PSA: Walking out of Costco/Sam's

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Seriously? Your PSA is to put stuff in your cart, and walk out the door, bypassing the person there?

You may not be obligated to talk to the door guard, but I think they can stop you outside when you are confronted for stealing.

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They can try.

[RacersEdge]

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I don't know if the hassle incurred while explaining yourself to managers etc. is worth the line skip. Maybe if it's really long I guess, but I'd guess they'd staff more than one person in that instance.

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The key to this plan is that you never talk to managers or anyone because you just walk out to your car and leave.

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Right, not sure how people missed that point. And I seriously doubt a manager bans you from the store - there job is not drive away paying customers. I can see doing this if the line was more than a 1 minute wait.

[TheMetetron]

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This seems like just about the worst advice I've ever heard.

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Do you know anything about things before you respond to posts or do you just attempt to make people feel stupid for fun with no actual knowledge of the subject. Like clearly the dude who has never even visited Sweden, let alone a small town in Sweden, would be the ideal person to tell me how impossible it is to get a box and ship stuff.

Just like the guy who clearly has no idea what he is talking about here is saying that despite the fact the OP is correct, his advice is "the worst ever".

/rant


OP,

Yes, a store cannot force you to show a receipt. They can't attempt to stop you when you are walking out of the store without a certain burden of proof (which varies by state) that you were stealing from them. It usually includes seeing you select, conceal, not have them lose track of you or the item, and then see you pass payment stations and attempt to leave. Clearly they don't have this by you walking from the cash register and refusing to show a receipt. In fact, if they did try to stop you, I'm fairly certain you could successfully sue them and they'd probably settle quickly.

If the store has any decent training, the people checking receipts are told to let you go if you just walk by. At most they ask if they can see your receipt, but if you say no they aren't supposed to press it.

Since I'm not Evan and I don't blindly give bad advice to people, I'll give my credentials here. I've worked in Loss Prevention at two separate places and I have an immediate family member who was the director of the Loss Prevention / Asset Protection for all Sam's Clubs on the West Coast and prior to that was the Assistant Director of Loss Prevention / Asset Protection for all Wal-Marts in the USA.


PS - Wal-Mart doesn't call it LP or AP, but I can't remember the exact name they give it. Regardless, it's the same thing. Also, I don't have every state law memorized, but I know California's and that is usually the same as most other states. There could always be an exception though. Regardless, I know Sam's Clubs corporate policy and they shouldn't even be thinking about stopping you.

[TheMetetron]

By the way, I'm assuming the OP isn't advocating stealing here. But that if you've paid just blow off the door guy if there is a line and they won't do anything.

If he is advocating filling up your cart and walking out, there is a decent chance OP gets arrested the second he walks out the door. The LP department isn't retarded.


Also, yes technically any store can ban you from every returning, not just membership stores. But they won't do this for failing to show a receipt. It's usually reserved for people caught stealing / abusing return policies. Yes, I've arrested people before for coming back after getting caught stealing. How dumb can you be.

[punkass]

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They can't attempt to stop you when you are walking out of the store without a certain burden of proof

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I don't know if this would stand up in court or whatever, but I would think refusing to show a receipt for your purchases when leaving is a good enough suspicion that you have something to hide. But I'm not a lawyer.

[TheMetetron]

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They can't attempt to stop you when you are walking out of the store without a certain burden of proof

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I don't know if this would stand up in court or whatever, but I would think refusing to show a receipt for your purchases when leaving is a good enough suspicion that you have something to hide. But I'm not a lawyer.

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It's not enough for an LP department to make a detainment. Rules (both company policy and state law, most companies have policies that are stricter though to avoid litigation) are really strict about when you are allowed to detain someone, and even stricter about when you are allowed to arrest someone. In fact, in almost all good LP departments in any chain, if you detain someone without arresting them, you are going to be in for a world of hurt from your supervisor.

There are a lot of people who have gotten away with stealing because we lost sight of them for a second. It becomes too hard at that point to thoroughly check the surrounding area to make sure they didn't dump the merchandise before they leave the store, so you just let it go. False imprisonment lawsuits suck and one bad arrest will get you fired pretty often. It doesn't matter that you are 99.9% sure they just stole from you.

[lippy]

Theoretical; you're shoplifting and a Target security guard tries to stop you. What can he do if you just keep walking (imagine he = 5'5", 120lbs, you = big mofo)?

[AngusThermopyle]

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(Note: This is not legal advice, and if you end up in prison doing this, don't blame me.)

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I do blame you for posting this "advice".

Maybe you should have tried it out first and given us a trip report.

[TheMetetron]

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Theoretical; you're shoplifting and a Target security guard tries to stop you. What can he do if you just keep walking (imagine he = 5'5", 120lbs, you = big mofo)?

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He can use any reasonable force to arrest you. Tackle you, beat the crap out of you if you start fighting with him, etc. In reality, after you reach a certain point (usually out of the parking lot) they just let you go because if you get hurt while they are chasing you, they are liable for it. So at that point they just call the cops.

[Brain]

I don't belong to Costco/BJ's/Sam's Club/other, but this bothers the hell out of me on the semi-rare occasion that I go into Best Buy. Don't accost me and just let me leave!