Elderly woman hoodwinked at Shoprite

KENILWORTH – On Saturday August 16 at about 14:30, an elderly woman, Mrs Marr (83) was robbed of her belongings inside the Shoprite Store in Kenilworth, on the corner of Turf Club and Main Street.

Her son, Mr Marr contacted the COURIER. He said two people, a man and a woman, came to his mother and hoodwinked her, saying she won something in the store. They told her she was supposed to take off her rings (because she mustn’t be seen as rich) and they took her purse with bank cards. A case was opened at the local police station.

Gary is very upset by the way the staff at Shoprite conducted themselves after this incident. He said there was no compassion from the staff instead they were laughing at her, saying “maboesman woman got robbed” and making jokes.

“My problem is that how can a staff in the community behave the way they did? My mother was robbed at their store, where were the security measures when this happened,” he said.

The COURIER has done a similar story where an elder woman was robbed before in the same store.

Sarita van Wyk from Shoprite Head Office responded: “First of all, please accept my apologies for the manner in which the staff of Shoprite Rosettenville treated your telephone call. This has been addressed with them. In accordance with our policy, media comment is provided from head office only, and they should therefore simply have referred you to my office in a courteous manner.

“We empathise with Mrs Marr’s bad experience in our store, but fail to see how we would have been able to prevent a situation where she handed over her private property out of her own free will to strangers, without requesting assistance from our branch management or trying to verify their story.

“We have various security measures in place in our stores that are regularly reviewed and adapted in accordance with current security situations, but neither our store management nor security would have been aware that Mrs Marr was being hoodwinked if not asked for assistance. Our sales manager also assisted Mrs Marr after the event. He accompanied her in and around the store, in an effort to identify the suspects. He also provided use of the store’s telephone to have her bank cards blocked, and security footage was viewed in an attempt to identify the suspects.

“We are not able to comment on the allegation that the store staff had mocked Mrs Marr in the store as a result of her bad experience, but we have addressed it with the store staff in any event as professional customer service is expected from all Shoprite Checkers employees at all times.

“We have also discussed the incident with the son, Mr Marr, when he lodged the complaint with our customer relations department.”