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swintec
Premium Member
join:2003-12-19
Alfred, ME

swintec to ROCINANTE

Premium Member

to ROCINANTE

Re: Sams club tried stopping me, what can they do?

said by ROCINANTE:

I don't think you realize how these clubs are set up. Once you purchase your items, you can easily wheel your cart back on to the merchandise floor and take an item(s) and walk out with the original receipt in hand if it is not checked. This loss prevention applies to both the employees and customers since a security person cannot possibly see every square foot of those large clubs on live cameras.

This. With the amount of merchandise that customers walk by on the way to the door they can easily grab other things. This is what the receipt checker told me at sams one afternoon. They are checking for these items and a few other key items. Other stores keep merchandise before the registers.

Johnny34
Fed Up. Bye.
Premium Member
join:2001-06-27
Atlanta, GA

Johnny34

Premium Member

And you'd be wrong. The idea of receipt checking is a psychological effect on the would be criminals in making them believe they will be caught. It's the idea that it would stymie would be thieves.

The receipt checker said that because that's what they were told.

The store would rather pay someone to watch for that rather than just move all that stuff back behind the registers? What good does it do to have merchandise at a place where, if the customer picks it up, he can't pay for it?

Tell me this: if the receipt-checking isn't to catch dishonest cashiers who have accomplices, then how DO they catch dishonest cashiers? Real-time surveillance of every single checkout station? It would have to be real-time, since they want the accomplice also. And they'd have to actually find the merchandise in the accomplice's bag.

It's much cheaper to let the cashiers know that item counts are being done (even if many customers decline) and that "unrung" items will probably be found. "If you get a friend of yours to pick up 5 DVDs and you only ring up 1, you will most likely get caught and sent to jail."

Of course, this can all be defeated by having many cashiers all in cahoots with 20 or so customers. All of these 20 customers choose a checkout line staffed by one of the corrupt cashiers, and they all decline the receipt check. If security watches the video of these "suspect" customers leaving the registers, they will see that they came from many different cashiers. Nobody to blame. Logistically very difficult, and most likely a little arm-twisting would get one of the conspirators to squeal on the others.

swintec
Premium Member
join:2003-12-19
Alfred, ME

swintec

Premium Member

said by Johnny34:

The receipt checker said that because that's what they were told.

The store would rather pay someone to watch for that rather than just move all that stuff back behind the registers? What good does it do to have merchandise at a place where, if the customer picks it up, he can't pay for it?

My example is for a warehouse club where the entire floor is devoted to pallets of product. The entrance and exit are very close to each other. As soon as you walk in there is 8+ pallets of product for whatever they are trying to push that particular season. The backside of those pallets is people walking by leaving the store pushing carts. it is nothing for them to reach and grab a case of whatever and drop it in there cart. Everytime I have watched the checkers, they either do a quick item count if the amount of stuff is a fairly low amount or they do a spot check for certain items which is easy to tell if you watch them. I was told key items were electronics or the merchandise that is within reach as customers leave the store.

Johnny34
Fed Up. Bye.
Premium Member
join:2001-06-27
Atlanta, GA

Johnny34

Premium Member

Still makes no sense to have it within reach of someone who couldn't pay for it. They should put up some plywood.

runnoft
Premium Member
join:2003-10-14
Nags Head, NC

runnoft to swintec

Premium Member

to swintec
said by swintec:

said by Johnny34:

The receipt checker said that because that's what they were told.

The store would rather pay someone to watch for that rather than just move all that stuff back behind the registers? What good does it do to have merchandise at a place where, if the customer picks it up, he can't pay for it?

My example is for a warehouse club where the entire floor is devoted to pallets of product. The entrance and exit are very close to each other. As soon as you walk in there is 8+ pallets of product for whatever they are trying to push that particular season. The backside of those pallets is people walking by leaving the store pushing carts. it is nothing for them to reach and grab a case of whatever and drop it in there cart. Everytime I have watched the checkers, they either do a quick item count if the amount of stuff is a fairly low amount or they do a spot check for certain items which is easy to tell if you watch them. I was told key items were electronics or the merchandise that is within reach as customers leave the store.

This is another thing that may be different at Costco. The Costco stores I have been in (about four in the Chicago area) which are fairly new in construction are set up so that when you pay you are funneled to the exit. There is no additional merchandise that could be picked up and added to the cart past the registers. There may be a cash food counter (hot dogs, pizza) and a membership desk but you have no more access to additional merchandise with your cart unless you deliberately roll it back through the register area or exit and re-enter the store past two checkers. I presume there are cameras on these areas and staff would likely attempt to stop someone moving a cart with merchandise in the wrong direction past the registers or back through the entrance. (Members returning merchandise re-enter with it through the exit door.)