Nothing unless they’re willing to physicaly restrain you and place you under citizens arrest. You don’t have to stop and show them your reciept.
The one where I live only asks to see the receipt if something you bought sets off the alarm. Sometimes the cashiers don’t swipe it right to disarm the tag or it’s too deep in the package to get turned off. I have never seen them stop anyone unless the alarm went off. I’m never in that much of a hurry not to let them see that the cashier screwed up or that the tag was placed in the item where it couldn’t get disarmed.
Yep, standard operating procedure in large warehouse type stores in SA.
The thieves aren’t always the customers. They also check receipts to catch cashiers who give friends and relatives “special discounts”.
This is called sweethearting and it may be the case that this is the primary reason for checking receipts.
Exactly. I just tell them to either accuse me of shoplifting or leave me alone.
I have already had my bag checked by a store emplyee; the one who took my money. After that transaction, the goods are mine,and absent a compelling reason to suspect otherwise, I am under no obligation to prove it to anyone.
And when push comes to shove, they better be damned sure that you’re shoplifting before they try a citizens arrest, because unlawfully detaining someone against their will is considered kidnapping.
Most of them won’t. I don’t think the cops would take too kindly to being called out because some minimum wage drone decided any customer who walked out of the store is a shoplifter. Especially if it happens a few times a week.
This is true, except in the case of the big warehouses “clubs”. They can, and do, make this a condition of membership. Costco, BJ’s, and Sams Club all check receipts, and if you don’t comply they have the right to revoke your membership.
Understood. In those cases I have agreed in writing to such a search. Apples and oranges, really.
One of the local Targets employs off-duty police officers, in full uniform, to check receipts, which they apparently do “randomly”, i.e., they do not check everyone. This seems especially stupid to me.
I have yet to be stopped by one of them.
This is included under “New Jobs for Old Retired Farts.” They took over the crossing guard jobs, Walmart greeters, and bell-ringers for the Salvation Army. This is just part of the master plan. Insidious old bastards they are.
Beware, the Old Retired Farts are taking over, and if you give them shit, they will cut your young throat with their AARP card.
They are old, motivated, and don’t give a shit, and if you give them half a chance, they will run you over with their little scooter. :eek: 
I’ve been checked leaving lumber yards, computer stores and electronics stores, but not at a Wal-mart yet.
I’ve never had that happen at a Walmart, and I’ve been shopping at them for years. Weird.
The primary function of receipt checking is to verify that large items that can’t fit into bags have been paid for, instead of being tossed onto the cart after checkout.
For those of you who haven’t been checked yet, it will happen if you buy a computer desk or TV or some other item in a huge box.
Go and buy a plasma screen television and a DVD. The next time you go back to the store, buy another copy of the same DVD and when they stop you to check your receipt, give them the receipt from when you bought the tv and the DVD. See if they’ll give you another plasma screen tv. 
Receipts are dated.
So is the “joke”.
I guess I’m just too mellow to let this upset me. It ain’t no big thing to me to let someone glance at my receipt and cart on my way out of the store. I never take it as a personal accusation, any more than I do when I pass through the metal detector at an airport.
What does bother me is that there are people out there who make this sort of thing necessary. Seems to me that THEY are the ones who deserve the anger–the people who lie, cheat, and steal, and make it harder for everyone else. Not some poor shmuck who’s just trying to do his or her job and taking an assload of crap because of it. (Like when I was working fast food and got bitched at because of price and menu changes–hey, I just worked there, I didn’t set policy or prices!)
Yet, shockingly, Walmart had $288 billion in sales and roughly $10 billion in profits in 2005.
Based on that, you’ll forgive me if I chose to draw the conclusion that they have a better handle on smart business decisions than, say… you.
Perhaps. However, that is no reason to believe that this *particular *decsion is a good one. Unless you assert that *all *their decisons are good.
I assume from your response that in your mind high profit margin = good business practices, and that other factors are inconsequential.
It doesn’t bother me either. It doesn’t happen at our Wal-Marts but I still wouldn’t care… I don’t have a problem with them being sure that the only things in my cart are the things I’ve bought. And I’m sure as hell there are thieves out there stupid/bold enough to just load stuff in their cart and walk out.
How about a look at the law, junior wanna-be lawyers?
Every state is different, and what you say above may well be true somewhere. But to take a sample of the water from Virginia, where I am familiar with the law, Va Code § 8.01-226.9 exempts the merchant or his agent from liability for unlawful detention, slander, malicious prosecution, false imprisonment, false arrest, or assault and battery claims when the merchant detains a person for shoplifting based on probable cause. **The activation of an electronic article surveillance device as a result of a person exiting the premises or an area within the premises of a merchant where an electronic article surveillance device is located constitutes probable cause for the detention of such person by such merchant. **
So – in Virginia, at any rate, if the alarm beeps, that’s all they need to detain you. You cannot sue them for false arrest.
OK?