Somebody educate me on the principle behind the check. Let’s say you are a criminal bent on stealing something from the store. How would you get the item past the cash register without paying for it? By concealing it on your person. If you know that your bags will be checked upon exit, woudn’t you continue to conceal it in the same manner until safely out the door?
I fail to see how bag checking will save the store a penny from shrinkage unless the criminals are so stupid as to put stolen items in it. RF detectors might, but not every item in the store is tagged, is it? Patting down each customer and X-raying bodies might do it, but not just looking at a receipt.
So, the only purpose of bag checking is intimidation of the customer, scaring him into thinking some kind of theft prevention system is in place, and encouraging him not to try and test it. Looks like this one wasn’t fazed or fooled by the ruse.
I agree that the employees were wrong to detain the guy but there are two sides to this equation and the customer was an equal willing participant who purposely pushed their buttons. In his mind it was to assert his rights. OKay. That doesn’t make him any less an equal participant.
I don’t think you can call him an equal participant. A jerk, maybe. But the difference between his acts and the employees is simple.
The employees exceeded their legal rights.
He did not. If you disagree, please explain to me, as I’d love to understand my mistake.
As I see it, the pleasantness of his act has nothing to do with whether the employees had a legal right to MAKE him show his receipt, and (related) a legal right to detain him if he did not do so (without calling the police).
Maybe he did push their buttons. But that, on its own, means nothing. Maybe I get offended when someone parks near my apartment. That certainly pushes my buttons. Does that mean you’re wrong to park on the public street? Does that mean I have a right to stop you doing so? If I push your buttons, does that give you a right to punch me? to physically restrain me? I think not.
I hope you see how these are different questions. How his participation may be worthy of emulation or scorn, but doesn’t change the fact that he had every right to do what he did, and the employees had no right to do what they did.
One of the reasons this offends me is that bag checking is really not meant to protect against shoplifters. It’s meant to protect against crooked employees.
It stops the person on the register for ringing up that plasma TV as a stick of gum (and later splitting the haul with the person who “buys” it).
So really, the reciept checking is making us into free corporate security for the store.
That’s why this offends me; I don’t feel any obligation (absent some inducement) to help the store with its own employee problems. (I also don’t feel any obligation to help it stop shoplifters, for many reasons, including my own liability, my time, but that’s another issue).
Different stores are in different neighborhoods and have different levels of shrink. Sometimes a store will go through a phase of high shrink and have to take extra measures to deal with it. There are groups of professional shoplifters out there that sometimes will move into an area until they are caught or feel they’re being recognized and move on.
One issue we had years ago at Sears was multiple cash registers in different departments and multiple exits and entrances in a mall store. Now in lots of stores there’s one central area to cash out. In general customers want their transaction to be as cheap as possible, hassle free, quick and convenient. It’s certainly reasonable to want that. The reality is that customers service and increased security cost the stores money and they are trying to find a balance for that while keeping prices competitive. Having trained long time employees is much more expensive than having more untrained young part timers but that increases shrink. The consumer has told merchants that price point matters most. I suppose stores could have less cashiers and security cameras on each one. Once the lines at the cashier increased people would start complaining but at least there’s no bag check to infringe on your rights. Perhaps we can go back to the service merchandise type of format where you see a display , pay for what you want, and then wait in line to receive your merchandise at a centralized location. No bag check infringing on your rights but a lot less convenient. No wait, that business model went belly up didn’t it. How about more membership type stores would that be better?
I’d rather not have bag checks because it irks me to be paying someone to just sit there when there’s other things that need to be done but loss prevention is a serious issues for merchants. I’ll accept that there may be a better way to do it but chances are it won’t be more convenient for customers.
I think the CC employees made a mistake too but I still think the guy was a bit of a jerk for continuing to play dumb instead of just having an open conversation with the manager in front of him. I deal with irate customers on a regular basis and the ones who show a little consideration for our position get a better response than the ones who are just out to serve themselves and basically have a “fuck you and your store” attitude. This guy had an “I’m right and I’m going to prove I’m right” attitude and seems to still be enjoying it.
Good points in response to my previous post, cos. Thanks. As you realized, I was essentially just suggesting that whether or not I personally would choose to comply with or resist this particular policy on any given day, has little bearing on whether or not this particular individual ought to have been able to exercise what he apparently considered a position worthy of the effort involved.
I’m not sure why Bearflag withdrew the civil rights analogy, other than the state vs corporate actor distinction. It was imperfect - sure, but so is just about every analogy. Which isn’t fatal so long as we are aboveboard as to the differences.
ISTM that society owes considerable debt to those who many would term “assholes”, because those are the types of people who cause generally accepted policies to be tested. Sure the Nazis were assholes for wanting to march in Skokie - but their actions highlighted important issues concerning free speech. Maybe a particular woman is irresponsible in the manner in which she got pregnant, but I’m not sure that ought to change whether or not she should be able to have an abortion.
Even tho CC is a private actor, I believe there are public policies underlying the actions that are worthy of examination. And the state got involved when the cops arrested the customer. Is this not analogous to Walgreens - a private entity - refusing to serve blacks, who were then arrested by cops? Why should I feel that I am properly positioned to call this customer an asshole for feeling his rights were being infringed upon by this transaction. Would any of you object to calling the lunch counter folk assholes because they could easily have just eaten someplace else?
Nobody’s saying he’s not a jerk; however, I’m still not sure if you’re disagreeing that, in this case, the guy WAS right about his legal situation.
Also, I agree completely that loss prevention is a serious issue and that stores need to do things to handle it. That’s legitimate. What I don’t like is the store taking up MY time without rewarding me. If you argued that stores with bag checks have lower prices than those without, comparing like to like(which I don’t think you do, and in my experience simply isn’t true), it would help your case.
To me, I’ll only let the store use my time if they agree to use the money they save to lower prices. Even if they MIGHT do that, I see no reason why they have to. If Circuit city wants to make me show my receipt, I want to make them lower prices with the savings, not increasing profits/opening more stores. If they want to ask for volunteers to show their reciepts with no such obligation on their part, that’s fine as long as I’m not obligated.
The problem I have is that the store wants to make me to carry out my half of this implied bargain without being willing to oblige itself to carry out its half.
I’m sorry I didn’t read this earlier–this is really where i have an issue with your point. I agree completely that politeness is a good thing, and that being polite gets you a “better response”. But in this case, I think this reasoning is totally inappropriate.
What is the “better response” in this case? Not being falsely and illegally detained?
If you’re saying I need to be polite in stores, or else they’ll break the law, I have a problem with your position.
I see how it makes sense to say “the store will be willing to cut me more slack with a return they don’t have to take if I’m polite”. I agree with that. That’s fine.
But there are NO CIRCUMSTANCES under which the customer’s behavior gives the store the right to break the law. That, to me, is fundamental. A bully’s viewpoint is “be nice to me, or else I’ll hurt you”. A negotiatior’s viewpoint is “be nice to me, and I’ll be nicer to you than I have to”.
I fundamentally feel that the store HAS to not violate the law no matter how the customer acts. Are you disagreeing with this?
I think there is broad consensus that the store violated the law (and is at least civilly liable) for restraining this guy without calling the police.
Being in retail I see the difference in customers who are very reasonable, have a legitimate problem, and have a rational adult discussion with me to find a solution, and those that don’t.
This customer says he purposely played dumb in order to try and prove some point about his rights. That’s his choice but I think that contributed to the escalation. If he had had an open discussion with the manager instead of playing dumb it might have been settled without calling the cops. I can respect his point about rights but not purposely pushing people’s buttons to prove it.
Perhaps a law suit will make CC and others give their employees better instructions on the bag check being voluntary but that also means that it soon becomes completely useless and others methods of loss prevention will have to be used. That’s okay. Those that are inconvenienced can take solace in the fact that their rights aren’t being violated.
I think point 2 above is an excellent question. In a link provided by another poster the policy is clear that only the bag with merchandise in it and the receipt is checked. I guess that’s where the line is drawn. Our government is now using security and scare tactics as a way of getting people to give up their rights and to justify violating them. Maybe that’s a more important area to focus our energies and courts time on rather than CC bag check. YMMV.
Let’s not confuse the issue. The customer called the cops, not the manager. The manager’s position would have more legtimacy (I still think it would have been inconsistent with legal rights, as there was no probable cause) if he had stopped the customer, called the police, and detained him solely to wait for the police. If the manager had had probable cause, he would then have been in the right, and the customer would have been wrong to resist.
In that case, I would agree that the customer’s jerkishness led to the cops resolving the situation.
That’s not what happened. The manager detained the customer, who called the police himself because he was being detained. The manager didn’t try to act in accordance with his legal rights.
I repeat my above question: Do you believe there is ANY case in which the store is justified in breaking the law because of the customer’s conduct? I posit that there are no such circumstances.
I explicitly rule out if the customer is violent (in which case, it’s self-defense, and the manager isn’t breaking the law), or the above hypothetical (in which case, again the manager isn’t breaking the law).
It appears his is but I think it’s on the edge and different judges might look at it differently.
He might be technically correct but a judge might not want to reward him if he sees him as a jerk.
Stores vary from neighborhood to neighborhood and some make more profit than others. There is no direct comparison between bag check and prices from one store to the other. Cooperating and giving up a few seconds of your time might mean they can keep a location that is convenient for you open. The reward might also be that they choose a quick bag check over some even less convenient method of loss prevention. Have you seen how more stores are locking things up and you have to get an employee to get your item, or you take a card for a certain item to the front and they have to get it for you. Unfortunately loss prevention usually means things are less convenient for the honest customers.
So, you wouldn’t give up a few seconds to help your local merchant without a reward of some kind?
I honestly see your point but I doubt you’ll see any direct connection like that. It may be that preventing more loss helps them to not raise prices which directly affects you. I used to work for CC and I’m glad I don’t now. The cooperate mind set is just too impersonal for me, but I know a little about how it works. Competition is such that profit margins are low. That makes theft an even more serious issue because you have to sell so much to make up for the loss of an expensive item. even on something as cheap as CDs. If CC is making $2 on every CD sold and they each cost them $10, when one is stolen they have to sell five just to break even.
There is a real cause and effect relationship between consumer needs and preferences and how the merchant reacts. The merchant has to maintain a reasonable profit in order to continue to offer the services they offer. It’s not usually easy for the customer to see all the factors that go into that.
It’s half being what exactly. Lowering prices, or did you mean something else?
It appeared to be creating a tangent discussion and I didn’t want to derail the thread and my brain was tired at the end of a long day.
In other words, it was just easier to withdraw it than deal with it. Withdrawing it only took a second or two and saved everyone a lot of potential trouble. Irony is fun.
First of all, thank you for making this such a fascinating debate; since I think we agree about many points (I’d quibble with you about judges-to me, their JOB is to protect people who are unsympathetic but legally right).
Your last comment is the one I want to really respond to. I agree that it’s hard to see a direct connection (though I think costco manages it-by being “members only” and having a lot of restrictions, they can cut a lot of costs. Members sign up because of the prices)
Let me explain what I mean by the “store’s half”: it only applies in a specific case.
If I voluntarily allow the store to search me, to see my receipt, then nobody has any obligation. I have no obligation to show them the receipt, they have no obligation to do anything in return.
If the store wants to COMPEL me to show receipts and be searched, because that’s more effective loss prevention and it lowers their costs, then absent an independent legal right to do so, the way they can justify that is through a contract or bargain.
I agree to let the store make me show my reciept and be searched, to give up my time and privacy to benefit the store. What does the store agree to do in return?
The answer is lowering prices. But that on its own isn’t enough. The store doesn’t have to. They could spend the money on keeping other stores open (which don’t benefit me), or their shareholders (AFAIK, I hold no CC stock). Neither benefits me.
My point is that I’m not OK with a case where the store can **make **me show my receipt (which helps them and burdens me), without letting me **make **them lower prices with the savings.
I agree that this is hard to put into practice. That’s why I think it won’t work, and the right answer is that reciept checks/bag searches are voluntary.
My point is that a one-sided obligation is not acceptable. If you’re willing to volunteer your receipt, that’s OK–that’s your decision. I’m not going to let the store TAKE my time to help its loss prevention without its promise that it will compensate me in return.
Sometimes I show my receipt. That’s voluntary. That’s fine. But if the store wants to MAKE me show my receipt, the only way they’ll do so is if they promise me something in return. CC wants to make customers show their receipt, to take their time without binding themselves to do “their half”, to give something in return. To me, that’s not OK.
As has been pointed out in this thread, most theft is done by employees. For instance, one employee will bring stuff to the register and the cashier, working in concert will ring up just some of the items while bagging all of them. This same thing can be done with a non-employee, someone workiing in cahoots with the person working the register: they ring up one or two items and put three or four in the bag.
If the store wants shoppers to voluntarily participate in their theft prevention practicies, they could offer some incentive to the shoppers. One possibility would be to offer a discount on future purchases to anyone who brings in a “checked” receipt from a previous visit.
My bottomline is that folks should be wary about deciding what other folks should or should not consider an intolerable intrusion or inconvenience, or worth taking a stand on. Unless, say, you are willing to let someone else make decisions about your behavior that that party doesn’t think is “all that big of a deal.”
In my view of society, individuals and organizations (both public and private) ought to be permitted to dictate the behavior of others only to the extent that they have been legally given that authority. Anything else depends upon agreement between the parties. Yes, there are countless instances in which the vast majority of folks do not “insist upon their rights” in order to make societal interactions smoother. Also, in countless instances individuals comply with relatively innocuous requests simply because they are not aware that they have the option of refusing. But that should not prevent any individual from deciding in any particular instance that he does not agree to a particular “shortcut” - no matter how appealing the other party’s concerns may be.
In this case I think the better response would have been to have a discussion with the manager in front of you instead of playing dumb and insisting on being technically correct. We deal with with real people in this world and should factor that in.
So, when he asked them to cite the law and they couldn’t {not that they should have even if such a law existed} he might have explained his thinking to the manager. I have customers who have more serious issues that apologize to me for being such a bother even when they entirely in the right {which I point out to them} It’s part of human interpersonal communication rather than the technicalities. Something like,
“So Joe, I understand that loss prevention is a serious issue for you folks but it really bothers me as a customer to have to stop and show my merchandise after I’ve paid for it. I’m not trying to hassle you or make your job more difficult but I feel it’s a violation of my rights to have to present on demand what now belongs to me. I believe the bag check is completely voluntary and maybe you should call your boss or district manager to find out before you illegally detain me and leave your company open to a lawsuit.”
or after explaining himself he might have allowed Joe to check his bag to show he was making a point about the bag check rather than being an actual shoplifter, and told Joe he was going to complain to CC management about how they train their employees.
I can’t say how the manager might have reacted but as a manager that would have let me know exactly what the customers position was and why.
No I’m not saying that. I’m saying interpersonal human communication varies greatly and sometimes finding a way to avoid an unpleasant confrontation is more of a victory than being technically correct.
I agree that no customer action or policy gives them the right to break the law but again we come to the reality of human reaction.
If a customer comes to me angry about something and starts cussing me or my employees out then my policy is to ask them to tell me their problem without the cursing and name calling. If they can’t the conversation is over and they are invited to exit ASAP. If they don’t and continue to loudly and profanely offend me and my other customers while disrupting my business what are my choices? Call the cops and wait to have them escorted out I suppose because legally I don’t think we can grab the asshole and escort them outside without being open to assault charges. IMO that’s what such a customer deserves.
Life isn’t always as clear as the technicality of the law or store policy.
If store policies are bothersome or objectionable let the store manager and home office know. As I said, it’s the crooks that make it harder for the store and the honest customer so much of the righteous indignation should be aimed at them, not the merchant.
In this case it will be interesting to see how a judge views it. The employee and manager made a point to not lay hands on the guy or accuse him of anything. I doubt standing in front of the car can be called unlawful detention but I’m wondering how not allowing him to close the passenger door will be seen. What might have happened if he had simply driven ahead slowly? Was he actually detained or simply inconvienienced? I don’t know. I hope we find out. Maybe an OHIO Doper will do the follow up and let us know. I think the court date is Sept 20th.
Look, if checking the bags is voluntary, it undercuts the measure’s effectiveness. In essence, you’re preventing the stores from using a technique they find effective. So, we can just leave your hypothetical about voluntary checks in the policies that do nothing department.
And how do you know that their cutting back on theft, allowing them to save money, doesn’t go to lower prices? How do you know that? Oh it might, huh? But you want a special discount for showing your receipt. Well, we’re back at the useless policy of voluntary checks point, aren’t we? Something that will still cost the store money, but not deliver the benefits of reduced theft. So, eventually they will abandon the useless policy and install other measures that will be lessd cost effective. Unless you’re of the mind that they currently choose to use a method that they have determiined is NOT the most cost effective.
Bottom line, a store like CC or Best Buy is in the business of offering you low prices. Why do you think they have things like Low Price Guarantees? They have tiny margins, so to be successful they have to run a tight ship and sell a lot of stuff. These store are constantly looking to cut expenses,in every facet of their operation. Everything from worker benefits to marketing to volume buying to, yes, reducing theft. ALL of thiese things enable them to stay in business by offering low prices. If CC doesn’t, you go to the Best Buy down the street. They constantly cut costs, and they deliver low prices. Oh yes, some money goes to profits and shareholders. And if there was no money going into to those pockets, they’d be out of business.
The kid has the law on his side? Congratufuckiinglations, Kid. We can put that on the back of his T-Shirt that has the nice big, fat “ASSHOLE” on the front. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
By the way, I was confused by your Post 307. You seem to agree, then say you don’t, but then seem to agree. Thanks.
A judge should decide the case by applying the law to the facts, not by deciding whether someone is a jerk.
Provided the bag check is politely requested and voluntary, which includes the fact that the bag check will not be enforced should I decline to participate, then I’m usually happy to help out the merchant. However, I can see where some people might not be willing to do so, and that is their right.
