A floor or two below the entrance? You have multiple-level Home Depot stores? Where do you live? And how do they move the large materials around?
In the first example, would you have let that stand? Did you go back and pay for the bathtub? Just curious.
I’ve only seen receipt checking in NYC, and there they just verified that you had a receipt, not each item corresponding to it.
Well, I think I could make the argument that law-abiding customers abiding by the policy (submitting to it, if you like,) makes it more effective against thieves… or at least, makes thieves easier to spot because they must either abide and hide their stolen items from the check, or refuse to submit and be more visible in a smaller crowd of non-submitters.
It’s a little like gun control in that sense… assuming in both cases that there are decent ways of spotting those who refuse to comply:
- if all the law-abiding comply, then the criminals are easy to spot
- if all, or most, law-abiding people refuse to comply out of principle, they criminals can hide among their number.
I’m not going to take a position on whether the principle of non-compliance is worth giving up this contribution to the common good, (ie whether the ‘indignity’ of letting yourself get checked is worth helping in the fight against theft to a small degree.) But I do think that the principle is valid, and the contribution is there.
So that makes it okay to take it out on her? Often times, the reason is, “So we can make sure you didn’t steal anything,” but she’s probably forbidden from saying so.
That makes sense. Stopping thieves keeps prices low, which benefits everyone. Although I still think the actual reason most customers comply is to avoid the embarrassment of being chased down the parking lot by an employee.
Yes. Yes. Manhattan. Anti-Grav Platforms.
I see no reason why the truth in this case would have been detrimental to the transaction… or to any person’s future patronage. It would have been easy enough to say “this is an inventory control measure that Sam’s Club uses” or “this is one step of an internal audit program”.
I used to belong to Sam’s Club. I’ve visited BJ’s and Costco with friends and family. Over the past few years, I’ve asked the “Why do I need to show my receipt?” question to the door monitors. Only ONE has given a straight-up answer right away that the practice is to prevent/deter shoplifters.
What I can’t understand is that seemingly all membership-only busineses use this practice without fail. Other big-box stores (Lowes, Home Depot, Super K-Mart, etc) more often than not do no receipt-check.
Actually, I signed no such agreement.