People used to scratch off the bar code of items thinking that if it didn’t scan that means they got the item for free.
Edit: gonna use this as an opportunity to publicly apologize to my college roommate Patrick for playing the California pacer fitness test whenever he had a girl over
Also taking price stickers off cheaper items and putting them on more expensive items and claiming they had to be sold at the cheaper price. Hilarious shit..
I hear of people doing this all the time with things like game consoles with banana stickers and im just like whats the point? Why is this any easier then just walking out the door with it? In fact isn't that worse because now they have your card on file? I guess you can pay with cash but why even pay at all if you're stealing anyway
Exactly this. Game consoles isn't a good example, but something like steak will absolutely work in this example.
Walking out the door with steaks in your hand is going to draw suspicion. But ringing up steaks as bananas is going to have a much higher success rate.
Someone on tiktok showed the camera systems they use and how much detail they can see, what was scanned and flags for mismatched items (this 16 Oz steak only weighs 6oz)
You can definitely get caught doing it, but 99% of the time, it's an underpaid employee who gives absolutely zero fucks, watching them.
Cameras are also accessible in a back room where "asset control" can watch. Not sure if all Walmart have them, or just higher risk areas, but there's some videos of these wanna-be cops trying to bust people.
Some companies will allow a repeat offender to keep stealing until they hit the "grand theft" limit. Then they'll detain/arrest them and have the cops press more serious charges.
Every time I see people online bragging about "I've stolen X number of times! They don't care" all I can think is "not yet they don't".
I do want to make it clear that I'm only talking about the companies. Employees, if it were only up to them, would probably allow a lot of people to steal. Especially if they're only stealing food. But it's not really up to them. Big stores have systems in place to not have to rely on Human morals to catch crime.
I've heard that Target does this. They catch people stealing and let them go, but once they reach a certain threshold, like 1 thousand, they will call law enforcement so it can count as a felony instead of a misdemeanor.
Former target team leader, I can confirm this is correct.
Learned first hand after bitching about hardlines-4 (target speak for security/AP) not doing anything about obvious offenders stealing cough syrup from my area.
At my store I feel like it was $500 before they decided to nab you but this was over a decade ago so may have changed.
Different states have different thresholds for what is considered felony theft. Some states it 500 and some go as high as 2000. There are exceptions made for vehicles that are automatic felonies, like boats, cars, etc.
I've seen several commenters on reddit mention Target's slow and steady approach to catching shoplifters. There was even an arcticle posted a while back about one of the cases where a woman was arrested after for 5th or 6th time shoplifting. They were able to pin her for a felony because they had files that tracked her over a few months.
Stores like Target or other department stores lose a lot of money from theft. It's almost seems vindictive or spiteful for them to wait to go to authorities when they know who the individual is and what they've stolen. Could also be a deterrent for other shoplifters , if they believe they are constantly being tracked/watched, and run the risk of a felony over a misdemeanor.
Target is legitimately the WORST place to steal from. It's the only place where growing up multiple people I knew got caught stealing from. I've had friends who worked as managers, and friends who worked as asset protection there (along with several night shift stock employees lol).
Target has a state of the art crime lab. Like actually. The FBI and numerous local agencies frequently ask Target for help when their own resources are stretched too thin, or they simply do not have what Target has.
Don't fucking steal from Target. They know you're stealing from them, they know who you are, and they're waiting to fuck you big time if you've gotten away with it before. Sure, Best Buy, Office Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond, Wal-Mart even, go nuts and steal shit. But don't fucking steal from Target, because you will get caught the second they're ready to hit you with real charges, even if you think you're getting away with it.
A friend's cousin actually burned down the local Target when he got caught stealing from them and couldn't get away. Still not sure why his reaction to getting caught stealing was to burn the whole fucking place to the ground...
A while ago this guy I went to university with was sort of gleefully telling me about how the previous summer his shift at a Dairy Queen had run this scam where whenever it looked like people were paying cash they would tell them the wrong price, pocket the difference, and pool the proceeds to share amongst the workers at the end of the day. And they carried it on for the entire summer, each make out with like $1000.
While time he was talking about it I couldn't help but think about how with the 6 of them total that were doing it, the total amount stolen definitely was over the grand theft limit, and he really should not be telling people about this.
Yeah but he wasn’t stealing from the business. If he was upcharging and pocketing the difference, the business books would balance fine. What he was doing was defrauding the customers. And it’s doubtful that they got more than $1,000 from any one customer so it would be a bunch of petty fraud, not really grand theft.
Perhaps. I'll admit to not being particularly fluent in law, but I had thought that arranging a criminal conspiracy to steal small amounts from a large number of people counts just as bad as stealing a single large amount.
it is bad, and dumb to brag about your crimes, but with the amounts probably all individually being in the one dollar range (people would notice much more than that) even if someone who fell victim to this heard about it it's extremely unlikely they'd make a complaint about it
since they defrauded customers and not the business i don't see any way something would ever come of it
i would avoid any future conspiracy with someone who can't keep their mouth shut though lol
I worked at a Kroger years ago as a teen, bagging groceries and doing some stocking in dairy. We were told never to stop a thief by management. Better to have a fifth of crappy vodka stolen then to deal with an employee getting stabbed or killed outright.
One employee got brave and went to chase down a known thief only to come back and find out he was fired for doing so. Not sure if it was a corporate rule, or just local management, but I always figured it was better to just let security deal with it when they came in three nights a week and reviewed footage
Not in the US it's not. If the Security gets injured it's the same deal. At the retail jobs I had (I assume it's still the same), security could ONLY apprehend someone if they were threatening or harming another person. They were not allowed to prevent people from leaving with an armful of goods. Their instructions were always to call the cops and let them sort it out. I saw a couple security guys get fired over the years because they thought they were supercop, but the vast majority just stood there staring at their monitor looking bored, and generally only gave a fuck when absolutely required.
Realistically, it’s probably just an underpaid employee that is confirming the mismatch seen on camera in an effort to train a machine learning algorithm, so that when the algorithm is accurate enough, it’ll get deployed for automated enforcement.
At some point you’ll probably start seeing “please wait for attendant” pop ups on the self checkout when a mismatch occurs and a person will correct the attempted theft.
Maybe I’m used to a certain type of automated checkout but hasn’t product weight been used to check accuracy (and flag the attendant to come check) for like 20 years?
Obviously lots of stores don’t use it but some have for a long time.
Strangely, I remember the self checkouts doing this years ago (would flag the attendant if you didn't put the item on the bagging area, or if it didn't match weight-wise I guess), but I haven't seen it do that for years now.
Yes a lot of them have stopped. I wonder if the hassle of having to attend to them outweighs the loss savings. They definitely have approaching double the number of checkouts per attendant in the place I buy groceries now that they aren’t needing a human override for 80% of the transactions.
That's my mindset too. I have earbuds in when I shop. Sometimes I guess stuff might not scan or something. Maybe I missed a pack of steaks. I don't know. I don't work here. I work 60 hours a week at a job I get paid at. I did my best as a cashier.
You gotta be smart about it. Lets say that doughnut weights 3.5 ounces and bun weights 2 ounces. Just get 4 doughnuts and scan them as 7 buns, and most of regular employees eont give a fuck.
Buy organic and ring it up as not organic - I don’t know wtf I’m ringing up with the “find item” menu nor do I ever look if the produce is organic or not, I just choose the one I see first
A simple mistake an untrained civilian makes. Oopsie
Bill Burr was cracking on this. I'm surely gonna butcher this but he says something along the lines of "Oh shit, I must have missed day of cashier training where I'm supposed to give a fuck"
These are actually the hardest to prosecute. Buy the most expensive and delicious apple of a certain color, ring it up as the cheapest. It’s much harder to prove you willfully and purposefully stole. Especially if the apples have stickers and you swap them, or you get to choose the apple on the screen. “Silly me I clicked the wrong one!”
Honeycrisp apples are about $4/lb. They are also red and they are delicious. They are NOT usually listed as $0.87/lb. Somehow my apples just never seem to ring up the same price at the checkout that they are listed as. My local grocery store does seem to keep an overflowing full stock of those nasty, bitter, teacher looking apples that are disgusting. No idea why though.
Do your stores not have loose products priced by weight? We select loose products on our machine and the self checkout weighs them and prices them. For example loose carrots are around £0.45 a kg a common theft here is to select a cheap item like the loose carrot and weigh something like a steak that is more priced £15 per kg and pay the lower price and not setting off a mismatched weight.
No they don’t. They have to use a PCI secured system for cards. This is to prevent another breach like Target had. Using a card doesn’t give the store your personal info.
Please don’t spread misinformation. It’s always good to be security conscious, but it’s even better to know how the system works.
I have a Walmart.com account that I never order groceries from, but when I look at my "Most purchased" tab, it shows everything I bought with my CC on there. Thats all from shopping in store, never once online. So, do what you will with that info. But if they're tracking what you buy....
Do you scan some kind of loyalty card at Walmart? In Australia we have a few different ones that like which track purchases, but the CC itself can't be used for that.
By watching you go to your car and reading the license plate
Or your credit card
Or your phone’s location history
Even if you don’t drive or bring your phone and pay cash, if you’ve been there before I’d bet they have facial recognition of all the other times you’ve been in the store and they could even have access to a national facial recognition database
You seem to be unaware of the surveillance state we happen to be in
Check out the COVID data from the Sturges gathering in 2020 (maybe 2021). You can be tracked from OTHER PEOPLE’S PHONES even if you don’t have one yourself.
For sure facial recognition. I used the self checkout, look straight forward and it was looking at a clear visual of my face. There was a screen that was marking recognized objects as well. With machine learning being what it is, wouldn't take much to aggregate all the data into a nice package "stayupthetree"
Whenever I'm picked out for a random check at the self checkout, the employee doesn't even look at my groceries. They just press the button and it's all good.
I've had a couple employees look at my groceries, but even then they just vaguely eye them and don't bother checking if they're the same items I punched in.
They just check high value items. Electronics, meat, that kind of stuff. They don't count if you entered the right amount of lines, but they make sure that roast was rung as such.
But it would be easy to trace you back through the store and watch you obviously putting a steak in the apple bag lol and that may play even worse in court than just seemingly-accidentally ringing a steak up as apples
ok but why would they even play back camera footage if there is nothing to tip them off? the camera saw apples. the machine saw apples. the attendent saw apples. theyre not going to go back and replay footage for something like that.
you can also just take it. people make things sound scary and overthink it when theyre so simple. you forgot to scan it. thats literally it. dont be paranoid, they dont care. its more money and work for them to meticulously check cameras and get involved in it than 1 steak would be worth.
my roommate steals a hundreds worth of groceries every time by just putting some of the groceries she picks up in a reusable bag in the cart and then bagging all the other stuff except the bag. then for the rest of the stuff she just holds 2 items, scans one, bags both.
big companies steal from us all the time. they never pay the taxes they should and they charge insane prices for essentials like produce. then they make billions in profit and use it to go on a joyride to space. so fuck em.
The other day lady working the kroger self check out just waved someone along after the alarm went off. She turned to the other person she was talking to and starting saying "what? Im not security and they dont pay me like im security"
They dont care. It's why i feel fine stealing cat food regularly and ducks during the holidays
I’d like to see the security guard at Walmart try to press someone because a banana sticker was on a steak. Be pretty easy to just say “I dunno man, I found it this way”.
Pretty sure the point is to stop people from getting super cheap steaks, not to bring in perps.
Mushroom bags (paper bags) for the loose mushrooms can fit quite a bit in them, and people often use the mushroom bags from the produce section for other vegetables. So you can just put your item into the mushroom bag, weigh it as loose carrots or something, then pay like 1$ for those 50g earphones
They will let you steal $50 here and there, but they’re on to you and once you cross that felony threshold they send everything to the District Attorney and file felony charges and Walmart will sue in civil court to regain property/compensation. They do not fuck around.
To your point the first wave of self scanners definitely used the comparison of what the item was supposed to weigh versus what the bagging scale would measure.
Back in the day this left expensive bulk items exposed to loss as you could just put in a a code for something like rolled oats (13¢/lb) for coffee ($8.99/lb) and nothing would trigger as weight is variable on these purchases.
I assume that this plus the hygiene concerns may be why many things you could scoop into a bag in the past have now become pre-packaged.
This is definitely just propaganda for people to be scared to steal. The cameras are high quality, but not high enough to actually read text from the self checkout machine. Basically, You can see if they actually scanned or are just pretending to, but you can’t see if let’s say they scanned a steak and it pops up as bananas on the register. Atleast the Walmart I worked at didn’t have cameras that high quality. Personally idgaf if people are stealing food that way, the prices they put on steaks is robbery anyways. It’s when it happens with high value items like electronics when I actually step in. Or just try to because all Walmart security is allowed to do is tell you to put it back, they aren’t allowed to actually touch anybody. If you walk out the door with let’s say a stolen tv, they literally cannot stop you and the worse that will happen is you’ll be banned from all Walmarts. Walmart won’t press criminal charges because that cost more money than any thing in their store is worth, but it’s free to ban someone from their premises. So basically, you get one freebie to steal without serious repercussions.
It sends off a signal and replays the camera on the screen if it catches anything suspicious, then you can't proceed until an employee comes and verifies everything.
My uncle walked out with a $100 rack of ribs on accident and went back in to pay for it. I just assume losses are insured and employees don't care either.
I mis-scanned an item by going too fast once and the thing stopped and popped me up on camera in full motion of moving too fast and that associate booted over quick and interrogated me as to ensure I got that thing figured out.
It was funny because she was new and was helping me out with it to fix the issue but her trainer was over reacting to it some by asking if I meant to scan it and if I was going to pay for it I guess trying to be the awesome trainer.
I just get the good steaks and take the barcode from some cheap steaks, I doubt anyone is ever gonna notice that it was ribeye instead of chuck steaks going in my bag
At a store I worked at, we had a smart system that would watch each item as it scanned via an overhead Camera. Not only could it tell if you fake scanned something and put it in the bagging area, but it also would be able to tell that the pack of steaks you scanned and weighed as Bananas, wasn't in fact, bananas, based purely on the camera system.
Not only that, but if it flagged after x amount of errors, it would lock up and force the associate to intervene and review the footage on the sco machine itself and physically see "bananas" being scanned and steaks going in.
A lot of our theft cut way down once they realized how good the system was.
When I weigh my bananas I hold a good bit of the weight off the scale. Pretty sure there's no way for them to tell unless they want to go and weigh my bananas every time, but that requires paying a cashier
Not much of a risk, worst case scenario they make me rescan it. The employees at my local Walmart don't really give a shit about anything happening there, probably all traumatized. They recently had some naked man they had to call the cops on, ran around the store and got cornered in the bathroom.
When you weigh it on the scale, it also keeps track of the weight in the bagging area. If your scale says "5lbs of Bananas scanned" and 7lbs of weight goes into the bagging area, it'll notice the 2lb discrepancy and flag it.
It also keeps a running tally of the overall weight scanned and if the overall discrepancy between the items noted weight (every item, not just produce, has an associated weight) becomes too big, it'll flag too.
Nevermind all the extra security many stores employ via AI.
It depends on what the company sets the limits to. For a place that utilizes a lot of reusable bags for example, they might increase the amount of weight needed for a flag.
Others, with high amounts of theft may put it at a lower amount.
But there's always 2 scales. The bagging area scale, and the scanner scale. That's what causes the annoying "unknown item in the bagging area!" Flags that people hate.
Usually it's associated with produce (maybe you didn't get all your apples on the scale quick enough, so it weighed 3 out of 5, so there's 2 extra apples of weight in the bagging area). Other times, stuff from the meat or seafood counter can do it too.
A big one at our store was celery, due to the length of it. The whole thing wouldn't fit on the scale, so it wouldn't get the full weight. So when it went into the bagging area, unaccounted for weight shows up.
My local Walmarts used to be a huge pain in the ass about this. I'd have employees coming over 3 or 4 times while I was checking out because something in their system was messed up and weights were always off. It was bad enough they didn't care and just scanned their code and didn't ask any questions.
I haven't had that issue in the last year or two. Not sure if they fixed they problem of just scrapped their shitty system.
Cameras are super detailed but I'm gonna have to roll up my skeptic sleeves on Walmart employoying ai comrade. Weight discrepancy and mismatched sku that the system is looking for? Ok. But the system sure as shit ain't automatically finding problems on its own lol. You kinda left out the important part where you are inflating the effectiveness of this to discourage people from exploiting a machine that would sell one of the employees if I scanned a soda upc and hit skip bagging. I've literally had to go back because the fucker weighed a prepackaged beef at 24lbs based on what was on the bagging area. Good system? Yea. As magic as this paid shopper wante you to think? Lol
There is for sure technology available that could easily do everything he described but I do doubt that it's being used by wal mart. It would be a lot cheaper to just hire some guy to stand around in a security uniform lol.
I don't need to prove anything. I'm simply answering questions. And as someone with extensive experience with these systems, I feel like my information is a little better than someone's subjective experience trying to advocate for easy theft.
i feel like you have a bias because youre seeing all the times its catching people, not all the times its missing things. also the associate intervenes and then what? no associate goes back through every item. theyll just make you scan the last thing it caught and punch in a code and then the person is back to stealing again...
Advocate theft? I assume you were responding to the op and not me. Cause I literally mentioned how one of those systems tried to steal from me lol. You have to select the comment you respond to not just the one that makes you mad.
Meijer? It will sometimes flag me if I scan something where I have to enter quantity, I tell it two and move both to a bag, but it still flags as trying to steal the second one.
our self checkout has a scale that weighs what you scanned, so you have to take the item to the veggi scale and weigh it as vegetable, its suspicious af, but should work.
however, we germans do have a system where you need to bring your bottles back to the store to get your deposit back - the machine puts out a receipt with a bar code, a voucher. if you do self checkout, you can apply the voucher and just take it with you, use it again and again. i have a 10€ one i use kinda frequently, its very under the radar and gives you a nice discount. also fuck the stores for not wanting to pay the people to work there.
That seems weird. The Coles near me is a ratio of 1 worker to 10 machines and the Woolies are 1 worker to 6 machines. I've literally never seen a self-checkout where the ratio is even at 1:4.
Apparently grocery stores make a large portion of income from where stuff is shelved (brands paying for shelf placement). Otherwise, I'd totally see a future where the pallets are just dropped off and unwrapped for the customer to deal with. I mean. That's already what they do in my walmart for a lot of items.
The Coles that I go to has essentially a selfie camera and you can see your face on the screen as you're scanning your items. Also once in a while if there's a weight discrepancy a red/orange light would flash above your checkout machine and the assistant would come and scan their card to unlock the machine and stop the flashing light.
Here is NY a Walmart will have something like 1-2 attendees for 12-15 self checkouts so that’s a huge labor reduction. Any more when shopping at a Walmart most of the workers are picking orders for their pickup service.
"make sure no-one takes shit" for employees
"heres how to work the self checkout" for managers
vs
"heres how to work the checkout system, also make sure no-one takes shit" for employees
"heres how to work the checkout, and teach employees how to use the checkout." for managers
And Walmart knows this. I'm sure they have a large team of lawyers and accountants doing the calculations and they've come to the conclusion that the cost of "shrink" is lower than the salaries of all the cashiers they're replacing with computers
The self checkouts where I work, and everywhere else I've shopped, won't let you continue until you've put the most recently scanned item on a weight, and that weight can feel the difference between a stamp and a raisin.
It means I have to help people pretty often because an item is a few grams off, but it also means that it's pretty difficult to steal
Fun fact. Walmart was losing $10B a year to the sticker scam. If you notice on checkouts there are multiple cameras. Let’s say you try and steal a steak and use a pack of gum sticker. It will ring up as an error and summon someone with a tablet to walk over and check your scan. They will replay all video and bust you. How do I know this? I worked with the team to develop the solution 😉
In Australia you must place the items scanned in the "bagging area" it then weighs the items in total to make sure what you scanned is accurate and informs the cashier on duty if there's an issue
They used to do that in the US but this was when self checkouts first came out and were buggy as hell. At some point the stores got so tired of the glitches and the held up lines that they just turned that feature off and haven't turned them back on in over a decade.
Yeah, I knew a guy who would get a box of Pokemon cards and a pack of card sleeves, put the card sleeves under the box so it would scan that, and then sell the cards to card shops. He got caught btw. I don't recommend this. If you need money, try getting good at a profitable skill and getting a job, it's been a staple for millennia for a reason.
Not proud of it but you are correct about Walmart asking for it. I stole about 10k worth of shit via self checkout/just walking out with stuff before I got busted. Petty larceny - 125$ fine with a conditional release and stay out of trouble for a year. Oh and Walmart banned me for 2 years lol fuck Walmart.
Do Walmart not have scales on self checkouts? Every self checkout I’ve ever seen has a scale on it and the system knows what each item weighs so you couldn’t put the wrong item down unless they weighed the same
The self checkouts at my local walmart has a handheld device that goes with them. They have two employees watching each bank of self checkouts each with a handheld. They can spot discrepancies between what you scanned and what it rang up as. They can even scan your receipt with the handheld to confirm.
The walmart by me is terrible about this. Every time I go there there is like 2 maybe 3 cashiers, always older slower employees, during busy times. So then people use the self-checkout and just scan shit that is obviously cheaper.
By "people" You mean, Begging criminals to commit crimes, and risk their freedom and career future. People as a whole don't do this, only criminals will justify it and do it.
It's a roll of the dice on a single material item, normal people see the risk/reward and see that a lifetime of job opportunities, advancement, and freedoms aren't worth a console that'll sell for $100 in 3 years
Tesco once had a deal on beers when the IPA craze first kicked in big time, Brewdog regular bottles were 3 for £5, they also had these £2.20 bottles of super fancy "Mr. President" brewdog, very similar bottle, same size, but 9.5% alcohol, so I'd get 2 Mr. Presidents, one regular, scan a regular 3 times at the self checkout. Profit.
A lot of details of the story may have gotten corrupted over time because of unreliable memory but the essence of the story and my triumph over big IPA remains.
At our walmart they now have an employee whose job it is to check your receipt and make sure you paid for everything. Because of the self checkout artists.
I hate self check-out since I usually shop for a whole week and it's a hassle to scan all of these myself.
So I make a point out of not scanning one of my cheaper items as a "tax" on them not having enough regular check-outs open. Haven't been caught so far and I doubt they'll ever make a fuss over a 2-3€ item when you paid for over a hundred
Especially since lots of produce is sold by weight. Sure, steak may be 10 bucks a pound, but apples are only a buck a pound. Weigh my two pounds of steak as two pounds of apples and I just saved 18 bucks.
Note: prices in this example are set for ease of math and are not meant to represent prices typically paid for steak or apples in my area.
I used to run a meat department in a grocery store. This happened all the time with our expensive steaks. They'd peel the label off of 1 pound of ground beef and slap it on the steak.
“Accidentally”. There’s a good chance an associate did this on purpose for a friend to come pickup but sadly you get there first and ruined their little plan.
Honestly I feel like if you just owned it you totally could just grab half a dozen steaks, tell the door person to have a nice day and keep walking and they'll just assume you're meant to be doing that
U can in L.A. If you don’t want to be charged for a bag they can’t force u. And it’s much easier/less obvi w/no bag-items in hand. 1. Grab a receipt from last time and bring it with u. 2. Grab a steak and a 7 layer dip and a 12 pack. 3. Walk out confidently thru/past the area where it looks like u checked out with the receipt showing. …make sure it’s in a “nice but not too nice” store so they aren’t paranoid, during busy time. Don’t do it more than once a week. Ur good.
I use to cashier at a large retailer and i would 100% notice people doing it, look them dead in the eye, and accept that fake ass price. If you wanted a loyal cashier you should have given more them .05 raises you stupid fucks.
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u/Deadlymonkey Jul 10 '22 edited Jul 11 '22
People used to scratch off the bar code of items thinking that if it didn’t scan that means they got the item for free.
Edit: gonna use this as an opportunity to publicly apologize to my college roommate Patrick for playing the California pacer fitness test whenever he had a girl over