I always liked the quote, “If you see someone stealing food, no you didn’t.”
My community hasn’t had a good couple of years. It’s sad to say but it’s better just to assume it’s tough times for everyone… So I didn’t see a thing… especially when they cut another 20+ jobs and tell me to do the job they cut…
I’d rather them seek help with a local charity than to steal. I donate and occasionally volunteer. If you are in financial distress or you think you can not pay your rent please seek help. There are programs to support you.
The lack of a person watching you check out does not mean no one is watching. They absolutely are and you are being recorded the entire time you are in the store.
Also, these stores have tools that can tally up losses associated to you, and they’ll pull in the cops when the evidence is enough to warrant serious penalty.
Target is notorious for this. Loss Prevention has literal evidence binders for repeat offenders. They’ll tally up everything you’ve stolen, and then sit on it and continue tallying until you have stolen enough to be charged with a felony. Once they have a dollar over their local felony amount, they’ll send their LP team in to pull you aside and you get arrested for felony grand theft.
Imo I think observing a crime like that but not reporting it (so more crimes can be amassed by that person) should be considered legal endorsement of the activity. You were aware of the infraction and chose not to report it or otherwise act on. That you were hoping to “bank” more crime from the criminal seems irrelevant to me - you chose not to pursue legal action even after clearly being aware of the infraction, which tells me you chose inaction.
But of course bringing our laws in line with morality and reason would require an enormous overhaul of the system, so instead we have this bullshit.
Also apparently their surveillance is so top notch that they help train police departments and stuff on the tech.
Remember that even if you cover your face, they’re probably monitoring for your gait. Put a small rock in your shoe to change that…
And a vibrating sex toy in your butt so that you walk strange at random intervals.
Hey hey hey, no snitching on people who take food. Corporations won’t starve, just because a starving person took some food from them.
That feels like an eye for an eye logic. Shoplifting has a very real impact and incentives dystopian surveillance even more.
I don’t normally mention people stealing but that’s mostly because it is plain obvious as they are terrible at being inconspicuous. They only time I mentioned that I saw someone stealing is at a dollar general where there was a single employee.
Also if you do see someone stealing do not approach them or accuse them of stealing. That can go very badly and could lead to a serious escalation.
Fun fact, dollar general has a habit of locking employees in the store and demanding they do work off the clock.
Dollar general has stolen now more from it’s own employees than anyone has ever stolen from dollar general. That’s before you get to the horrifically unethical shit they get up to that’s legal.
Fuck em.
Oh on that case why don’t you just go and burn down the store with everyone inside. I’m sure that’s what they deserve.
Seriously though I don’t see how one justifies the other. Fighting fire with fire never goes well.
Here’s another fun fact, wage theft is the biggest single source of theft in the US.
You’re up in arms against individual thievery and simping for the biggest thieves in the country.
Bullshit. It is up to you to verify you get paid the correct amount. That doesn’t justify theft. Like I said, you logic is an eye for an eye.
Tell me you didn’t read a fuckin thing without telling me you didn’t read a fuckin thing
Walmarts around me have cameras at each self check out.
Yup. I was using self checkout once and it flagged me when I was trying to pay but didn’t say why. The supervisor was on top of it and unlocked the terminal and it made him watch a 5 second video of “suspicious activity”, which was me moving my reusable bag to the other side at a low angle. Some AI they use saw that as trying to sneak an unscanned product past the scanner.
I thought it was terribly clever but he just rolled his eyes and apologized for the inconvenience. As if an underpaid Walmart employee is going to waste their time arguing with a shoplifter.
which was me moving my reusable bag to the other side at a low angle.
Seems like a system like that would be easily fooled by confidently moving an item across the scanner and into the baggage area without scanning it.
It’s tied to the scanner so it knows nothing scanned, if you can stack two items and scan only one you can trick it, but the scale will pick up to much added weight so you gotta do something light. Clothes are good.
If they’re anything like the scanners at giant, looking at the scale wrong throws it off.
PLACE ITEM IN BAGGING AREA. UNSCANNED ITEM IN BAGGING AREA. Fuck off.
My local store flagged me cause I had my coffee cup in the cart. It said, “you only scanned 5 items” and it thought I had 6 in the cart. I was a bit surprised cause I didn’t know it was that far of a view.
Some have the skip bagging button so you can just leave stuff in the cart and use the zapper but I think most stores are getting rid of that as an option.
I did this by accident and the AI was all over it.
It’s a pretty good deterrent for regular folks who might be tempted to try. Criminals gonna crime tho.
If you’re ever feeling too confident in your appearance, go through the Target self check and watch yourself on the screen. I’m a pretty normal looking person, but goddamn… not at the Target self check. Maybe people steal less when they feel bad about themselves…?
My local walmart recently significantly expanded the self checkout area with the new scanners. Currently they either don’t have functioning cameras or they display a gray camera icon where it normally would show a live view.
Not that it matters here specifically, fuck Walmart. But don’t assume that just because a feed on a public screen is blank, that it isn’t being recorded or actively viewed elsewhere.
Also don’t assume that just because a public screen was showing that a video is being recorded. Those little screens in the isles that light up when you walk by don’t record, the over heads do though.
They know that loss increases with self checkout. They just did the math and figured it’s less than the cost of hiring all the extra cashiers.
Yep. That means you should get your value worth. If you accidentally don’t scan an item once in a while you shouldn’t worry about it too much.
Probably some dystopian security system
Just had a conversation with my buddy who does security and hes adamant the only reason prices are going up is because of theft. I asked what came first the jump in thefts or the price gouging to which his tuned swapped to “They gotta pay to get these locked shelves and they keep reducing security head count” which of course I had to explain that the one time purchase of the cabinet is immensely cheaper than head count so based off that the prices should actually be dropping by installing them.
I’m sure it depend on the area. Also Walmart has cameras with facial recognition so I personally wouldn’t want to try to rob them.
Where I’m at there is also an exit check with a person that checks your receipt
Legally speaking, walmart can ask to see your receipt, but since it’s not a membership store, or has it in their Terms and Conditions of purchasing goods there, they can’t stop you from just not showing it
I just say no thank you and keep walking. Never had a problem.
I do this as well. One day I was in a hurry on a lunch break and I was getting batteries and a sandwich, literally two items in a single bag. The person stepped in front of me and started to ask to see my receipt and I just snapped out “no thank you” but when they just stepped aside I realized there was no reason to ever let them and I havent since.
I say sure, hand them the receipt (most of the time unless if there’s something I might need to return) and keep walking.
All they asked was to see my receipt. They can look at it all they want.
That’s what the illegally armed and outfitted off duty police officer at the front of the store is for.
Very true. However, I am happy to comply
I’ve always had much better much at the non self checkout with cashiers getting distracted or forgetting to scan certain things. Especially at home depot I got a free 80 dollar shower head because my puppy was in the cart
Reminds me of going to Walmart and getting a free 30 dollar bike basket. The register person assumed it was my ‘bag’ cause I had the other stuff I was buying inside of it and didn’t scan it, they just passed it to the other side and chucked my stuff in there.
You really should take it back and explain what happened. You really don’t want to to be on the persons of interest list.
Better yet, check your recipe before you leave to make sure everything rang up correctly.
Just remember, keep it under 500$ (may vary depending on where you live)
That’s total, not per trip. They can still add up all of your trips if they have the evidence.
And they can and will wait til you pass whatever the local threshold is to nail you wth a felony.
I’m curious if the system being confusing, annoying, and not notifying you if you made a mistake is enough of an excuse to get out of this. I know I’ve been really frustrated by self-checkout (and hence never use them if I have a choice, unless I’m checking out with like one item), and I’m a pretty intelligent and technologically advanced person. I can see plenty of accidents happening with people walking about without having paid for something. This could add up fairly quickly. Is it still illegal if it’s because of choices the store made?
