Supermarket apologises after Wigan mum left 'mortified' in voucher dispute

She says staff told her she could not use them due to some of the items in her shop and claims they then emptied her purchases out to search through them in full view of other customers.

Asda said the vouchers are for food and groceries only and Ms Charnock’s trolley had other items in it before describing what happened as a "genuine misunderstanding".

Ms Charnock admitted she included a measuring jug and a fire engine for her son’s birthday as part of her shop but sent Wigan Today a friend’s receipt for a mixture of food and non-essential items including toys and household objects where the cards simply seemed to have been deducted from the total with no issue being raised.

She criticised the way Asda had handled the incident, which left her along with her five-year-old daughter Hollie and son Daniel, three, extremely upset.

Ms Charnock, 28, said: “I’ve been using these vouchers when shopping since March and never had a problem until yesterday.

“It’s just the way they’ve gone about it. They told me to step back from the trolley and started emptying everything out.

“My little boy was crying and I was left completely embarrassed and mortified. I felt I was being made out to be a criminal or that I had a trolley full of booze and fags.

“It was loud, it felt like they had decided to tell the whole shop about it. I was left in absolute bits because of it.”

Ms Charnock was given £90 per child to spend over the summer holidays due to the free meals scheme not being available while schools are partially closed due the coronavirus.

The website of Edenred, which runs the scheme, said the cards are intended to be used for food and

groceries.

An Asda spokesperson said: “We have apologised to Ms Charnock for her experience in our Wigan store and explained to her that this was a genuine misunderstanding as our colleagues believed that some of the items in her trolley were not covered by the school meal vouchers scheme.”