A money-savvy dad-of-seven has taken the rather unusual step of getting his Tesco Clubcard permanently inked onto his arm. Dean Mayhew kept forgetting to take it with him when he visited the supermarket, but now won’t need his wallet at all.
The 30-year-old scaffolder visits his local Tesco store up to three times a day, and regularly found himself having to pay more because he forgot his loyalty card.
But now, Dean can’t forget to take his card with him after getting the QR code for his Clubcard tattooed on his right forearm in a drastic move to save cash on his shopping.
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The shopper said he thought about the tattoo for several months before deciding to go under the needle, and finally bit the bullet on July 16 - and it works perfectly under the scanner at the till.
Dean said: “People just say that it’s typical me – sometimes I’m not the cleverest of guys but they’ve said that for me, it’s pretty genius. I’ve got seven kids and I’m in there all the time - probably three times a day I’d say.
“I’ve been thinking of getting [the tattoo] for the last three to four months. Every time I go in there they ask if I’ve got my Clubcard but it’s always at home or I’ve lost it."
Dean, from Horsham, Sussex, spent half an hour getting the tattoo at A Star Tattoo in Chessington, Surrey. He and his tattoo artist - Dan Rossetter, 39 - then visited the local Tesco Express to find out if it worked.
“I tried the self-checkout but it was quite awkward to use because I wasn’t doing it right so I said 'let me go to the guy on the till' – I went up there and it worked. He couldn’t believe it,” said Dean.
"Every time I go in there they’re shocked and it’s good to see people’s faces. I could use the one on my phone but I want to use the one on my arm as it’s funny.
“Anything you can do with a normal Clubcard I can do with my arm. The tattoo is still in the healing process at the moment and still scabby. I don’t know if it will still work when it’s healed but I don’t see why it wouldn’t. I don’t regret stuff - I’m not one of those people.
"I don’t think it looks bad - I think it looks pretty cool.”
Tattoo artist Dan said it’s the first time he’s seen someone have a loyalty card tattooed.
He said: “I’ve been tattooing for 12 years so I’ve seen lot but I’d never seen a Tesco Clubcard as an idea before. At first I said ‘are you sure you want to do this’, but I saw the fun within it and thought ‘let's do it’.
“I was anxious about how well it was likely to work as it's an intricate bar code but Dean was quite relaxed about it and was going for the fun aspect – he said if it didn’t work it wasn’t the end of the world.
“I did the tattoo and we decided to pop to Tesco down the road – we went to the self-service checkout but because of the way the scanner is situated he couldn’t get his arm flat enough and we thought it didn’t work.
“We went to the till and a person with a scanner tried and on the first go it worked, Dean’s face lit up and I realised it actually did work.
“I think I’m always quite a fun outgoing type of guy anyway so it was a bit of banter and there is the element of it being a genius idea – it's not something I would have come up with off the top of my head, to be honest I thought it was quite cool.”
Dean also admitted that he has considered getting a Nectar card for when he shops at Sainsbury's - because he often forgets that too.
“I did think about getting another one but that’s a whole other thing," he said. “I quite often go between Sainsburys and Tesco's and I forget that card too – I'd get my Nectar card tattooed on me.
“I’d probably get it on the same arm, just above the Tesco one really – I've already got one so why not get the other. I wouldn’t say it’s a clever idea but it’s just one of those things – it's funny and it would definitely be useful.
“I did try and have a look on the internet and I reckon I’m the only person – I tried to find someone else with them and no one else has got them, I’d be the only person with both.”
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