cosmosdan do you work at BB?
Hells NO!! I worked at Sears and Circuit city in the Computer Dept. The big box stores got worse IMHO as time went on and now I work at a privately owned music store with an amazing staff.
A while ago we went around on this topic, and it was finally agreed that in CA the people at the door do NOT have a legal right to detain you, even if you have set off their machine that goes, “BEEP”. Soon after that, I blew through a Best Buy receipt-check line, much to the “what a jerk” attitude of the employee. Eh. I can leave, and as long as I don’t yell at you, your response is your own problem.
http://www.die.net/musings/bestbuy/
Also, you can follow the links to some other relevant stories.
The part about how your co-worker would get written up if you didn’t sign up for magazines. I’ve never worked anywhere that you could get written up if your co-workers don’t buy something from you.
Thats a very interesting link. At a Wal MArt in Maine a woman and her son were detained by store employees because they thought her son was a cronic shoplifter who was legally restrained from being on the premises. They were wrong, they got sued, she got $5000.
I wonder what the laws are in TN. I do see it from both sides. Once it becomes common knowledge that it is illegal to stop people and check their purchases then you can bet all the shoplifters will be doing exactly that. Refusing to stop. There was a chronic shoplifter at Sears who set the company up to arrest her falsely so she could then sue them. I think many honest customers full of righteous indignation have no clue what stores go through with shoplifting and other scams. Cooperating with stores efforts to prevent loss is one way to prevent higher prices and other changes.
I’ve said it before, I’d like to see the return of smaller specialty stores. In some stores like Office Max and Office Depot the answer was to lock up most of the merchandise so that you had to be helped by an employee for many items. That won’t make things cheaper or easier so customers who refuse to help stores prevent theft because they demand their rights can take some credit for the changes that will come.
No, seriously, the thieves will get the credit for driving the stores to desperate measures. I didn’t affect the bottom line of the store one whit.
No, no. There’s a quota that we’d have to meet (at that store anyway) and she was consistently not meeting it. I signed up for her so that she wouldn’t get a performance evaluation (write up).
The bottom line No. Store policy and how that affects the shopping experience yes, you affected that.
If stores decide that checking purchases doesn’t work because they’re getting sued or because they can’t really stop anyone who just refuses to cooperate then they’ll have to try something else. Locking up items so that people have to ask for them and get help makes some things less convenient. In some stores you can get ink off the shelf and take it to a cashier. In other stores you have to ask someone to get your ink for you. That’s the kind of thing that is affected.
People who shoplift or commit fraud usually know where the boundaries are and the indignant shopper routine is often used to divert attention from their offense.
Let me see- I am either a customer, or a shoplifter- I go through the check-out, and the dude at the door asks to check my reciept. How on earth does this “prevent theft”? :rolleyes: Do you think that a shoplifter has their stolen merchandise out there in plain sight? Ya think the dudette at the checkout counter might have noticed somebody just pushing their cart through her lane full of goods but not stopping to pay? :dubious: So- tell me, oh wise one- how does this “prevent theft”? 
Shoplifters usually have the goods concealed, FYI.
Not necessarily.
Shoplifter purchases items. Shoplifter then does not exit store, but rather goes back in to browse / find family / forgot something … doesn’t really need a good excuse. Shoplifter slips additional item into bag or, if smart, swaps out for upgrade.
An attentive, alert receipt checker can catch that (not that most of them are either, but play along). Shoplifter, aware that someone will be checking, either decides not to shoplift or gets caught.
Of course, that’s just one method of shoplifting. Some will conceal items on their person, some will pull return fraud like a certain Bush appointee, others will pull a multitude of alternate scams.
So, if I can prevent one avenue of shoplifting, but not the others, should I not even try to prevent the one?
Well, oh sarcastic but still completely wrong one, stores figured out a long time ago that most theft occurs from within, or at least with help from within. If a cashier is ringing up only a part of their accomplices items then checking packages will catch it or really discourage it.
Also, we have always been told that the best way to discourage shoplifting is by being present. Some professional shoplifters won’t be discouraged by this checkpoint, but having one more place you have to stop and deal with store personnel will discourage others, which is the goal. Nobody is expecting a checkpoint to eliminate theft completely.
Thanks for the shoplifting tip though. After a couple of decades in retail you’d a thought I woulda known that.
Here’s another trick I seen. A shoplifter wads up a bag in their pocket and comes in. Perhaps with an old reciept. Puts an item in the bag and heads for the door.
This is also part of a return scam.
“I’d like to return this, I got it as a gift so I don’t have a reciept.”
or as Bush’s cabinet member did, get the same item you have a reciept for and get a refund for the one you just picked up of the shelf.
[quote=“mailman, post:20, topic:347889”]
[QUOTE]
It rives me
Oddly enough, there is a slang word around here (okay, it’s an OG term) for when you’re at your wit’s end or someone is on your last nerve but there’s nothing you can do about it: “drove.” Used for every tense – I was drove, you were drove, he would have to have been drove.
PS: rive gauche?
Zombie rive drove gauche
We had PINs for our credit cards in New Zealand more than 12 years ago.
FIRE! Kill it with FIRE!
No you fool, then you’ll just have a flaming zombie running around. Shoot it in the head.
I thought a Flaming Zombie was a regular Zombie topped with 151 rum which was then set aflame?
No no no …
Regular zombie: Brrraaaiiinnssssssssss
Flaming zombie: Brrraaaiiinnththththththth
Best Buy zombie: “Extended warrantyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy”