‘I have to try this,’ cry shoppers as Lidl customer reveals how trick can hack supermarket trolleys if you forget coin
ONE woman has answered Lidl shoppers prayers with her nifty life hack for those impromptu food shops when you’ve forgotten your £1.
Sophie Valentine, a mum who goes by @lookinsidemygarden on Instagram shocked her fans when she resorted to using a key instead.
A recent clip shows the influencer force her house key into the slot usually reserved for pesky £1 coins that customers often fail to bring.
She’s seen pushing her Yale key into the opening with a bit of force and this unlocks the mechanism, giving her full access to the trolley.
Sophie wrote: “I can’t believe this worked… Does anyone else get to the supermarket and forgot your coin?
“Or like me your special coin sometimes doesn’t work? So I thought I would try my luck and BOOM we’re in!
“Now I can fill my trolley with 26,000 snacks for another week of the holiday munches!”
Customers raced to the comments to thank her for sharing the trusty life hack.
One said: “Wonderful tip! Thanks for sharing. I usually keep a token or a £1 coin with me, but sometimes I don’t bring it in.”
Another added: “Game changer”.
However, not everybody was impressed – and some thought she was asking to break her keys.
Someone penned: “Seems like a good way to end up with no trolley coin and no key!”
Another joked: “Hahaha some people now have fingerprint recognition to open their house door. Good luck.”
But others offered some helpful advice: “use the round side of the key” and “you can do it with the other end of your key too – shouldn’t damage the key teeth then”.
A few years ago we reported that you could even use two 20p coins in place of a £1 to trigger a trolley open.
Usama Shamsan has discovered that by placing two 20p pieces on top of each other, you can trick a trolley’s money mechanism into thinking you’ve inserted a pound.
He posted a video of his supermarket hack on social media with the caption: “When it’s hard times and you don’t have a pound.”
The video racked up nearly 3,000 likes and was shared a whopping 66,00 times.
But hacks like these have been criticised as supermarkets use £1-coin trolley locks to stop them rolling away as well as being pinched by vandals and thieves.