Jackie and John were going off for their weekly shop. They hadn't much money since John had to close down his business during the COVID lock-downs. They had been put on Universal Credit, crumbs to them, when they usually expected a full loaf. They had to change all their usual shopping habbits and now were shopping at places they used to drive past and stick their noses up at the shoppers getting cheap bargains.
They entered Lidls, their shop of choice now due to the prices that their weekly shopping was now carried out in. From the car park they could just about see the Meadows at the Camberley roundabout, with Tesco's and Marks and Spencers, their old shopping ground in the far distance.
John sighed at the sight, and Jane patted him on the back as they entered the shop and starting filling up a cart with items. “We will be back there soon”, she said comforting him as they entered the store. John was worrying about the lock-down, the possible chances of getting infected in such a place like this. He was quite snobby at heart, but he stood in silence at 3pm last Saturday afternoon in respect for the Duke of Edinburgh's death, and always wore a mask. In fact he also hadn't used cash in the whole year they had been in police state UK.
As they were going down the last aisle that contained all the toilet roll and bathroom stuff, Clare was just doodling about picking things up and putting them down again. She was on the scope for people with money and when Jane and Jackie walked past she noticed that as they were picking items up for their cart and that Jackie was checking the prices on her phone. She quickly filled her basket up with high priced make up goods that she could easily fence and started to walk towards the pair of shoppers.
Smashing, she thought, they seemed like the sort of people who had followed lock down rules and were now cash free sheep. Followers of the Dear Leader BoJo the clown, she could just picture them standing in front of the news every night to see what new bull shit BoJo and his crew had to say about the virus. She tailed onto them closely, with her own basket of items as they walked down this final aisle towards the tills.
Jackie could still see John was worrying, he had lost a good, well paid job at a Insurance firm, and as the company couldn't afford the rent, instead of furlough they all got the sack. Now they were on benefits, scratching a living.
“Don't worry John”, Jackie said as he could see her getting a bit upset, “We will have enough money soon to go back to the Meadows, I hate coming here, you will get a good job once lock-down is over”, “I hope so” he replied, “the items in this shop are just rubbish compared to what we used to get, pure shite and what money do we have?”. John put his arm around her and started pushing the cart towards the till.
Clare could hear them talk as she tailed them, “welcome to the rest of world people”, she thought in her head as she could hear the two dousing those on the dole scratching and running every day just to get some food on their table. She felt glad he had lost his job now with the posh way he was talking, downplaying Lidl as some sort of shop for dole bludgers. It made her next task much easier as blue-jacking people she could not feel any connection to was far easier.
It was at this time Jackie tried to get as close as the pair as possible, and with her smart phone on, and her airsnort app bluetooth jacker turned on. She started to scan for bluetooth enabled phones, she immediately picked up on the couple in front of her, and she turned on her other app that would suck money straight out of their payment apps into her own Cash App. She tried to get as close as possible before pressing the button that would steal all their money off the phone and put it on her own.
As the couple reached the till, John pulled out his iPhone 10 and went to scan it to pay for the goods, a red flash and a loud bleep came the reply, and the woman behind the counter said to him, “Sorry the payment has not been accepted”, Why was this, John thought, and he tried again and again, each time without luck. He had no cash on him, as cash contained germs, and he had been a good boy all year using only his phone to pay for goods. He knew he had enough money on the phone for the shopping when he left the house. What was going on? He was confused as hell and had no idea why his phone wasn't working as it should.
“Sorry sir, you will have to leave your goods and leave the store”, said the shop girl, trying not to look the ex Rugby player in his eyes.
Confused John and Jackie walked off discussing what had gone wrong, as Clare walked up to the till and put her goods down.
“I guess some people are more broke than others these days”, she said to the counter girl with fake sympathy for the couples situation she had just put them in.
She put her own goods on the till, let them be scanned and then as she watched John and Jackie leave the store. She pulled out her Samsung and scanned it to pay for her shopping. “All ok”, she asked the till girl, “Yes, it went through fine”, “Sweet”, Clare said, “I guess some people have the money now, others don't” she said, as she walked off with her goods all paid for happy with her bag of high priced merchandise, at least worth a ton with a decent fence.
She looked at her phone as she started walking out of the store and saw on her app that she had managed to take over £150 from the couples phone minus the shopping amount. “Sweet”, she said again, to herself, and walked out of Lidl with a full basket of shopping.
She made sure to swerve the couple in the car park who were still arguing about what had happened in the shop. They are going to have a confusing day Jackie thought to herself as she walked in the other direction and met up with the rest of her crew Jay and Rachel.
“How did it go?”, Jay said, “well I got all this in here”, she said waving the back up and down and at least a ton nifty extra. “Nice one”, replied Jay. “I managed to get some suit with mine, took almost £300 off the clown ha ha”, he chuckled.
“Well”, chipped in Rachel, “I guess we have enough to go and get a new TV for the flat now”. The other two smiled. It was off to Curries to spend the money they had just taken. They needed a new TV anyway, and it was kind of that couple and the suit to pay for it.
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