Magdeburg
Kaufland: Video of eviction shakes people online
A Kaufland branch (symbolic picture). According to a customer, there has now been a racist incident in one of the chain’s stores.
© Uwe Koch / Eibner-Pressefoto / / Picture Alliance
A Kaufland customer actually only wanted to bring back milk that was said to have spoiled shortly after opening. When she wants to complain about the goods, she says she is racially insulted and assaulted. The group expresses itself tightly.
What Srruthi Lekha and her acquaintance experienced on New Year’s Eve sounds like a bad experience: Shortly before, they said they had bought a carton of milk in a Kaufland and drank from it. The milk tasted normal at first, but the carton was already swollen hours after opening it and storing it in the refrigerator. Soon afterwards, Lekha and her friend developed stomach pains that lasted for a few days.
Kaufland branch in Magdeburg: customer complains about spoiled milk and is attacked
When the two went to Kaufland again on January 5th and complained about the spoiled milk, they were initially only reimbursed for the purchase price. Lekha and her acquaintance disagreed with this: they wanted to understand why the milk was spoiled and have compensation for their illness. After a phone call, an employee offered them a 30-euro voucher, but, according to Lekha, suddenly withdrew the offer and instead replied that they should go to a lawyer. The employee apparently did not want to return the milk he had already received.
Even more: Then the employee began to be racially abusive. He aimed at the fact that Lekha obviously does not come from Germany and replied: “You are in Germany. You can’t talk like this. You are in Germany. You have to talk in our language.”
Incident at Kaufland: Security employee attacks the customer and pushes her out of the store
After that, the situation escalated completely: A security employee who was meanwhile also present expelled Lekha and her acquaintances from the shop. He attacked the Kaufland customers and pushed them several times, although Lekha and her acquaintance showed no resistance. These scenes can also be seen on a video that Lekha recorded and posted on Twitter.
Lekha says that she and her friend live near the Kaufland branch and have not experienced any problems there with several purchases a week. The situation shocked them so much that they can hardly imagine going shopping there again. Lekha emphasizes that she does not mean all Kaufland branches and employees by this. In this branch, however, she was very shocked by the behavior of the employees.
After the attack on the customer: The company does not apologize
It is unclear whether Kaufland can change this. The company recorded Lekha’s address and contact details in the incident, but has not yet contacted her personally. The only reaction the company posted on Twitter was a number of identical statements, which stated that the company was “colorful and diverse, that is exactly what defines us as a team”. The incidents should be dealt with “immediately internally”. The statement does not contain an apology.
When Kaufland asked whether the incident could be confirmed by the company, why the customer has not been contacted so far, what the processing of this case looks like and what specific measures there are in the company to protect the values such as “diversity, tolerance and openness” to ensure the received star just the same standardized answer that was published on Twitter.
Sources: Interview Srruthi Lekha, inquiry Kaufland, Tweet Kaufland