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#1
12-14-2006, 10:35 PM
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PSA: Walking out of Costco/Sam\'s
(Note: This is not legal advice, and if you end up in prison doing this, don't blame me.)
When you go to Costco or Sam's or wherever, when you leave, they usually ask to look at your receipt and make sure you're not stealing anything. I've heard second-hand through a practicing criminal attorney that 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. Hope this makes your holiday shopping just a little bit easier. 
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#3
12-14-2006, 10:51 PM
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Re: PSA: Walking out of Costco/Sam\'s
[ QUOTE ]
This seems like just about the worst advice I've ever heard. [/ QUOTE ] 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.
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#4
12-14-2006, 10:53 PM
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Re: PSA: Walking out of Costco/Sam\'s
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.
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#5
12-14-2006, 10:53 PM
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Re: PSA: Walking out of Costco/Sam\'s
[ QUOTE ]
They can't attempt to stop you when you are walking out of the store without a certain burden of proof [/ QUOTE ] 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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#6
12-14-2006, 10:58 PM
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Re: PSA: Walking out of Costco/Sam\'s
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] They can't attempt to stop you when you are walking out of the store without a certain burden of proof [/ QUOTE ] 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. [/ QUOTE ] 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.
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#7
12-15-2006, 12:00 AM
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Re: PSA: Walking out of Costco/Sam\'s
[ QUOTE ]
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. [/ QUOTE ] I think the answer to this is that they have to have specific and articulable facts to detain you otherwise solid advice
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#8
12-15-2006, 03:37 AM
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Re: PSA: Walking out of Costco/Sam\'s
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] This seems like just about the worst advice I've ever heard. [/ QUOTE ] 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 [/ QUOTE ] It's not my fault you dismantled your computer.
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#9
12-15-2006, 03:53 AM
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Re: PSA: Walking out of Costco/Sam\'s
Just for Metetron i'll state my qualifactions, which was 1 year at Costco doing this job.
If this happpened i would def. ask them when they tried to pass to stop and if they didn't i would follow and ask again, no way this would save you anytime. No trainning to not do this was given. Then again, i guess this is England in which if someone passed you like that there's no way you'd think they are just being rude and wanted to get out that 45 seconds quicker.
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#10
12-15-2006, 04:20 AM
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Re: PSA: Walking out of Costco/Sam\'s
Evan,
FWIW, I think this is a great tip re: electronics stores. At Best Buy and Circuit City, they always try to stop you. If there's nobody else there, I'll take the 30 seconds and show him my receipt, no big deal. But if there's a couple people in front of me, I'll just walk by. Guy will say "excuse me, sir, could we see your receipt?" and I'll say "that's ok, thanks!" and keep walking and that's that. At membership clubs like CostCo I'll always show them the receipt, though.
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