Unacceptable behaviour

Incident Date: 3 October 2023

My son went into a food *****s on 3 October and made a purchase for R285. He then proceeded to pay and leave the store, as he left the store, the security called and asked where he got the 2 energy bars from. He advised that he may have not seen it in the trolley and asked if he could pay for it immediately. The energy bar had fallen under the milk and therefore he didn’t see it when he was paying for the other stuff. He admitted he didn’t see it as it was a mistake. The manager called Brandon then said to the security guard Anderson to please let the client go and ask him to leave the energy bars back. He then did this and walked out from the store, Anderson then called him back and said that he must pay for the energy bar, or he will arrest him. My son then said no problem, he will pay for it, the manager then tried to ****** money from him by saying, after they calculate he needs to pay just over R1800 for the energy bar. Please advise if this is the process that food *****s follow? Please advise if all clients that make a mistake are they charged almost 200 times more than the item? If so, does Food *****s keep all this extra cash for the store to benefit? I need to know your process. When they told my son that he must pay R1800 he said to them NO, let me call my mum. He then called me, I was on my way to the store, he then called again and said not to worry as it is sorted out. It seems Quinton another manager assisted him and said to Anderson, the customer wont pay R285 for all other items and ***** this small energy bar that costs R10. While all this was happening, 2 security personnel took out photos of my child, remember he is a scholar, he is in matric this year. They took out a photo without his permission, they forwarded this photo which is against the POPIA ACT OF SOUTH AFRICA. They tried to ****** money from him all this without the presence of his parents. The photos that were taken out, were taken on personal cell phones, this photo could have been used in child trafficking, as we know child trafficking is on the rise in South Africa. They have embarrassed my child, humiliated him in a store full of people. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. I need urgent feedback from Food *****s or else I will go to every social media platform; I will report this act to POPIA as Food *****s did not comply with this Act. I understand the way it looked to security but the 1st thing they should have done is looked at the camera footage to see if there was any foul play, we looked at the camera footage and the managers confirmed that this looked like a simple mistake and that they sorry for the behavior of their security.

My son is in matric, he is starting matric exams next week, he is absolutely traumatized, he attends one of the best private schools in Gauteng, he represents Gauteng in the provincial soccer team, he has been accepted to do civil engineering in University of Pretoria, and Food *****s embarrasses him and traumatizes him with the threat of arresting him, who will answer if he is unable to go through his exams due to the mental stress that you have caused, who will answer if his matric results decrease due to this.

This goes way beyond a energy bar worth R10, this affects his emotional and mental health caused by your store and your staff. I am a frequent client of food *****s, I am there every week, is this the kind of staff that you have employed, is this how you treat your clients. Does your staff not do their due diligence to make sure that making the right decisions.

To Sum it up, the following are my complaints that I need dealt with and I need an urgent response. 1. ******ion 2. Apparent Child Trafficking photo 3. POPIA Breach 4. Child Trauma 5. Deformation of Character 6. Emotional and mental health

Please contact me URGENTLY