There was a thread a while ago asking if it’s legal for store employees to demand to see your merchandise and receipt as you leave the store. But I’m too lazy to go look for it.
I have the teevee on in the background, and Extra is on. They just had a segment that said unless you were told of the store’s policy in advance, you don’t have to stop. The “reporter” was told that he agreed to the search when he signed up for his Costco card. After reviewing the application, no such clause existed. They did find it on the last page of a 20-page pamphlet (not the application).
Don’t be treated like a criminal! If they don’t tell you on the way in that you are giving up your right to privacy, keep walking!
At Sam’s Club (at least the one in Duluth, MN) they check your receipt as you’re leaving. They have that little bit of information posted right on the door as you’re entering though.
If someone at Wal-Mart or something tries to stop me, I’ll gladly stop. Sure, when they discover I haven’t stolen anything or “forgotten” to pay for anything, odds are I’ll make a big scene, but I’ll stop for them nonetheless.
Whenever I am stopped (usually at Sam’s), they just make sure you do have a receipt. They mark it with a highlighter and you keep walking. I’ve never had them actually compare the receipt to the merchandise I was walking out with. It is so minor it is not even an inconvenience. And if it makes them feels safer, fine.
Theuy check your recepit at Best Buy (aka corporate death-hole) if you are a minority. They don’t carea bout white people. Just miroritys. Funny thing becuz the guuy who was LP (loss prevention)( was a black guy. Nice duble satndard.
–Tim who used to work at Beset Corporate Death Hole so he knows first hand
I agree that it is a minor incovenience. But so is a mosquito bite. The implication is, “We don’t trust our customers.” I was raised to be honest and not a criminal. I resent being treated as a potential shoplifter. So while I understand that it is a very little thing in terms of my time – mere seconds – I resent the implication that I would steal.
I don’t like it either, for the same reasons as Johnny L.A. I never minded at Costco…in fact I barely noticed. I assumed it was part of the same rigamarole as the membership cards and all that. But when they started doing it at Home Depot and other stores, too…grrr!
Yeah, and why do they need cashiers if they trust us as customers? They should just have a deposit box. But having a cashier check you out means they don’t trust you and make you feel like a criminal!
Thanks to the fact that shoplifters was under customers…my eyes jumped a line & read it as “we don’t trust our shoplifters”…ooops! sure you can trust shoplifters - to lift as much as possible!
Do any of the american stores have the system where you just zap the barcode & pack as you go along, then just present the zapper at the till? It saves a lot of time at the supermarket!
If you are a shoplifter, then you are not one of their customers. That’s what the receipt check is for, to see which one you are.
The practice can be helpful if you are an absent-minded goober. Last time I went to Costco, I bought a bean load of expensive wood flooring. It was my intention to buy 12 boxes and when I went through checkout, the cashier scanned one of them and I simply told her that I had twelve all together so she hit the “quantity = 12” button and rang me up accordingly. On my way out, the receipt check person eyeballed my purchase and since the total was so large (almost $500), she decided to count how many boxes I had. To my surprize I had only loaded ten boxes on my cart, even though I told the cashier to ring me up for 12.
It’s curious, I was thinking as I read everyone’s responses what bothers some, and won’t bother others. Sam’s checking when I leave, I don’t care, other than when the line is long. Wal Mart bugs me a tad, but they don’t usually do it. They were worse up in Lynchburg, where my son goes to college. Apparently they think college kids are worse thieves.
BUT, I was in a Christian bookstore and a black customer came IN the door and the security thingies went off and they practically threw the guy on the wall searching him. It turned out to be just a special key on a keyring that he had. But, they were so blasted hateful to him, that I vowed I wouldn’t shop there again, and I haven’t. My own weird version of a double standard, I guess. :rolleyes:
One of the newer Winn-Dixie stores tried that for awhile - the self-checkout, if that’s what you mean (ring up your own groceries and walk to the exit with a “receipt” and pay the cashier there, correct?). But they found that 1) the system was prone to breakdown (mis-scanning or unreadable scans where an employee had to come over and reset the machine) and 2) too many people were not ringing up everything they were purchasing (or ‘purchasing’, if you will). So they went back to the regular cashier-rings-up-your-purchase system.
Nice experiment, but too far ahead of its time and too many dishonest people.
Trust customers? More like, we don’t know you, so therefore, we don’t trust you.
Look, theft causes prices to rise. The fact that they do this stuff helps prevent theft and keeps prices down-I’m all for it!
If you’re an honest person, and you don’t steal, you shouldn’t be offended.
At Target they have a sign up when the guy is there checking. It’s just on weekends. I don’t mind, because it’s in the old part of town where a lot of shops blamed their closings on shoplifting losses.
That reminds me of a scene in a movie. The Gestapo is interrogating a prisoner, who is professing his innocence. “Iff you are innozent, zen you haff nossing to fear!”
Or to put it another way, people in this country are “presumed innocent unless proven guilty”. Having an exit search is saying that everyone who exits the store is presumed guilty unless he proves himself innocent.
Well, if you are so sensitive just don’t go to the stores you don’t like. Doesn’t it bother you that they have cashiers? Doesn’t that mean they don’t trust you? Why is one check OK and two is not?
Yes we are presumed innocent by the government in a criminal trial and that is quite irrelevant here.
Do you also feel offended when they make you go through a security check at the airport or government building? I mean, they they are considering the possibility that you may be a terrorist, not merely a thief. Do you refuse to do that?
You are free to shop where you please and the store is free to set themselves up as they please. Maybe if you opened a store you could save a lot of labor if you just opened the doors to the warehouse and let people take whatever they want without any control and send you a check at the end of the month? This way you could keep prices low with all the savings in labor and such.
The fact is people shoplift and any measures to prevent this will benefit me in the form of lower prices.
In any form of business transaction verifying and checking cannot be considered an insult. Do you count the change when they give it to you? Don’t you trust them?
It does strike me as ironic that the ones that express most outrage about these things are usually those most likely to be guilty. There was a Safeway store here in DC in a poor neigborhood and several times they wanted to close it because they were losing money. But, every time, there would be pressure from neigborhood groups to keep it open. The usual things came up, “we sell little, we have a lot of shoplifting, we don’t make a profit and we’d rather go to the beach”. The usual neigborhood groups would accuse them of racism because the neigborhood was mainly black and they were being accused of shoplifting etc. Nobody said “yeah, we live in a crappy neigborhood full of shoplifters that drive busineses away”. All the blame was on the store.
Finally there was a hold up and someone was shot and the store finally closed down. If the neighborhood groups would help prevent shoplifting and help the store be profitable, the store might still be there. But they chose to fight the store and accuse them of racism etc.
You need to some perspective folks.
I’ll try to keep this as simple as possible.
Theft=rise in prices=bad
Stores can NOT be compared to Hitler or Nazi Germany. Aren’t you intelligent enough Johnny LA to make better arguments than that?
In the best interest of YOU the consumer, the stores have decided to tighten security.
Security=fewer thefts=lower prices=good
Is it a minor inconvience? Perhaps. But are you so important and in such a great hurry you can’t spare 2 minutes.
So, one more time. All together now!
Theft=rise in prices=bad
Security=fewer thefts=lower prices=good
Now what was that sig line about “sarchasm”? This isn’t the pit, and insulting my intelligence is out of line here. (Geez, I can be cranky before coffee!) As a matter of fact, there have been several comedy routines comparing (insert consumer establishment here) with repression. There was a famous bit on teevee about the “Soup Nazi”, Monthy Python had a lot of fun with our black-clad friends, etc. I wasn’t making an argument, I was trying to be funny (I guess I failed).
Yes, catching shoplifters means that stores don’t have to raise prices to cope with “shrinkage”. But I don’t think everyone who enters the store should be treated like a thief. Most people aren’t. I’m one of those people who point out that a cashier has given me too much change. Some people would keep the extra nickle, or the ten-dollar bill they received instead of the fiver they should have received. I can’t help it. I’m honest. And as an honest person, it bugs me to be treated as if I were not. We all have “pet peaves”, and this is one of mine.
As far as metal detectors in government buildings and airports, yes. They are irritating. Especially since I’m a guy and carry my keys and change in my pockets. And because I often wear hiking boots. And because sometimes the metal rin in my leg will set the machines off. It’s a hassle when I want to go to my bank (which is in a Federal building). But Federal buildings have been bombed and aircraft have been hijacked or blown up. I’ve never heard of anyone blowing up a Wal-Mart. Maybe we should have metal detectors in all of our stores to prevent people from coming in with guns and trying to rob them?
Exit searches bother me because I see them as an insult to my integrity. It doesn’t bother some other people. I think we should just agree to disagree on this point and be friends.
