Self-Checkouts are pretty common in many grocery stores as well as stores like Wal Marts and other big box stores, and they are getting more and more widespread. Many dollar stores have them as well. Most popped up in stores that either have small price items or from big box stores that can absorb the theft from someone not scanning items.
In some cases the extra shoplifting is offset by the fewer paid employees to work the cashier stands and many box stores just build in theft as part of doing business. Now days, due to liability, many stores have a policy basically forbidding employees from confronting a shoplifter at all!
I was in a store here in PA who apparently has one of these policies and was talking with a person who worked there, when we watched a person stuff clothes into bags and put under a blanket in a stroller (without a child) In fact at one point the person even looked at us while doing this and just continued unfazed!
I told the clerk about it, who also saw it and she said there’s nothing she can do as they are not supposed to confront people and if she did SHE would get in trouble!
She also said she is tired of being called every name under the sun, being called racist, having people yell and scream to make a big fuss so everyone backs away just to get them to shut up….all tactic these criminals use and know very well work.
Or they also claim to just be carrying them there and had every intention of paying and resent being accused of being a thief, then throw the clothes on the floor and walk about, disgusted they were treated like a criminal, screaming every form of injustice on the way out the door.
Guess who is back the next day and in some cases a few hours later doing more “shopping!”
She also said the store has gotten a reputation on the streets as a place to shoplift as they wont do anything to you. She also said most of the workers there really don’t care either as they make minimum wage and could care less.
Now many other stores like major clothing and department stores are setting them up and working on new technology to prevent shoplifting. It’s one thing to steal a 99 cent can of beans opposed to a 99 dollar blouse.
We use self checkouts a fair bit actually and I dont mind them if we have a small quantity of items. We wills till go thru a checkout if we have a shopping cart of groceries as those self checkouts are too small to handle that size, but I don’t mind them and find them fast in and out. I’m also honest and the perfect customer that business wants.
For the most part the stores I frequent usually have staff around to quickly fix an issue, but it is annoying pushing the help button and then waiting forever for someone to come around.
What does bug me is forgetting to bring a stupid bag with me or having to pay 15 cents!! for a dumb paper bag or buy a reusable one (which I would forget next time) I find it somewhat ironic that we have paid so much attention on the plastic bags we would carry the products home in, yet don’t worry about the huge amount of plastic, paper and metal and glass those products in our reusable bags are generating. Guess only the bag is a concern and not what’s in the bag.
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