Visited my local Sam’s Club (Like Costco, one of those warehouse places) today, and as I waited in line to get out of the place, I got to thinking. Employees (they get paid to do this!?!) stop customers who are leaving and take their receipt, compare it with what’s in the cart and mark it with a yellow highlighter. Then you leave the store and go about with your life.
What’s with this? Has anyone ever tried to leave the store without stopping? (I almost did so, since I way in a hurry…to get home and open up the 4 pound bag of pistachio nuts I’d just bought…but in a hurry non the less.) Could they legally stop you from trying to leave without having their employee mark your receipt?
It saves you money; double-checking each item stops losses.
At least I think that’s the reason.
I used to frequent a Sam’s Club that had the same door as the entrance and exit but only one person staffing it. So on busy days, one would have to wait in line three times. Wait in line to get in, wait in line to get checked out, wait in line to have your receipt scanned. And that was if things went smoothly. If they noticed an item missing from your cart or on your receipt, you would have to wait in line AGAIN. Once we were leaving with a cartful of BBQ stuff (hamburgers, hotdogs, buns, condiments, paper plates, napkins, soda) and the receipt-checker noticed that I had paid for two packs of hotdog buns I didn’t have in my cart. I had already waited in line for 30 minutes and this woman actually directed me to another line… My face turned beet red. I said, “Thank you, keep the change. I am NOT standing in line again.”
I wrote a letter to the manager of the store… It did no good.
Part of it I think is to make sure you aren’t stealing anything. They do it at Superstore up here as well, but not usually. There are signs saying that you can be stopped so have your receipt handy…
Best Buy does this too. I’m sure it’s legal. They’re trying to prevent theft. It kind of spooks me, though, and is one thing I don’t like about Best Buy.
My guess is that Best Buy, SAM’s, Costco, et al have pretty slim margins and theft hits their bottom line proportionally harder than other stores selling similar merchandise at higher prices that don’t check.
I was in Wal-Mart once, and they were doing that, checking peoples’ receipts. There were people waiting to have theirs checked, and I said, the hell with this, I’m not waiting in line to prove I paid for everything, and went around them and out the door. Screw 'em.
Usually when I go to Costco they are pretty careless about checking my reciepts. Half the time they don’t even look, just highlight away. I have noticed that if I go with a friend of mine who is a black male in his early 30s, they scrutinize the receipt. I swear they look at every item in our cart and check it off. I can’t believe how differently I am treated there when I am with him. (I am a white female in my mid 20s).
I’ve noticed this at Costco, BJ’s, and Walmart… and I have the same issues with this policy. The way I see it, they want me to wait in line for one of the following reasons:
[list=A]
[li]I have something in my cart I didn’t pay for, which means they don’t trust me no to steal from them or they don’t trust their cashier to do their job, or[/li]
[li]I paid for something I don’t have in my cart, which means they don’t trust their cashier to do their job.[/li][/list]
And, to add insult to inury, the checker at the door usually doesn’t even look at the items – they just initial the receipt and wave me through. So, I should wait in line simply to get your autograph? Excuse me?
In all seriousness, why should I shop at a store which either doesn’t trust me (even though they’ve probably made me go through a screening/application process in order to become a member) or doesn’t trust their staff (whom they’ve also presumably screened)?
Does this actually stop theft/prevent losses? Has it been proven to save us money? Or does it cost us money, in the form of an extra salary to a useless employee position?
Wal-mart and their ilk just make their employees work off the clock, instead of paying overtime or hiring enough workers, so it probably is not costing that much more to do this. I do not shop at any Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club because or their unfail labor practices, now I have yet another reason not to shop there.
I figure it’s the price of a bargain. Warehouse stores have too few employees and too much merchandise to keep a good eye on things all over the store. The door is the choke point where they can catch you if you are stealing.
Can someone explain the labor saving theory at work with this “double carding” that goes on at these places?
They check your membership card as you walk in. Okay, I can understand that, I guess, though it puts me right off, for reasons similar to what’s been said earlier in the thread; it seems a bit like implying right off the bat that they don’t trust you.
But, whatever. Move along.
Then, they wanna check your card before they’ll ring up your purchases at the register. Umm, huh? How could I possibly be in the store without a card? Okay, so fine, you don’t trust the guy at the door, even though you pay him to check cards at the door. Wouldn’t firing him and eliminating his needless paycheck be both cheaper and more customer friendly?
I don’t get it.
And I’ll just “me too” on the receipt comparison. When did I have time to whip out the TV I hid in my jockstrap, and place it in the cart with the items I did pay for, that you could have missed it? You’re standing a whole six feet from the registers.
I’m all for equal opportunity employment, but maybe the guy you hire to guard the exit should be required to be able to see more than 2 feet in front of him, yeah?
[sub]And I think there’s a paradox at work with the idea of “can’t get in without a card” but “must come inside to get a card.”[/sub]
At the nearby Costco, you don’t need a card to get in. They don’t check that. They do check at the cashier’s and I know they check when going out. (I applied to work there, but stuff happened and I was unable to. It might have been a decent job.)
They don’t exactly check the card at our local Costco; all you have to do is flash it (the card, not your body).
But here’s why. At Costco, there are different levels of membership, something like Gold, Platinum, and so on, each costing a different amount per year. One of the perks of the more-expensive memberships is that you get to get into the store earlier - there are slightly different business hours for them.
Still, you have to wait to get in, because people line up well before the place opens. Then it’s mobbed when you’re in there, no matter what time it is. And the lines for checking out? Worse than the worse grocery store. And then, as noted throughout this thread, another line for getting your receipt checked.
About a year ago I was shopping at a large electronics store ( which shall remain nameless) for some small items and a router for my home network.
While checking out, I bumped into an old friend and we kept up our conversation throughout the process of me paying for my items and getting the receipt checked at the door.
It wasn’t until I got home that I noticed the total seemed rather small and double-checked everything. Yep, they never rang up the router. I have no idea why the “receipt-checker-guy” did not catch this, I only had four or five items. Also, what would have happened if he did catch it? Do I automatically go to the clink? Do I have to spend money and time on lawyers and courts?
I would have thought that if you had paid for something, you could not be detained for any reason unless there was grounds for believing you had committed some crime like shoplifting.
Once you have paid for something its yours, and you must be free to go.
One of my duties with my relatively new job as a caterer (working for a small catering company–3 employees total–working on contract to cater lunches for the staff of two television shows) is to do the weekly shopping. Stop number one for me is always Costco, where I spend about an average of $600 every week.
I think astro hit it on the head there–it’s the price you pay for the bargains you’re getting. If I were to have to go anywhere else to buy the amount of food and supplies that I needed to purchase every week, you’d better believe I’d be spending another $200-300 extra, easily. We’re running a business, and every penny we can pinch is worth it, even if it means I get held up for 30 seconds as the guy at the exit checks my receipt.
I believe they check those receipts not necessarily for the large, high ticket items–they can easily see that you’ve purchased a TV or a computer–but that you paid for all those little things you bought along with your big screen TV, because that’s where the money is really going to be lost. Also, because it is such a huge warehouse, how can they keep track that you actually made those purchases–if they didn’t have those guys at the door, do you realize how easy it would be to just walk out with anything?
Costco themselves are just trying to run a business–they’re perfectly entitled to check receipts out the door, even if they’re sure that 98% of the people leaving are honest. It’s that 2% that they’re worried about. If you’re uncomfortable with that, then fine. No one’s twisting your arm to shop there.
Oh, come on. That’s just BS. The customer service/membership desks are right out there in front. When you want to walk in to purchase a membership, that’s all you have to say. What’s the big deal with that? Besides, you really don’t need the card to get in–you need the card to make your purchases.
I’ve also seen busy cashiers slide merchandise through a scanner so quickly that they didn’t notice when an item didn’t scan properly.
And at Crappy Tire once, things got so busy that they had two bagging lines for every one cashier. Evidently, one of my bags ended up in the hands of another customer. There was no “receipt checker.” Since it was such chaos, I double checked my bags myself before leaving the store. The expensive cordless phone I’d was in the missing bag and on its way home with someone else!
The cashier was a total bitch and said “well, what do you expect me to do? I don’t have it.” But the management was good about it. I expected them to be dubious and want to check my car or something. They just went and got me another phone.
So in big warehouse stores that are so busy, it does make sense to help protect the store and the consumer. However, as StephenG pointed out, if the cashier’s job is to be sure that all items in the cart are rung through correctly the first time, the receipt checker shouldn’t be necessary.
JavaMaven1: You know, there are a lot of decaffeinated brands on the market that are just as tasty as the real thing.
IOW: That last bit was a joke. Relax.
[sub]And I still maintain that if you need the card to get in, you shouldn’t need to dig it out again to check out. Unless maybe you’ve got blue fur, yellow eyes, and a pointy tail.[/sub]