A friends of mine worked at Marks and Spencer’s Croydon shop but was fired not long ago. He deserved it as he had stolen a £7.99 bottle of rum and was recorded by the shop CCTV system in the act. When asked about it he held his hand up to the deed, apologised, paid for the bottle and took his due. So far nothing to say.

It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that he received a letter from Dryden’s Law demanding £150 for his transgression claiming they were recovering expenses. Hmmmm, yeah and I’m the President of the Galaxy too! Ordinarily, and sans letter, I would have told him that he was a stupid twit and lucky he hadn’t been prosecuted for theft. Now he’s a highly intelligent kid but isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer when it comes to common sense and ordinary decisionmaking, but M&S are going right over the top, and in an egregious way that shows the “People” part of their Corporate Social Responsibility policy as being really rather hollow. Why? Well it works like this….

You fire someone for something quite blatant or stupid (as in this case). Once they leave you activate the pre-existing process you’ve outsourced to the people who will write the demand letters and insist the protagonist cough for expenses. Now Marks and Spencer didn’t incur £150 of expenses but that’s the beauty of the scam; you demand enough to split a handsome profit with the heavy mob but not too much that they challenge it because then it starts to cost you money. It’s a classic extortion scam. Trouble is they screwed up. According to the protagonist (my friend), he never signed anything to that effect, only the minutes of the meeting in which he was fired. At last notice he was going to fight it all the way to court.

So why do I care? Well, in spite of his patent stupidity, at least with regards to his taking a bottle, he’s still my friend and you don’t ditch your friends when they do stupid things. You help them learn to not do stupid things in the future; especially when they’re young and just getting started down the road of life. But I have my own experience with Croydon’s Marks and Spencer….

Ten years ago, whilst completing my Master’s degree, I bought a suit at the Marks and Spencers Croydon shop on the recommendation of my Marketing Prof who raved about their quality, value for money and general well-managed image. Six months, and only 4 wears, later I had to return it as the poor-quality fabric had allowed a hole to be worn in it. No abuse of the suit, care was taken with it and it had been worn less than a dozen times but I was told in a condesending tone that, “No Marks and Spencer won’t take it back as it’s been abused.” I was advised that should I try to return it to that shop again I might have the police called on me. Hmmm, charming customer service. You’ll understand why I was HIGHLY gratified to watch Marks and Spencer lose 3/4ths of their market capitalisation six months later. Writing Marks and Spencer’s marketing director at HQ, however, did get the suit taken back straight-away and an apologetic letter by return with my cash.

Unfortunately it appears not much has actually changed in Croydon. The CSR report states: “All employees are expected to behave ethically when working on behalf of Marks and Spencer.” Hmmm, must not apply to management, only floor level staff then. Under Principles the report states: “[We] concluded that we need a set of business principles that reflected the company’s traditional values of…Trust.” That’s an interesting interpretation of the word.

To me, though, it says nothing’s changed. They tried it on with me 10 years ago, and they’re trying it on in an even cruder way with Kieran today. I haven’t purchased a single item since my encounter ten years ago and I don’t intend to for the foreseeable future. Perhaps if they only withdrew; no apology needed? Who knows what could happen but they’ve lost more than the margin on a bottle of bubbly through their actions.