ‘definitely work’.
He explained: ‘They definitely work as someone who had these in their store it takes the thieves longer to get to everything so they might steal 10 bars instead of 30 and if they do go for more it gives security time.’
Another added: ‘It’s a deterrence mechanism, individuals are less likely to come in and make a quick theft from Tesco because of those stupid slidey things so they will go elsewhere.’
Earlier this week, fuming shoppers complained they felt like criminals as they were ‘herded like cattle’ through Tesco’s new giant trolley scales – another anti-shopping lifting initiative.
The British Retail Consortium says theft from stores is ‘out of control’ costing shops £2billion a year.
But the scales idea went down badly in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, when MailOnline visited in the first UK store where they were being trialled.
One shopper emerged close to tears after the weight of the trolley did not match her self-scan receipt and she suffered the ‘humiliation’ of having her bags re-scanned.
She told MailOnline: ‘I felt like a criminal. It was completely humiliating and I won’t be using that service again.’
A study this week found nearly a quarter of the UK population have witnessed shoplifting in the last 12 months.
The figure is the equivalent of more than 16 million people seeing such an event, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC)-Opinium poll.
It is perhaps no surprise as the statistic follows figures revealed by the Mail on Sunday in September 2023 that theft takes place every two seconds in Britain.
MailOnline has contacted Tesco for comment.
