So, who would have thought, **catsix **is the kid’s father. 
Need I point out the logical fallacy you display here? Nah, figure it out for yourself. Maybe your having to do a little work will make the education more effective. In the meantime, :rolleyes: .
I agree that this is a fair summary.
The ones who turned this into a big issue are the employees who pursued him into the parking lot, lied about their justification for demanding a search, and unlawfully detained him. If they had simply let him pass, no cops would have been involved.
Involving cops? If someone stood behind your car and refused to allow you to leave, would you stay there quietly as not to be a dick?
Oh I see, the kid should have let them searched the bag. So you would let them search your bags, pockets, purse, car, body cavities, or whatever else they wanted to in order to prove (explain to me why YOU have to prove you’re innocent) you did not shoplift? All this to not be a dick?
YIKES! From, “hey let me check the items you just bought against the receipt” to “okay you two guys each hold is ankles and spread them and you other two bend him of over the table. What do you think guys, with or without vaseline today?”
Just open the fucking bag, douchebag. Sure there’s no law saying you have to, but if you don’t and want to call the cops, go ahead. And if you choose to do so you win the title of Douchebag. Earned by your own actions. Now just stand still while we tatoo it onto your forehead as to not inconvenience you or the security guards or the cops the next time you buy a video game. SHEESH-A-fuckin-ROO!
C’mon. You know better than that. He didn’t call the cops as an alternative to opening the bag. He called the cops because he was being unlawfully restrained. The douchebags are the ones who pursued him into the parking lot, threatened to detain if he did not comply, and then acted on that threat.
Let me edit part of that for you…
“Just open the fucking bag, douchebag. Sure there’s no law saying you have to, but if you don’t and want to call the cops because the merchant decides to illegally detain you for failure to comply with a voluntary search, go ahead.” (emphasis mine).
I guess some people don’t mind being illegally restrained against their will by others. SHEESH-A-fuckin-ROO! indeed. So that’s where our rights are going.
Well, what is a store supposed to do? Allow people to leave who don’t wish to comply? Hmm, what do you think actual shoplifters would then, do? Comply? The simple check at the door, which grates on me sometimes because I just put the receipt in my wallet and now have my hands full, makes the shopping experience more pleasant for all of us. The alternative is to have MASSIVE surveillance so near all attempts to shoplift are caught on film and viewed before you leave the store. Either that or just have have the whole store operate on the honor system:
“Attention Shoppers: In our quest to make the shopping experience less onerous for you and to not offend any of our patrons’ delicate sensibilities, we are announcing the Best Buy Honor Code Shopping Experience. Just come into the stores, take what you want and send in your payment when you get home—either through mail or your computer!. We even put a convenient tax calculator at bestbuy.com so you can include that, too. Best Buy, eliminating security and cashiers for a more pleasant buying experience. Happy shopping!”
I witnessed an event that may add some fodder to this debate.
I generally pay my phone bill, in person, at a Jewelry store in the next town that accepts the payments in cash. Today there was a woman in there talking with the owner. He is the only guy ever minding the shop. As she went to leave, she had a little jar of metal cleaner in her hand. Now, she had just taken this from the owner, his hand to hers, turns to walk out and the owner says “do you want a bag for that ?” She says, “No I don’t want one as long as I don’t need one, I just don’t want to have to defend myself from shoplifting.” He laughed and she walked out.
Yes.
No.
Not for me.
Bullshit! Or more politely, cite? As a counter cite, I offer the vast majority of stores who DO NOT HAVE BAG CHECKS. Are they about to go under from rampant, uncontrolled shoplifting? How the hell can I shoplift something between the checkout and the exit door anyway? I suspect, but cannot prove, that the major impetus to check bags is the result of crooked employees who bag stuff without ringing it up, and I am not about to bend over and spread 'em because HR is falling down on the job.
It has been pretty well established that stores do not have the right to search and detain without probable cause. Status as a customer is not probable cause. if you don’t like it,lobby your legislature and have the laws changed.
The store broke the law, not the customer.
Absent probable cause, yes. Then ban them from the store.
Bah. Cameras, electronic sensors, secure merchandise cases, roaming security, crow’s nest…
How about this: if you want to leave without us offending you so horribly and peeking into your precious bag, go back to the register, return everything and then skip out the door as free and unencumbered as when you entered.
Fucking idiots like this are same the types of idiots that force companies to place all those asinine warnings on products. Here we can identify one in the act. They should take his picture and use it in a campaign. I can see the poster now plastered across the country. {Guys picture} This is the reason why each of you must now be escorted throughout the store by your own Persoanl Security Consultant.
The kid is simply a little asshole. Anyone who chooses the route he chose rather than—OH MY GOD—opening the damn bag is a person who has demonstrated skill in making assholish choices. And that, friends, makes him an asshole.
I would also like to add that I spent over twenty years in electronic security. The overwhelming majority of stealing is done by employees. From the checkout lady right up to the CEO. There are more theives in the employ of these people than will ever walk out of their store.
Comply with a voluntary search? Shouldn’t the ‘voluntary’ part clue you in to what the store is supposed to do?
Because the stuff belongs to the customer at that point, duly paid for. No take-backs. Neener neener.
Requesting a bag search is not offensive… not to me anyway. I comply when asked politely. However, the customer in this case, for whatever reason, did not want to comply, as was his right.
This is not a defective products case.
Too extreme.
The kid did nothing wrong and the merchant took it too far. The merchant is the asshole.
Isn’t this circular reasoning though? Isn’t the point of the bag check to make sure that the stuff does, in fact, belong to the customer?
WTF? Is there a conspiracy in this thread to exclude the middle? Give me a fucking break. If you wan to argue that a company shouldn’t care about shoplifting or that efforts to curtail it are counterproductive, knock yourself out.
I think you’re mainly right about this. So, tell me, is each and every security guard supposed to know by face each and every employee? How about the employees friends? Should he know them, as well. And are these people all allowed to be checked? I mean, these people, by your own estimation, are the ones that should be scutinized, so the innocent among us don’t have to be so horribly treated by having a stranger peer into a bag of our purchases.
What’s the infatuation with going from asking to peek into your bag to getting a cavity search? You guys need to, uh, get out more.
And I never said the kid broke the law. I said the kid was an asshole. Guess you could say he broke the first law of not being considered an asshole: He acted like an asshole.
It is the point of a bag check, but the merchant doesn’t have the right to a bag check absent probable cause.
So, how does the merchant know if you have stolen goods in your bag? Unless the merchant reasonably suspected he saw saw you take something without paying for it, then the merchant may never know what’s in the bag.
AM IK the only one who thinks that by asking, or requiring, that everyone gets checked that they are NOT assuming you are a criminal when they ask you. However, if they selectively asked you then, yes I can see the offense. I don’t know if it rises to the level of probable cause, but it seems to me that not agreeing to show your reciept, when everybody is asked, is actually a bit suspicious.
The only solution to make everyone happy would be, I guess, for the actual reciept to be printed at the exit. So the cashier gives you a reciept for your actual reciept. My question then is, suppose they did this and when you went to collect your actual reciept they asked to look in your bag before handing it over, would this be acceptable policy?
Or in your jacket, purse, etc., which is where stolen items are more likely to be.