Don’t be a jerk to the least empowered person in the store, the receipt checker. He has no choice but to follow policy if he wants to keep his minimum wage job, no matter what his personal feelings are. Slightly more empowered is his manager who has the choice of whether or not to enforce the receipt checking policy (and whether or not to continue the employment of the receipt drone if he’s not doing his job). More empowered again are corporate, who make the rules, and can send in “mystery shoppers” to see if the manager is enforcing compliance… and terminate the employment of managers who aren’t (also, they can fire managers who have unacceptable levels of “shrinkage”, i.e. stuff that should be in the store because there’s no record it’s been sold, but it just isn’t anymore). Ultimately, though, they’re all being held over a barrel by the insurance companies who require that they introduce these pointless, futile security measures or pay extra exorbitant premiums, driving up overheads and making them less competitive in the marketplace. It doesn’t matter if receipt checks never prevent a single item from being stolen - it’s still saving the company money on their insurance. Snub a thousand receipt checkers… unless stores determine that receipt checking is going to cost their business more than the increase in their insurance premiums would, they are not going to change their policies. You’re just making life that tiny bit more unpleasant for someone who undoubtedly would be doing a different job for better money if that were an option.
So because their employer demands unreasonable things from them, I should have to submit to what I consider an unreasonable demand from the worker? Because they’re “just following orders” and they aren’t well paid?
I don’t think so.
And stand in a long line after I’ve just stood in a long line to pay for something I stood in a long line waiting for customer service to pull the item from stock?
Huh uh.
I always show the receipt. But that is MY option and I reserve the right not to follow the store management’s stupid rules when they inconvenience me.
And that’s fine. And when you brag about it on the internet, as people in the links here have done, some will think you’re a true hero standing up for your rights. And some people will think you’re a dick who made a crappy job crappier for someone for no good reason. Go you.
Inconvenience, mostly. Sometimes health, as I’ve been one of those parents with a kid who decided to get sick in Aisle 42 and I’m just trying to get home with my toddler and Pedialyte. But that’s rare, mostly it’s inconvenience.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll show my receipt if it’s easy and doesn’t cost me any time to do so. If there’s no back up of carts and I’ve got my receipt in my hand, sure, no problem. I can make the *choice *to show my receipt to anyone I want to without eroding my rights. But if I have to wait, or dig it out, chances are I’m not going to bother *because *it’s a bother. It doesn’t matter that it’s a small bother, it’s a bother, and I don’t have to do it, so I’m not going to.
Yes, very much so. I’m constantly amazed at how much our right to *privacy *has been restricted just in my lifetime, and people not only accept it, they encourage it and even pay for the violation.
I absolutely, 100% agree. There is no reason to be a jerk to anyone, especially the receipt checker.
Now, riddle me this: Is it being a jerk to say, “No, thank you,” when asked for my receipt - in the same tone of voice the receipt checker uses to say “have a nice day”? Not snotty, not soapboxy, not a dissertation on human rights. Just a quick smile and “no, thank you.”
I guess if that’s “being a jerk”, then I’ve been guilty of being a jerk. But that seems an awfully low bar for jerkitude.
Again, the issue is NOT receipt checking. It’s a land of free speech, they have the right to speak up and ask for a receipt, you have the right to reply how you chooose.
The issue is what happens if you decline (politely or otherwise) to provide a receipt. If they believe you are committing a crime, they can hold you for the police. If they are wrong, then the question is what happens and how badly?
If the store has no concrete allegations, then the best they can do is bar you from the store in future. They arrest you at their peril.
Similarly though, if you make them call a policeman, and are hauled downtown when all you had to do was wave a receipt, thenlikely the court will have little sympathy and you probably won’t win much when you sue - under what’s called the “duty to mitigate”.
One rule I heard long ago with a discussion about law, was simple (and Canada common law probably matches Australian) - Unless you personally yourself actually saw the crime committed, don’t do a citizen’s arrest. No matter who told you what, you as the arresting citizen are putting your butt in the sling if there are legal and financial repercussions to a wrongful arrest.
(Funny, there’s a whole lawsuit that was happening in Colorado over some guy who insulted Dick Cheney at a ski resort. The two secret service guys there told a third one who came by after the incident to go arrest the fellow because he threatened the vice president. When he sued, the two who witnessed the incident admitted there was no threat, but the guy who did the arrest based on incorrect allegations became the fall guy because he did the arrest…)
And again, any physical action that can be construed as assault overrides any refusal or words…
I don’t understand how going about your business in a calm manner can in any way be construed as “being a jerk”…
I don’t think there are ramifications for the employee if people ignore the “receipt checker”. I’m sure it happens all the time. You just see the sheeple standing in line instead of the people walking out because they are more obvious.
When I am asked to present my receipt, I do so. It isn’t that difficult, and I have nothing to worry about, so it isn’t a big deal to me. Things are probably a lot different here, this being a rural area, but the checkers don’t take much time and they also don’t check every person going through the door, only if you are carrying unbagged items or set off the alarm.
It seems to me that several people are of the opinion that the only time you can be stopped in the store is if an employee sees you doing something wrong. It also seems to me that what the employees should be witnessing is somebody taking merchandise out of the store without paying for it.
Looking at it from the POV of the receipt checker, if you walk up to the doors with an item, especially an item that is not bagged and valuable, there is a very small chance that s/he watched you go through the checkout line. So, from their position, you are indeed walking out of the store with merchandise that you may not have paid for, and it is their job to just ask for confirmation, and doubly so if you set off the merchandise protection alarms at the door.
Several people have commented that if people can just walk out then the problem is the layout of the store, the layout of the store is in part dictated by exiting requirements. They don’t get to just funnel all exiting through the registers, they are required by law to have those huge open walkways to the front doors. They are trying to reduce merchandise walking out the front door while not impinging on exiting.
Who cares what the PoV of the door checker is? A representative of the store ALREADY confirmed that I paid for this stuff. If the store sets up things so that the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing or they have merchandise AFTER the freakin register, that’s an issue for store management to resolve WITHOUT me being conferenced in on their bureaucratic nonsense.
As a small business owner, I would say, go somewhere that has no such policy, we don’t. 
I don’t blame them for doing what they are doing, major retail loss control is a big deal, to the tune of half a million a year at a single Walmart. Just to toss a couple sample numbers. Per my biz partner, an ex walmart dept manager, Walmarts goal on shrinkage is was .3%, managers could still recieve bonuses as long as shrinkage did not exceed 1%. The store he worked at did $110 million/yr. if an average store has somewhere in the middle of that range like .5%-.7% we are still talking about $500,000-$700,000 a year walking out the door. Every day you are looking at $1200-$2000 walking out the door.
That is why they are being dicks about it…there is serious money to be saved in it. Enough to pay several employees to stand at the door and look at receipts as well as have several other employees patrolling the store and or watching cameras.
If it was your store, and that was $1200 a day that was walking out the door that you could be putting in your pocket, what would you do?
From my years in retail in California, I had this drilled into my head - I could only attempt to stop someone from leaving the store with merchandise if:
- I had personally seen them enter without the item.
- I had seen them pick up the item in the store
- I had maintained them in my vision the entire rest of the time they were in the store (ie, they hadn’t had a chance to set it down after I’d seen them pick it up) AND
- I had seen them go past the register with clear intent to leave, without paying for the item.
ALL FOUR of those had to have happened in order for me to even approach someone and say “Excuse me, would you like to pay for that book you slipped into your purse earlier?” If any of those 4 items didn’t qualify - if, for example, I had seen them slip the book into their purse, but had let them out of my sight afterwards - the store could be sued when I confronted the (potential) shoplifter.
They can’t stop you from leaving, but they can attempt to grab and hold onto what they believe is “their” merchandise without committing assault. If you have an opportunity to settle this amicably and fail to take the opportunity, then the court is not going to hold them to as high a penalty. Back to the question of what is “reasonable”. Is it “resonable” to as for proof of purchase as obvious merchandise leaves the store? Is it reasonable that a checker doesnot recognize an old ratty backpack as “not merchandise”? Is it reasonable for someone to argue for 5 minutes instead of producing a receipt and settling the issue in 10 seconds?
I agree with the “why should I show it - I’m annoyed” POV when I end up in a big line full of stupid people at the Costco exit; where there are 2 checkers but the sheep are all lined up for one checker at the front of the line blocking anyone from going around them to the second checker.
So your store never caught a shoplifter…
You do not have to see them enter without the item, and none of the shoplifting statutes I have seen require that distinction. If that was the case “I had this the whole time” would be a bulletproof defense.