PSA: Walking out of Costco/Sam's

[El Diablo]

punk,

"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."

Incorrect.

[chopstick]

I worked at Costco for a while, including as a Loss Prevention agent.

If you want to keep walking, just keep walking. They cannot stop you, and will not (if they have been properly trained) as it opens them up to being sued for false imprisonment.

If they saw you steal something, they can try to stop you. Usually they will still not bother, because it just isn't worth the hassle. Depends on what you stole, obviously. A bag of candy is a lot different than five cartons of cigarettes. Most of the time, we just followed the guy out to his car and got the plate #, while calling the cops.


You guys would be surprised (or not) at just how many women would load up their Uber-strollers with stolen stuff, including having the kid sit on a bunch of DVDs or similar.

Ah, the retail days.

[Howard Beale]

I didn't read all the replies but it might be in their Terms and Conditions when you join that your cart must be examined.

[roy_miami]

[ QUOTE ]
Done twice. One time the checker said, "Excuse me, sir!" Really, what do you thinks going to happen? If you're more than 15 years old, you won't get stopped. They're not going to tackle you in the middle of the parking lot

[/ QUOTE ]

At that point I would let her check my receipt, but I would tell her I ain't going to the back of the line.

[potato]

At Costco once the receipt checker noticed that I had been double-charged for an item I only had one of and saved me $20.

I always walk by the door nazi at Fry's and say "no thanks" as if they are trying to sell me something. A friend of mine dated a girl who worked the door at Fry's and she said that they are there more for the thieving employees than anything else.

[Perplexity]

This article is about exactly this issue:

http://www.lps1.com/bw.digg.html

[Performify]

[ QUOTE ]
you can basically just blow them off and walk out and they can't do anything. Now, I wouldn't recommend doing that all the time, but when there's a big slow line, it saves some time.

[/ QUOTE ]


100% standard and I'm surprised by all the negative reaction here.

I've been a Sams Club business account member for 12 years. I've shown my receipt at the door maybe a total of five times in twelve years.

99% of the time there's a singular employee working the door and he/she is almost always engaged with someone. I'll just always roll right by, and as already mentioned in the thread, if they ask "Sir can i check your receipt" I'll always respond with a polite and cheerful "no, thanks" or "that's OK" and keep rolling.

I've never, ever been challenged on it. Literally I'd say hundreds of visits.

Same deal at Best Buy if the cashier forgets to correctly zap your merchandise and you set off the detectors. Just keep walking, if you don't want to mess with it. As I understand it, though, there is a value to getting them to de-tag your merchandise there, though, in that sometimes you can get hassled trying to return items which haven't been de-theft-protected.

[JJNJustin]

This is kind of off the subject, but I found it kind of funny. I live in a prodominantly white suburb of Detroit, and we were shopping at a CostCo. Many white families were shopping for the holidays, baskets full of crap, breakfast cereals, food, etc. Carts were overstuffed, bottom rack full of bottled water. While waiting in the checkout line, I saw two black guys who were checking out and looked into their cart to see two huge bottles of Absolut Vodka, two huge bottles of cranberry juice, and two bottles of orange juice and nothing else. Definitely some cultural differences reflected in their shopping choices.

-J

[tuq]

[ QUOTE ]
This article is about exactly this issue:

http://www.lps1.com/bw.digg.html

[/ QUOTE ]
Good read, thanks. The guy does seem incredibly nitty and I don't think I could bring myself to do the things he does, but at least he's fighting the good fight for all of us.

Also, I agree with his WTF at the Costco sign about checking receipts to ensure accurate pricing. That's like the most transparent excuse ever.

[Evan]

[ QUOTE ]
This is kind of off the subject, but I found it kind of funny. I live in a prodominantly white suburb of Detroit, and we were shopping at a CostCo. Many white families were shopping for the holidays, baskets full of crap, breakfast cereals, food, etc. Carts were overstuffed, bottom rack full of bottled water. While waiting in the checkout line, I saw two black guys who were checking out and looked into their cart to see two huge bottles of Absolut Vodka, two huge bottles of cranberry juice, and two bottles of orange juice and nothing else. Definitely some cultural differences reflected in their shopping choices.

-J

[/ QUOTE ]
Wtf man, "kind of" off subject?