Shop staff held my phone hostage and called the security on me as they didn’t believe I look like my ID
I went to my town’s shopping centre to pick up some snacks. I went to a shop and grabbed Guinness beer flavoured chocolate and lime flavoured chips. I went to the till to pay for my shopping and the cashier lady looks me up and down asks me for ID. I hand it to her no problem as you have to be over 21 (I think) to buy chocolate with alcohol. She looks it my ID, then looks at me and then again at my ID. I’m blonde but on my ID photo I had dyed my hair brown, so I thought that must be confusing her or something. I tell politely tell her ‘I know I have different hair now haha but its me’.
She didn’t even look at me and said to her headset ‘Can I please have the security and manager at till 2’. I genuinely thought there is something wrong with the food, like someone opened it before and put something in there and I picked it up without noticing. So I asked the cashier what is wrong and she says to me and that its not me on the ID. I tell her ‘oh no it’s mine, I have different hair but same face, maybe 4 years older than when this photo was taken‘.
For the record I’m 28, the photo was taken when I was 24-25, my hair was 3 shades darker and I was maybe 20 pounds heavier back then. She just told me that it doesn’t look like me at all and then the security guy comes round. He asks the cashier what is the problem and she says they need to call the police as I brought somebody’s ID. The lady keeps holding my ID squeezed in her hand like she is scared I may snatch it from her hand and run away. I panicked and I said to them come on its me and Im just buying beer flavoured chocolate. I said my date of birth from ID and my address because I felt like I need to prove that I am me.
There was already a big queue behind me and everyone could hear it. One person behind said that I must have been really ugly and got plastic surgery but forgot to take new ID photo. I got so embarrassed I was on the way to cry. But thats not even the worse.
The cashier repeated on the headset that she needs a manager ASAP and the security guy says he will wait on the door just in case. The manager comes in and cashier explains to her the situation. The manager lady looks at my ID and says that it looks like normal ID to which cashier replies that its real ID but its not mine because I look completely different. The managers grabbed the ID from cashier’s hand and laughed. She then says that its not me on the photo. Again, I could hear people behind me laughing and being nasty, but I don’t blame them as they were probably getting frustrated as I am taking the only open till in the shop. I show my ID at least twice per month in other shows and no one ever had any issues or treated me like this.
Then I said to them ‘look, this is my ID I had for years, let me just put the chocolate back and I will only take the chips.’ The manager says they may need to call the police as its the law and the ID is clearly stolen from someone else. At this point this got too ridiculous so I asked them if they seriously think I have fake ID just to buy snacks. I see the manager picks up her phone and I really don’t want to deal with the police over cheap chocolate so I asked them if I can show them the photo of my passport on my phone, as this is more recent. I go on my phone and put a photo of my passport on the screen. The manager lady literally snatched my phone from my hand and zooms in on the photo. I raised my voice and said wow hold on you can‘t just take my phone. She ignores me and scrolls through the photos on my phone like its hers. I screamed to please give me my phone back as she probably scrolled over 10 photos already. The cashier lady was looking at my phone as well. I reached to take my OWN phone from this woman’s hand. I then ask these grown women to give me my own ID back and shouted that Im an adult not a teenager and they don’t have the right to keep my neither my ID or my phone just because in their mind I look like a different person. I felt like this is one big joke and nothing made sense to me why Im being treated this way by adults.
They hand me my ID back and the manager says ‘its ok you can buy these and leave, I saw its you on the photos.‘ Referring to the photos/selfies she saw on my phone. The cashier then scans my stuff like nothing happened when I’m shaking with tears rolling down my cheeks from the stress and ridiculousness of the situation and then she says that they need to check things like this as its the law and to not think its a big deal.
I left the store in tears. I cannot make it up in my head what has happened so I decided to put this in writing on here and I feel like it seems even more ridiculous when written down. Has anyone had anything like this happened? I left the store knowing that two random women older than me by around 20 years saw my private photos without my consent. It feels like a joke, I keep looking at my ID and at myself and I look like the same person. I don’t understand why they treated me like Im some sort of monster in disguise.
edit: hi all, thank you for your support, I have raised an official complaint and I wait for their reply. I also put it on the local facebook group but it hasn’t been approved yet. I don’t know if they will get any consequences from it but I’m still happy I talked about it.
For the record Im posting from UK but English is not my first language so I apologize if I write a bit off in some parts. I never made such a long public post as I never had to.
For anyone interested its Lay's Potato Chips Lime Flavour and Caramel Chocolate bar by Guinness.