The pound world incident.

[Hangthebuggers]

http://www.devonlive.com/mother-and-daughter-ridden-like-horses-and-told-to-lick-the-feet-of-staff-in-barnstaple-poundworld/story-30347088-detail/story.html

A girl and her mother were subjected to a torturous two-and-a-half-hour hoax in Barnstaple's Poundworld last week during which they were ridden like horses by members of staff and forced to lick their feet by a prank caller who was impersonating a charity worker.

This is just..... Bizarre.

Apparently the mum and daughter even went home but were called up by the manager again and came back to the store to engage in further horseplay.

"He said to go back to the store and when you arrive, you have to knock on the door on your hands and knees. You have ten minutes left to win the money."

Wow.

Sorry just posting this as I needed some light relief from the terrorist attacks. Staggering.

[MuteBanana]

What charity is connected to Pound World that would convince their staff this was legit?

ONE ARM....SPECIAL STRAWS....Christ.

Edit - And thinking about the prankster. What does he get out of it just listening on the phone?

"What are they doing now?"
"The girls are riding them round the store like horses like you asked."
"Aha fantastic. Have you got any permanent markers?"
"Like Sharpies?"
"I dunno what that is. Draw on their faces though."
"What shall I draw?"
"Just anything."
"Okay."
"Well?"
"I did evil eyebrows and curly moustache."
"Hahaha thats classic."
"I feel a bit bad for the woman with one arm."
"Who's only got one arm?"
"One of the customers."
"HAHAHAHA FUCKIN ELL"

I mean, come on.

[colacentral]

Can this be confirmed? There are too many mad details in this story for me to take it at face value.

[Glebe]

What the flipping fuck?

[derek stitt]

A Sherlock Holmes short story for the 21st century. The villains name, Thadeus Acacia Lorcal - Dung Fetishising.

Holmes is called brilliant by simply dialling 1471.

[thenoise]

£200 in pound world vouchers isn't a bad outcome.  £200 goes a long way in there.  And they were only promised £3000 in the first place.

[Pijlstaart]

Poundland staff are awful, very low grade, so I can't even imagine what the poundworld staff are like. I guess the philosophy of the shop promotes chaos and disunity, they put awkwardly-shaped items on small shelves, always a dirty floor, they have a big cardboard policeman stuck to the window just to keep people in line. They can't be trained, I'm surprised they even know they're employees, likely just the customers who've been milling around the longest, selects for indecisive staff, tragic.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Poundland staff are awful, very low grade, so I can't even imagine what the poundworld staff are like. I guess the philosophy of the shop promotes chaos and disunity, they put awkwardly-shaped items on small shelves, always a dirty floor, they have a big cardboard policeman stuck to the window just to keep people in line. They can't be trained, I'm surprised they even know they're employees, likely just the customers who've been milling around the longest, selects for indecisive staff, tragic.

Poundland have a notoriously awful workfare scheme, so a lot of their 'staff' aren't employees. I googled to see if pound world are, but mostly found poundland links. I wouldn't be surprised if they were. I try to stay away from anywhere I know is participating in such schemes.

[Quincey]

I didn't realise Poundland was still using workfare. I'll avoid shopping there from now on.

[biggytitbo]

Wouldn't £200 buy the entire store?

[Kane Jones]

I live in Barnstaple and have heard nothing of this. Having said that, it doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

[Quincey]

How did the staff and the two customers think the caller would know the instructions had been carried out? Were they meant to be there watching?

[Phil_A]

This weirdly reminiscent of the "Strip-search" prank calls (which was the inspiration for the film Compliance), where some guy claiming to be a police officer would ring up fast food restaurants and coerce the staff into degrading each other, which most of them did unquestioningly.

Just looking up the details of the case, I knew they eventually caught the guy responsible, but astonishingly he was never convicted! That's unbelievable.

While the story does paint everyone involved in this incident as unbelievably gullible, it's surprising how easy it is to be taken in by someone claiming to be an authority figure, especially if you're a low paid worker who really doesn't want to lose your job,

[mippy]

The people involved had a spat on a local Facebook group, where they accused a local salon of laughing at the mum's knoty hair: http://m.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/disabled-woman-laughed-at-by-crystal-palace-hairdressers-for-having-matted-hair/story-29776522-detail/story.html

[Shaky]

Did have a good chuckle at the line, ""We want to sue but we can't because the police don't know who it is."

There's so much packed in there.

[Quincey]

The people involved had a spat on a local Facebook group, where they accused a local salon of laughing at the mum's knoty hair: http://m.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/disabled-woman-laughed-at-by-crystal-palace-hairdressers-for-having-matted-hair/story-29776522-detail/story.html

The salon is in Croydon and the names are different.

[Replies From View]

Imagine the sheer hubris of having an entire world of Pound, not even just a land of it.  I bet Yoshi doesn't even turn up.

[pancreas]

Imagine the sheer hubris of having an entire world of Pound, not even just a land of it.  I bet Yoshi doesn't even turn up.

NEEEEERRRD!!! NEEEEERRRRD!!!

[mippy]

The salon is in Croydon and the names are different.

Yeah, sorry, I meant to delete that shortly after posting and it clearly didn't take. FAKE NEWS.

[Quincey]

I feel really sorry for the two customers. Lots of people are commenting on the Devon Live story sneering at them but its easy to fall for that kind of con especially if charity is involved.

[yesitsme]

My only venture into the would of £ shopping was at Halloween when eldest was still a nipper.  As I talked to him about the stuff we had bought to decorate the house the queue moved forward without me noticing.  Still no place at a till, just moved forward.  A woman behind me started going 'Excuse me! EXCUSE ME! THE QUEUE HAS MOVED!' I looked at her  and took one step forward.

Examining her trolley I have never seen so much shit crammed in to one place.

It was either a year's supply of Haribo or a week's.  I couldn't tell which.

Never been back.

[momatt]

I feel really sorry for the two customers. Lots of people are commenting on the Devon Live story sneering at them but its easy to fall for that kind of con especially if charity is involved.

Charities don't give money away to thick twats in poundshops though.
_{Or do they?}

[SteveDave]

A colleague made me aware of this bunch this afternoon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pranknet#Notable_Pranknet_incidents

Some of them...wooo!

"The man, told that there was a "midget" trapped in an adjoining room, was then tricked into destroying a sheetrock wall behind his room door, almost making his way through to the next room"

[Replies From View]

£200 in pound world vouchers isn't a bad outcome.  £200 goes a long way in there.  And they were only promised £3000 in the first place.

£200-worth of those straws they need.


Imagine going for a browse in one of those discount bookshops where they sell hardback, bath-friendly books about fake My Little Ponies for £2 - you know the kind of discount bookshop I mean - having some kind of horrific, life changing experience there, then getting compensated in vouchers so you can only buy £200-worth of those books you don't want and those 100% UNAUTHORISED Star Wars calendars that use inexplicably thin paper.

(It would be bad.)

[MuteBanana]

I picture these two when I think of special straws. "Special mark?"

[Ambient Sheep]

Poundland staff are awful, very low grade, so I can't even imagine what the poundworld staff are like.

I know this was a wryly-meant post, but FWIW the staff in my local Poundworld are actually pretty good, and slightly better than the Poundland across town.  Although the people in the 99p Stores that then got converted into a second Poundland before being shut down were the best of the three.

Hilarious to know that they do that cardboard policeman thing everywhere though.  I just thought it was a local affectation.


The biggest beef I have with my local Poundworld is that the receipt printers are all totally fucked, so many pins missing that you struggle to read everything as your receipt comes out like some sort of surreal barcode.  Each till has the same problem, just in different places.  Oh, and they don't do cheap DVDs like Poundland do.  But for most other things I go in there for (chiefly medicines) they seem better than their Land equivalent (more tablets per pack, better deals, etc.)

[MuteBanana]

I had to show ID when buying a craft set that included a pair of simple card cutting scissors. 25 I was.

[Replies From View]

Has there ever been a pond world?  Would it be a world to buy ponds, or a world of ponds in which it's really difficult to buy washing machines and fridges and stuff, because of all the ponds?

Or I suppose a world in which ponds are currency?  That sounds a bit of an odd idea though.

[Sebastian Cobb]

My local poundland has a security guard sometimes, which I find really depressing as you've either got tonne incredibly desperate or have a frightful lack of ambition to steal from a poundland.

[Goldentony]

The cardboard snouts are up here too but you get them in pounds World & Land aswell as Home & Bargain. It's weird seeing them in the shop but then you often get the ones that are stuck to the windows. Like I don't know who the fuck that could fool apart from people with wall eye like the guy in Hot Shots but it seems as useful as that security dummy Carlton buys in Fresh Prince which I think Uncle Phil fucks out of a car window