Wal-Mart loss prevention guy following me around....

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He just grabbed my receipt, punched it and I left, I only had 4 items so it was somewhat ridiculous.


What if Bubba the security guard stopped your wife and you demanding to see the receipt ?
 
I normally could care less about receipt checking, but if there is a line as described above, I'm ditching.

Waiting to hand them my money is one annoyance already. Waiting in line again just to get out of the store? Absolutely not.

Receipt checking is a form of extraordinary incompetence anyway. At the register, all purchases are individually removed, scanned, and payment and verification are done on the spot right there.

If you literally lose track of the transaction between there and the door so badly that you have no idea what is going on anymore? Forget them. Come up with a better system for maintaining the verification that was already performed, or GTFO out of my way.
 
All that they can legally do in most states is check the receipt to make sure there are no severe price discrepancies (i.e. $59 for a 65" TV). They CANNOT dig through your cart to see everything you bought and check off item by item. It's that whole 4th Amendment thing... digging through things you bought is none of the receipt checker's dang business; they have no right to ruffle through what is now yours.

Anytime they go to look at my cart I remind them of this and say, "Loss prevention would be talking to me right now if I had done something suspicious in the store. Now, unless you're detaining me and want to talk to my lawyer, give me my receipt back and I'm leaving." I know they don't understand the real meaning of that statement, but the mention of lawyers has jarred all of them awake and gotten me on my way.
 
Do some Googling and see if your state has a "Shopkeeper's Privilege" statute. The 4th Amendment doesn't apply to store employees--that would apply if you were detained by the police. In any case, it is a gray area in many states what is legal and what is not. In practice, if you refuse to show your receipt being taken to jail, fighting it out in court, etc., wouldn't be worth it for many of us. They have lots of lawyers, plenty of money, and all the time in the world. Not worth the hassle.
 
Got an example of anyone ever going to jail for not showing a receipt upon leaving a store with items that were all paid for?
 
Perhaps I missed it, but no one mentioned the Walmart vs BITOG member Cicero thread

https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/949483/Re:_Walmart_v._Cicero
https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/954244/1

executive summary; the original thread was probably deleted, but Walmart loss prevention person tried to prevent a customer from leaving the store; a shoving match ensued and an employee fell and was injured; Walmart tried to stick the medical bill to the customer, until the customer subpeonaed the medical records showing the employee needed the surgery BEFORE the incident.,

"People of Walmart" can now have a dual meaning.

This is from memory; I have not reviewed the posts I provided, because they are of little interest to me.

Generally I am accommodating because the person tasked with rule enforcement is not the one who made them.
 
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Originally Posted by Mr Nice
Quote:
He just grabbed my receipt, punched it and I left, I only had 4 items so it was somewhat ridiculous.


What if Bubba the security guard stopped your wife and you demanding to see the receipt ?



Well at Walmart, they don't actually stop you, I just waive a piece of paper that looks like the receipt and keep going. At BJs, the guy actually stopped me, but I don't think he actually had a right to do that, he put his foot on my cart stopping it from moving. I suppose I could have kept pushing, but it was one quick motion, foot on the cart, grabbed the receipt out of my hand punched it and then I kept going. Normally if there's no line, I keep my cart rolling, hand them the receipt and then reach backward to grab the receipt so they don't waste too much of my time. They basically have no right to stop you if you haven't stolen anything. If it's a membership club, the terms of the agreement allow them to stop you, but if you kept going, all they could really do is terminate your agreement, assuming they could figure out who you were.
 
Originally Posted by Mr Nice
Quote:
He just grabbed my receipt, punched it and I left, I only had 4 items so it was somewhat ridiculous.


What if Bubba the security guard stopped your wife and you demanding to see the receipt ?





What do you do when the alarm goes off when you pass through the theft detection devices at the doors? Keep on going?


It takes just one tiny moment for someone to check your receipt. It's not that big of a deal.
 
Originally Posted by JustN89
The Wal-Marts in my area now have a door-checker/loss prevention person that randomly (I guess anyways, as I see no rhyme or reason to who they stop) selects people as they leave and checks their receipt against the items in their cart. Normally, I stop for them despite being annoyed as I know they're just doing their job. However, this weekend the guy stopped a lady who was pushing a full cart out in front of me and then, as I tried to pass with my two bags of items, asked me to wait for him to go through her stuff so that he could check mine. I was in a hurry so I just said, "No thanks" and walked out. No one came chasing me down.


I don't even slow down, just keep going.
 
Originally Posted by PimTac
What do you do when the alarm goes off when you pass through the theft detection devices at the doors? Keep on going?


Happened to me several times. I dont even stop, nor am I required to, assuming I paid for the item. Those tags that set off alarms are called EAS tags. They are meant to deter theft, but that is not any of my concern, as I don't steal and I pay for all of my items.
 
Originally Posted by PimTac
Originally Posted by Mr Nice
Quote:
He just grabbed my receipt, punched it and I left, I only had 4 items so it was somewhat ridiculous.


What if Bubba the security guard stopped your wife and you demanding to see the receipt ?





What do you do when the alarm goes off when you pass through the theft detection devices at the doors? Keep on going?


It takes just one tiny moment for someone to check your receipt. It's not that big of a deal.


Usually I look around and don't spot any store employee and either I keep walking or I go back to the clerk to deactivate whatever set it off.

Those alarms are pretty useless when there's no one guarding the exits.

It's not really a big deal, but it's a waste of your time when you're not the one stealing. Their whole point is to just to be there pretending to check receipts. You can just acknowledge them and keep walking. Their whole job is actually just a deterrent, they're not really expected to catch anyone.
 
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