Walmart near me has started using receipt checkers lately and they don’t even really do their job, it’s kind of a gimmick really. They just look at the receipt for a second Don’t even look at your cart, but they stop you every time. It’s just such a waste of my time when I’m in a hurry. I had one person even tell me that it was required by law. No it’s not! There’s no law in the USA that says they have to check your receipt.
Every time they try to stop me at Walmart, I just say, no thank you, and keep walking. Nobody’s ever tried to stop me from leaving the store.
Sam’s club and Costco are a little different. I begrudgingly stop there because of the membership. We technically agreed to it in the terms of signing up.
Decades ago, my father would have some fun with the receipt checkers at Costco. After a shopping trip, we’d commonly have lunch at the cafe in Costco. When leaving the store, he’d hand the receipt checker the receipt for lunch rather than the receipt for the items bought. More than half the time, the checker would just swipe the receipt with a highlighter (their way of marking it “checked”) without noticing that it was the wrong receipt. So ya, it’s complete security theater. Anyone with a modicum of thought can figure ways around it, and it only accomplishes inconveniencing the people who aren’t trying to get away with anything.
I’d be surprised if that worked these days. They do much more than just a cursory check whenever we go. And they also now scan your membership when you enter, and your photo pops up on their tablets. I’d be curious what would happen if the photo didn’t match…
Yeah, I see them counting the times in my cart every time I leave. The receipts have total number of items listed at the bottom.
Security theater, just like the TSA. They don’t need to stop bad actors, they just need to convince their shareholders that they are taking action against losses.
Nothing like being treated like a criminal when I go into a store to give them money.
You can ignore them. Don’t even acknowledge and walk on by.
Just look pissed off and walk by as though they don’t exist. They’ll never bother you.
They don’t get paid enough to fight and they know it.
They cannot legally prohibit your egress. If you signed a contract agreeing to checks, I guess they could cancel your membership or whatever the contract says.
There are other shops beside Walmart, aren’t there?
What’s even worse than a real cop is a poser cop. I love meanmugging them.
They can see my receipt for 10 bucks
Iirc they just check the date to make sure you arent using an old receipt so that might explain why they look at it so briefly, not that they really get paid enough to do anything more
I don’t live in the states but there’s similar systems in some department stores here in Australia and I suspect, but don’t know, that applicable law in these cases is broadly similar. The store and their employees aren’t law enforcement and can’t arrest you or have any legal recourse for you ignoring their demands to stop and allow your receipt to be checked. They likely also have the right to refuse service to you and deny you entry to their premises and so long as this isn’t being done for a small number of specifically forbidden reasons (such as on the basis of race for example) they don’t need a legal justification to do so. This would mean that refusing to comply with their receipt checking policy might be enough if they see fit, to decide to deny you entry to their stores going forward. Many large department stores are incorporating facial recognition and don’t it seems feel the need for proper informed consent beyond some printed signage saying that but entering you’re consenting, so the practicality of them doing this is at least a little bit higher these days but I guess there’s no way to assess how likely this really is.
I always wonder why people get annoyed at receipt checkers, but then again I only see it at Costco.
I don’t have a nearby Walmart, so avoiding them is trivial
Costco requires a membership so it’s likely in their terms of service that you have to consent to their checks. Walmart does not, so you can refuse without any recourse.
Really depends on the person. Get a crotchety old guy and you may notice only certain people getting stopped. Or sometimes their tone obviously suggests you stole the groceries you just purchased, even though they have literally no authority or right to suggest such a thing. Or consider when I was ~12, a pedophile old man Walmart greeter tried to make moves on me. But that one might just be me.
The practice feels like/arguably is an accusation. From a multi-billion dollar corporation. When I legitimately bought this shit. Get out of my way.
I only experience this at Costco and my theory is that they just check that it’s a receipt from today, and that it is about the right length for your size of cart. On top of just making sure you have a receipt at all, this would make it harder to walk out with a pirate cart. Plus there’s just an overall deterrence because you don’t really know how much they are checking. Maybe every 10th person gets a real look-over.
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My Walmart scans the receipt and then scans 3 items from your cart to verify they’re on the receipt.
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