about a month or so ago i was standing in line at the check out counter in the Walgreens. The line was long and there was only one person running the register.
So, some guy walks past everyone in line and waves a newspaper (50cents) and a pack of wrigglys gum (25cents). He tossed a dollar on the counter and said “keep it” and walked out the door. The clerk was in the middle of rining up someone else.
She yells out to him: “HEY! That’s stealing, you know!!”.
when it was my turn to be checked out, I casually asked her how what that guy did was stealing. She told me that “If I don’t ring it up, it’s not a sale. that’s stealing”.
i think the guy was a spaz, but not a thief. He did, after all, give more money than the items cost.
So, did he steal? Was there anything illegal about what he did?
I’ve worked as a cashier before, so maybe I have some insight.
First off. a lot of stores have computerized inventorty that keeps track of everything in the store. She probably won’t be able to just stick the dollar in the register…she has to wait until the line dies down and then find all the items the guy bought, scan it in, and then conduct the transaction. If she pockets the change, she could get in trouble for stealing, but if she puts it in the register she could get in trouble when her register has too much money in it at the end of the night.
More pressingly, she has no way of knowing exactly what is going on with the guy. She probably can’t see for sure what all he has, or what he might be trying to conceal, or what exactly he threw at her (is it a dollar, or a green piece of paper?). Even if she does get a good look at what he has, she probably is not sure of the price of every item in the store, especially when her attention is on another customer. While it is obvious to the guy that a newspaper is 50 cents and a pack of gum is a quarter, she can’t be expected to figure that all out in a split second. Additionally, sales tax, which customers often forget, can make totals much higher than what people expect by looking at price tags and adding. He could easily have walked out with some premium gum and a special edition newspaper and she wouldn’t have got a chance to call him on it.
So yes, stores are justified in setting up procedures (like lines) for purchasing items that help prevent mistakes and dishonesty. And customers pretty much have to follow them in order to make a legitamate, non-theft, purchase.
Right answer, explanation/justification of rules wrong.
It is theft (larceny) in that the “customer” takes the goods without permission - the technology used by the store has nothing to do with it - had the cashier said “OK, gottit”, it would not be larceny, no matter how much trouble the store encountered in balancing its books, because the store (through its agent, the cashier) assented to the removal of the goods.
I used this once - the line (swap meet - quite informal) was long, the cheap-but-a-bitch-to-find part was $2 - I held it up to the cashier and said “$2 part, here’s $5, enjoy” and laid a fiver along side the cash box - she looked at me, the item, the $5 bill, and nodded - that was a legal transfer of ownership (even though I did not get a receipt, nor the change due me) - because the seller agreed to my method of payment, etc. Because the cashier in the OP story objected, there was no transfer of property, and the removal of property constituted larceny.
I do that with exact change items all the time, such as the newspaper. It isn’t stealing, but if the person I toss the coins to had a problem with it, I’d quit doing it.
It’s not just the casher and the guy who threw his money on the counter who are involved in all of this. Also involved are the other people who are waiting their turn in line and store management. By doing what he did he moved himself ahead of others who were waiting in line. The only reason he could do that was because others were willing to wait and weren’t behaving as he did. Store management is involved for the reasons already given in the posts above and because they can not be seen to condone this sort of behavior. Otherwise, this rude behavior toward other customers will seem to be condoned by management (affecting business ‘goodwill’) and/or becomes an acceptable way for customers to pay (throw money at the casher.)
While it does appear that this customer took the goods without permission. It doesn’t appear that he took the goods with the intent to steal. I think you have to have both the action AND the state of mind to have “stealing.” So while he is a 5 star jerk, I don’t think he stole.
I don’t think it was rude behavior. He didn’t slow the line down and he overpayed for the luxury of getting out of the store. If anything, the store was rude for being unable to handle the volume of customers they had.
Forcing customers to stand in line for a long time to buy a newspaper and gum is unacceptable. This store really needs to do something to overcome their incompetence or consider closing the doors. The absolute wrong action would be to ‘crack down’ on this rude customer behavior. The store has a problem, not the customer, and they need to deal with it
Stupid asshole in a 7-11 would not sell me beer because I did not have a New York driver’s license. (I had a valid Georgia driver’s license clearly showing that I was 26 years old), and the next nearest place was another 3.5 miles and I was a pedestrian college student at the time. (And no relevant bus or taxi service, I should add). So the next time I noticed he was on, I tossed the money on the counter and kept walking.
I’m not remotely ashamed of that, but you can kind of see why the cashier has to agree to each purchase in order for it to be legal.
Sorry, but it’s not the casher’s state of mind that matters. It’s not the casher that will be charged with “stealing.” It’s the state of mind of the person that might be charged with the crime.
Ahunter3: had the same problem in Massachusetts. I had a very nice, laminated, holographic, valid Pennsylvania license and the liquor store wouldn’t take it. WTF? So vacationers aren’t allowed to buy beer there unless they look 30?
I have worked in retail, and I have to say, there is some truth to this.
I know times are tough and all, but when there is a long line, that often means that they are understaffed. And that irritates me. I’ve worked in that situation. Management doesn’t want to schedule enough people to cover the floor, but they get all pissy when the meager staff feels swamped and overwhelmed.
Actually I did, through college. Now, I work the ‘other end’ in that I work for a company that consults on how to maintain or increase customer satisfaction.
I am not making any negative remarks about the worker, but am making negative comments about the management of the store. The store has a problem and they need to deal with it instead of trying to crack down on those pesky customers.
Many times it isn’t even being understaffed. How many times have you been standing in a store with a long line and an overworked cashier and there is a manager around doing, well, ‘managerial stuff’.
When it gets busy, the manager gets his/her ample behind to a register and helps customers. When it slacks off, he/she can get back to managerial tasks.
You would be surprised at the excuses I have heard for managers/owners not doing this. What it really boils down to is that they do not understand what is the most important task in the store and feel it is beneath them. Sometimes it is the manager wanting to get things done so he/she can go home at a decent hour but it doesn’t matter because the most important task in the store would be actually taking money from people buying stuff. No??
I’d have to say I’d consider it stealing. The store may not have even sold it to him (far-fetched maybe, but possible). A person is not forced to wait in line to buy a paper and gum. They can take their business elsewhere, or wait in line with the rest of society.
I go to our little market at work everyday and get the same fruit smoothy from the refrigerator and wait in line as people in front of me order their lengthy coffee drinks. If I don’t like the lines or customer service in a place, I won’t give them my business until it’s acceptable. To throw (or just place) money in front of the cashier and expect that the person will ring it up for you while (S)he is obviously overwhelmed isn’t (I hate using this word, but…) respectful to the cashier or the people waiting in line.
Luckily I don’t work in customer service because I’d have zero tolerance for such actions and would probably have zero job too.
It’s not stealing. The store offered it at a given price and the customer met the offer. At the time he put the money on the counter, the gum was his property and he was free to leave the store with it.
AHunter3’s example is inapposite; the sale of alcohol is regulated by state law and requires the presentation of an ID to comsummate the sale. No such requirement exists for gum.
Newspaper sales are routinely conducted in this manner in stores across the nation, and it is not at all unusual for petty items to be handled in this manner. The clerk was being difficult.
I’m still dubious about that, Kelly. For the transaction to occur, wouldn’t the merchant have to accept the cash tendered? From what’s been described, the merchant didn’t have a chance to say, “One second there, partner.”
In reality, though, it’s not the merchant but rather the merchant’s agent, who is in the position of accepting or declining the transaction. What seems to be escaping so many people in discussing these situations is that the merchant’s agent, the clerk, is not a free agent. The clerk must abide by the store owner’s policies.
I have always wondered about this. About 10 years ago when I was in college (In Connecticut) I went to the supermarke to buy beer at 9 PM. In CT, it is illegal to buy or sell beer after 8 pm. Go figure. As my friends were graduating, I really wanted to get the beer to celebrate. So I grabbed the beer, tossed down enough $$ to cover the beerm the tax, and deposit, and I ran out. A security guard gave chase, caught me about three blocks away, and the police arrested me. I was charges with shoplifting. I don’t really know what allegations were made against me - it is possible the cahsier girl just pocketed the money and said I ran out without paying. I don’t know because I just copped out to a first offended program that led to a dismissal of all charges 6 months later.
I am now a lawyer, but I my legal studies, I never came across a similar case that would answer this question.
My own belief if that it is stealing if the item is not for sale, but it is not stealing if the item is for sale. So the guy in your example did not steal the gu, since the gum was for sale, but I stole the beer because the store probebly would have refused to seel the beer to me had I asked to but it.
