Video & Multimedia
Related: About this forumWalmart Pre-Crime Treats All Customers Like Criminals
TRUTHstreammedia · Published on May 25, 2014
...but won't/don't stop real shoplifters.
Gone are the days of "Thank you, come again (we appreciate your business)."
Instead, today's box stores target average customers as potential criminals, subjecting them to post-checkout screenings.
Because... somehow, RFID-tagged & tracked merchandise, ubiquitous security cameras from every angle inside and outside the store, security personnel, police officers and metal detectors at the door just aren't enough.
No... places like Wal-Mart ALSO feel the need to put customers -- who spend their hard-earned money on their goods -- through the inspection of a semi-retired minimum wage greeter -- an employee whose job used to be to tell shoppers "Hi" or something snappy about the current sales, but who is now used to boss around shoppers after they've already paid, and match up their receipts against the items in the cart... while everyone waits.
Why shop at a place where you are presumed guilty until proven innocent? That's where the commerce goes when smaller stores go out of business and those with the least means go where the prices are cheapest -- despite the ethics of the place, respect for the individual or the customer service.
Former Walmart District Manager Accuses Company of Widespread Inventory Manipulation
Wal-Mart losing $3 billion a year from thefts
- Thank you for shopping. Now drop your merchandise, interlace your fingers behind your head, stand with legs apart with your receipt firmly between your teeth. If you have no teeth, they're on sale now in Personal Care products, Aisle 19.
chillfactor
(7,580 posts)greeters have been checking receipts on a customer's purchases for as long as I can remember....and I am 72 years old
Flying Squirrel
(3,041 posts)But you hear nary a peep about that, because Costco is such a wooonderful employer. So why is ita big deal when Walmart does it?
tularetom
(23,664 posts)When you're going out the door with a hundred items in your cart and there are 20 other people in line behind you there is no way they will go through your purchases one by one with your receipt.
More often than not, the door person will briefly glance at the pile of stuff inside your cart and then swipe a marker across your receipt, tell you to have a nice day, and then send you on your way. The whole process is so trivial and silly you can't be offended by it. It's also quite unlikely to expose any shoplifters.
They claim they do this to ensure that the checker didn't charge you for something you didn't get. Frankly, I don't think that's true but I'm not bothered by it.
By the way, I've never experienced it at wally world. They do have a geezer standing by the door, and he may be eyeballing what you carry out, but he has never asked to see what I have in a bag. That may be because I'm a geezer myself.
bayareaboy
(793 posts)I like how they tell us often how they pay livable wages there, but I really don't want to buy Koch Brothers/Georgia Pacific towels, too-die paper, and other branded Costco products that are Brawny or Nestle.
I live in Auburn Ca, where Costco is buying property from Placer County that will take out a Senior Citizen facility, a gym, offices for a Senior Help organization, and a group that provides plays put on and for children.
So far Costco's commitment has been 500 thousand for the seniors, screw everybody else.
As you can tell, I don't shop Costco anymore and have never shopped Wallmart. I have found though, that if someone want's to check your tag, Tell them to place you under arrest first.
PumpkinAle
(1,210 posts)the woman who checked me out forgot the very large package of toilet rolls - even though I had pointed to them at the bottom of the cart - so I was stopped and then told to wait to the side and then a manager had to come over and re-check and I was told stay here, and then come with me so you can pay for the item - other shoppers were looking very hard and I felt terrible. I felt like shouting hey the person checking me out forgot - okay?
I wonder though how many people didn't pay for small items and were let through without a peep.
951-Riverside
(7,234 posts)...I just walk out the store, always have since 2005. They can't keep me blocked in if I haven't committed any crime and if the employee tries to block me he or she will probably be fired anyway.
Circuit City used to do this as well.
Its funny watching 9-10 well meaning idiots lined up digging around for their receipts while I just walk right out the door.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)''When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.''
~Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America - Volume 2
''We do not merely destroy our enemies, we change them. Do you understand what I mean by that? When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will. We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. In our own day they are not fighting against one another at all. The war is waged by each ruling group against its own subjects, and the object of the war is not to make or prevent conquests of territory, but to keep the structure of society intact.''
~George Orwell, 1984
Enrique
(27,461 posts)RebelOne
(30,947 posts)No big deal. There is a man sitting at the door as you walk out. I just show my receipt as I exit.
suzanner
(590 posts)is to leave or 'check' your bags, totes, or large purses at the cashiers' station. That I really detest and I rarely go back to that mall. But the show-your-receipt thing I've seen for years at stores like Walmart. It's a sad world when some people feel they must shop-lift because they are so poor. I would think the guilt would prevent any enjoyment of whatever they took.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)...that he interviewed, who said ''if you haven't done anything wrong you have nothing to worry about'' -- is exactly the place where Police States desire to be. Compliant citizens who neither question nor even know they have a right to question those who are tacitly, ''their servants.''
Walmart's policy of checking bags and carts is nothing less than an invasion of privacy. It's a policy of: ''Guilt until proven innocence.'' And no one's yet called them on it because in a fascist state, the government sides with the corporation.
Creeping authoritarianism is the way to go if you're a New World Order trying to get things setup. The despots and dictators of old left a legacy of failure not because they weren't ruthless enough, but too much. And they didn't analyze what they were doing wrong. But that is not now the case. Computers have captured us in more ways than most can imagine.
- And so the world that Edward Bernays help design and usher in, has now been achieved:
zebonaut
(3,688 posts)SmittynMo
(3,544 posts)People would just as soon be briefly detained, checked and let go, rather than create a scene and be further detained because you broke their stupid rules. In today's society, everyone is in a rush, and don't want any further delays in their day. Has anyone ever seen anyone detained because of an discrepancy in their cart? Hell no. Why they do this is beyond me. You just left the cashier, and paid in full all your items. There is no way you can add additional items to your cart because there's nothing on display to add once you leave the cashier. Why do a brief check again? And there's no way they can check every item.
If you blew through the checkpoint, what can they do? By the time the police show up, you'd be loaded up and gone. Did you break any law? No. Would you get arrested? No.
I agree with the original poster, you are treated like a criminal, when no crime has been committed.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)But it didn't get that way overnight. I took my first plane ride on an American Airlines DC-6 in 1966 and we drove up to the terminal in my Dad's big Buick and walked directly into the airport check-in, the door of which behind the counter is where you walked straight to the plane.
- Then something happened and we ended up here:
Taitertots
(7,745 posts)You don't actually have to stop and show your receipt to the person at the door.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)...so that everyone knows what to expect. And that would be limited to anything observable such as in an open cart. You're still on their property, but everything in your cart is YOUR property now, and they have no right to detain anyone, without cause.
Once they begin pawing through your personal stuff or demanding to see inside something of yours such as a handbag or inside clothing, then they've crossed the line.
If they force the issue or have private security do it, sue their asses off is the phrase for the day. Because they become liable when they don't find anything.
Things don't ever get this far, because everyone complies. And the nail that sticks up (too much) gets escorted off the property.
- I don't want to sound smug, but I don't shop in Walmart or Sams. Not everyone agrees with me though (including family members who are addicted and impervious to my pleas). Just think what things would be like if they did agree with me......
* Not a lawyer either.
[center]
''The Fate Of All Scum-Sucking Lawyers''[/center]
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,335 posts)No receipt check no membership - if they feel like pushing the issue.
I get really annoyed at Home Depot when I have to shop there for business. I'll be the only one at the register 8 feet away from the receipt checker. He watches me check out and pay and waits for me to walk 5 steps to him only to stop me and ask for a receipt.
lame54
(35,315 posts)and to look down women's tops
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)tea and oranges
(396 posts)How is that part of the story?
And about that story, we've been showing our receipts (to all kinds of people) for years at Costco, but then Costco is liberal capitalism. Still capitalism, still eminent domain seeking, privatizing liquor sales (in state of WA) capitalism.
Yeah Wal-Mart sucks, but this a lame attempt when there's so much substance to go after w/ this one failing business model.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)PC much?
I didn't particularly care for the term's use, but then I don't control what comes from people's mouths, either. Everyone's not as sophisticated as you and I. Realizing this can make life so much happier, you should give it a whirl!
On the whole I thought the story was right-on!
And it's indicative of how the creeping totalitarianism you seem so comfortable with, has gotten as far as it has. I'm sure Big Brother appreciates your disdain for anyone who criticizes the ''You Stole It Unless I Say You Didn't'' system.
Why is this one-failing business model important to discuss? You really asked this?
- If I may ask, why are you here?
tea and oranges
(396 posts)Why are you so angry?
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)He referred to her as a Walmart employee and an old lady. Really, people need to get over themselves.
And I'm not angry, just straight and to the point.
- Besides, everybody loves me! Ask anyone!!!
OKNancy
(41,832 posts)so like a traitor I went to WalMart. They had really great produce. I think because the turnover is so great, it's always fresh. Also some great Mexican food items... anyway, I started going there since I'm on Social Security and I could use the savings.
I have never ever seen anyone's receipt checked. I never have had it happen and I have never seen it happen to anyone else.
And great news... a Costco is opening just down the road in 2015. I'll go there when it opens to buy bulk items.
PatrynXX
(5,668 posts)now they do it at walmart ho hum..
nothing to see here.. just agism in the article
xfundy
(5,105 posts)to call the cops if they think I'm stealing.
Fuck them.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)Nitram
(22,853 posts)So what?
They (the emperors) frequently abused their power arbitrarily to deprive their subjects of property or of life: their tyranny was extremely onerous to the few, but it did not reach the greater number; .. But it would seem that if despotism were to be established amongst the democratic nations of our days it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild, it would degrade men without tormenting them.
After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the government then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd.
The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence: it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.
Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.
~Alexis de Tocqueville
[center][/center]