An Asda supermarket which ran out of carrier bags has banned a woman who used their plastic baskets to take her shopping to the car.
Mum, Natalie Taylor was banned after a heated argument with a security guard from her local Asda store about how she was using the giant green shopping basket.
The 38-year-old was told by staff on arrival that the store had ran out of plastic bags, but offered her freezer bags, costing £1.79 each as a replacement.
When Natalie refused to pay the extra £10.74 at the end of her ‘big load’, she used two shopping baskets to carry her items out to her car, but was stopped by a security guard.
The pair then had a heated altercation in the carpark which ended in the security guard telling her to shop at the Lidl opposite the Asda in future.
Natalie, from Hull, said: “I would have needed six bags and I wasn’t paying that so I thought I’d take the two baskets and bring them back.
“This is one of the most deprived parts of Hull, I’m not paying £1.79 each for a bag.”
She said she put the baskets into her car boot and was planning to return “two minutes later” with them emptied, as she lives literally round the corner from the superstore.
However, she said a security guard came out to the car park and challenged her, according to StokeOnTrentLive.
Natalie, who said she’s been shopping there since it opened around 20 years ago and visits four or five times a week said: “I heard this security guard shouting ‘you can’t take them baskets’ and I said I only lived round the corner.
“He was being rude and I was being rude, and it escalated. I was swearing but I’m a Hessle Roader,” she said.
“He went to grab the baskets and I tapped him on the hand and said ‘don’t touch my stuff’ as I’d paid for the shopping and they were my belongings.
“He was going on about his manager, so I said go and get him then, instead of him sending his lapdog.”
He got the baskets and said “do you know what, don’t bother coming back, you’re banned, you can shop over there”, pointing at Lidl.
Natalie said: “I told him ‘don’t tell me where to do my shopping’.
She added: “I’m not a thief, I haven’t taken anything in my life. What do I want to take shopping baskets for?
“I’ve got OCD, there’s nothing in my house that doesn’t belong there. Does he think I’m going to put them in my lounge as an ornament?”
Natalie said she’s one of their most loyal customers, having shopped there since the store opened.
She added: “I’m going back. I’m not trekking to the nearest Asda at Mount Pleasant.”
A spokesman for Asda said: “Banning a customer is always a last resort however we do not tolerate any abuse towards our colleagues.
“We understand that it was frustrating that our Hessle Road store ran out of carrier bags temporarily, which is why we offered customers the use of cardboard boxes usually used for our deliveries to carry their shopping home.’’
