Horsham dad gets Tesco clubcard tattooed on his wrist

Dad-of-seven Dean Mayhew decided on the drastic action after missing out on a number of supermarket bargains after forgetting to take his clubcard with him.

Scaffolder Dean said: “I forget stuff all the time. I’m terrible for it.

"I’m a regular at Tescos, having so many kids. Something could cost £20 but if you have a clubcard it’s a tenner.

"But it’s not just about saving the money. It’s more like remembering to have it with me every day.

The tattoo was painstakingly created by tattoo artist Dan Rossetter, who lives near Dean in Faygate and works at A-Star Tattoos in Chessington.

"I’ve been tattooing for 12 years and in my whole time I’ve never been asked to do a bar code or QR code, let alone one for a Tesco supermarket,” he said.

"I was a little bit nervous because of how intricate a QR code is. I said I didn’t know if it was going to work, but Dean said just do it anyway.”

After finishing the tattoo the pair went straight to a local Tesco store where they tried to buy some biscuits at the self checkout using the arm-inked QR code.

But the angle of Dean’s arm meant that he couldn’t get it to scan. "It was too difficult,” said Dan, who is more used to tattooing tigers, gorillas and other animals on the bodies of professional footballers.

"We went to a guy on a till, he scanned Dean’s arm – and it worked straight away. It was brilliant.”

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And it was no fluke. Dean now regularly flashes his tattoo at Tesco checkouts at Broadbridge Heath – and wherever else he happens to be.

"I went to north Devon the other day to see my family there. I went into Tesco and the woman on the till said ‘You are joking’ when I held my arm out for her to scan it.

"It worked and she said: ‘You just made my day’.”

Dan, who has several other tattoos on his body – “I’ve got loads,” he says – now plans to get his Sainsbury’s Nectar card also tattooed so that he doesn’t miss out when shopping there.