Shopper hides €60 salmon behind fridge after regretting purchase

Forum user admits hiding €60 salmon behind Mercadona fridge

The incident has three acts and one victim. A customer ordered a whole salmon, cut into medallions, at a Mercadona fish counter. Upon seeing the receipt—nearly €60—he decided he didn't want it. However, since the fish was already processed and bagged, he neither returned it nor alerted staff. Instead, he tossed it over a refrigerated display case so it would fall out of sight, waiting to rot. The author recounts this with internal amusement, ending with a warning: "With this system where I order what I want and only pay at checkout, I could cause chaos in supermarkets... It's flawed; they need to fix it."

This episode, circulating online with images allegedly of the perpetrator, has triggered a broader discussion about bulk buying models in fish counters and who bears the cost when customers change their minds late.

Why the salmon cost €60 and couldn't be returned

The first misunderstanding concerns price. Several comments suggest the customer failed to check the weight on the scale before approving the cutting process. Some users note that if you ask for a specific euro amount, the fishmonger calculates the weight for you. One user estimates that farmed salmon costs around €25 per kilo, meaning a 2.8kg specimen naturally hits that price point without any irregularities.

The second misunderstanding is logistical. Once cut, the product cannot be sold as a whole piece again; it doesn't go back on display. This turns any regret into shrinkage absorbed by the store. Reasonable alternatives—such as ordering half a salmon (which applies the same discount) or asking for weighing before cleaning—were repeatedly mentioned in the thread as obvious solutions that were ignored.

The hiding spot behind the fridge and its aftermath

The third act transforms an anecdote into a case study. The fish wasn't left in a box, handed to an employee, or abandoned in a visible freezer chest. It was thrown "high and backwards" over a refrigerated shelf, hoping it would slip behind. The predictable result: a rotten fish smell the next day and a cleaning crew searching for the source.

Here enters the perspective of the shift manager, who typically earns a standard salary and lacks the margin to improvise. Their day begins with an unidentified stench, continues with CCTV review—mostly to rule out employees rather than catch customers—and ends with product removal and area disinfection. The cost isn't borne by the person who threw it.

Who absorbs the loss and what the payment system implies

Self-service with final payment is convenient but also generates invisible shrinkage. Customers can pick up items, change their minds, and leave without friction; stores only discover the damage when the product is worthless. While cameras can identify perpetrators, the usual response isn't legal action but absorbing the loss and increasing surveillance.

Some argue the system is poorly designed and encourages errors; others counter that simple mechanisms exist—weighing first, ordering by euros, splitting the piece—that prevent such issues.

Farmed salmon and background noise

Parallel to the incident, the discussion shifts to the product itself. Several messages note that supermarket farmed salmon is cheaper and more consistent in quality than local fishmongers, while traditional markets only win when selling wild-caught fish. Others highlight traceability and yield loss during cleaning: removing head and bones reduces weight, and this net weight appears on the ticket.

The debate on whether fish is deceptive intersects with older arguments about self-service scales removed due to fraud. Some chains have eliminated them, forcing weighing at checkout, which reduces theft but removes customer pre-verification.

The bill no one signs

The author hasn't paid the €60, hasn't apologized, and left no voluntary trace. The store lost the product, the manager lost a morning, and the next customer lost trust in the cleanliness of the display. The most disorienting fact is that the protagonist himself admits the system is "flawed" and should be corrected. He says this immediately after exploiting it.