A Tesco shopper has hit out at 'machines' replacing people on tills at supermarkets up and down the country after she struggled to use a self-service checkout in her local store.
Pat McCarthy, 69, has started a petition calling for more cashiers instead of self-service checkouts in Tesco supermarkets.
The petition, on change.org, was created a few days ago and already has over 100,000 signatures.
Ms McCarthy, from Brentford in West London, launched the petition after visiting a store where 75 per cent of tills were self service.
Writing in the petition she said: "My local Tesco has inaccessible self-service tills with no staff which makes the shopping experience physically difficult and overwhelming.
"At my local Tesco mega-store, and probably all over the country, Tesco is bringing in new self-service and sort-it-yourself card only till machines. They make up 3/4 of the tills now.
"These new tills are not accessible for people who don't have credit cards and can only use cash or those with little confidence to use these self-service card-only tills - myself included. People such as carers, older people, disabled people with mobility problems or lifting problems have to queue waiting for more than 30 minutes."
A Tesco spokesperson told the BBC : "Our colleagues and the friendly service they provide are absolutely vital to our stores and will always be on hand to help our customers, whether they are checking out at one of our colleague-operated or self-service checkouts."
Twitter hashtag #BringBackTescoStaff has been used more than 3,000 times by people sharing the petition.
Simon Attwood tweeted: "If everyone that goes in to a Tesco, loads their trolley up, & find they are being directed to an automated till, just leave your full trolley at the till. it will require more staff labour to empty & re-shelve than operate a till"
The Dobson Family tweeted: "My own experience working in retail for 6 years was that for some of our customers, especially our more vulnerable ones, we were the only people they talked to in a week. They may not have bought much, but they were our."
Knitty42 added: "I never use self-serve tills. Invariably the bloody things find something wrong with my purchase, or my bag, or the way I'm looking at it, so I have to get staff over to fix anyway. I don't need my frustration levels pushed even higher by a tetchy machine."
And Dr Angi said: "On my last visit to Tesco’s we had a £170 shop. We were told to go to the selfcheckout tills! We said unless you open the check out we were leaving all this right here and will never shohere again - they opened the tills"
Tesco is among the retailers now trialling shops that have no tills at all - using apps and scanners to charge customers for what they buy.
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