“Because we are old doesn’t mean we are stupid.”
This is the message 79-year-old resident of Northcliff, Anneliese Stewart would like to get across to the management of Checkers supermarket in Cresta shopping centre after being the victim of theft in the store. Stewart has not shopped at that Checkers since an unfortunate incident in October when her purse went missing inside the store. The issue, however, is not that she was robbed but that the staff and management of the supermarket seemed not to care.
Another elderly resident, 71-year-old Marjorie Paulse of the Cottlesloe Homes in Fairland had a similar experience in February. Both women remembered someone bumping into their trolley and suggested that in retrospect this was possibly when their purses went missing. Since the incident both women’s purses had been recovered.
“I did not recognise the reason for the apparent clumsiness at the time,” recalled Stewart, “but the staff at Checkers Cresta couldn’t have cared less what I had to say and they treated me as if I had done something wrong.”
Paulse and Stewart felt they were targeted by criminals because of their age.
“It is unfair for us because we are old and don’t have the strength to defend ourselves,” said Paulse. “It makes me sick that we are this vulnerable and Checkers just does not care.”
Both women were adamant that they reported the matter to the supermarket’s management, however, corporate communications manager of Shoprite Checkers, Sarita van Wyk said there was no record of this when they contacted the management at Checkers Cresta.
“We made enquiries at the store, but our management was not aware of these incidents,” she said. When asked why there was no security footage of the incident, Van Wyk said the store’s cameras did not film every customer’s movements and therefore not everything that happened was available on footage.
“A photograph of a suspected thief is not a guarantee that the perpetrator will be found and arrested,” she added.
“They could have the best sale prices in the world,” proclaimed Stewart, “I will never shop there again and have warned all the elderly women at my church.”
“Checkers Cresta is not safe for old people to shop,” Paulse reiterated.
