Some Walmart employees say customers are getting hostile at self-checkout — and they blame anti-theft tech::When Walmart’s anti-theft self-checkout tech alerts an employee of a missed scan, it can cause some uncomfortable situations.
Ever since the pandemic, curbside pickup has been the norm at our house for groceries.
We use Kroger, not Walmart, but I had a recent experience relevant to share.
I was out running an errand and my spouse asked me to go grab a couple items from Kroger since it was nearby.
I hadn’t been inside the store in like a year, so I was surprised to see gates at the door that opened and closed upon approach and walking away.
Also, while shopping, at some point suddenly the wheels on the cart locked up, causing me to bang the ever loving shit out of my shins on the cart frame. That’s when I got to learn about the new “anti-theft” wheel lock tech being used on all carts now.
I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I wanted to flip the goddamn cart over and kick the absolute shit out of it… but I knew that wouldn’t help.
…But if I read a story about someone going and drilling holes in every single one of those cart wheels, or setting fire to them all, or breaking the gates, I would laugh.
I imagine as soon as someone gets something worse than bruised shins and brings a lawsuit against these stupid companies, we will see these stupid things go away… but until then, I’m not fucking stepping foot inside any store that has that bullshit.
The grocery store in my city became straight dystopian. It was always a sort of sketchy area but nothing that bad. After the pandemic, they added a second armed, vested private security in black, one-way turnstiles going in and out, increased cameras with screens on every aisle that showed you with the words “RECORDING IN PROGRESS”. They even added locks to the frozen section, so you had to get an employee to help you buy ice cream. The police and security would tackle clearly unwell people who were shoplifting food, face pushed into the concrete type of thing.
The “bad” grocery store near me has taken to posting security cam pictures of people they catch stealing which is a terrible, awful, extrajudicial thing to do, but I would be lying if I said it does not make for some hilarious pictures. It’s a big wall of shame right as you enter the store.
The police and security would tackle clearly unwell people who were shoplifting food, face pushed into the concrete type of thing.Cops can generally get away with that. Store security guards assaulting customers open the store up to a lawsuit.
True, the store security usually didn’t actually do anything, the police would be doing that while the security talks to them, but on two occasions I did see the security tackle a person.
Jesus Christ that all sounded (unfortunately) normal until the locked freezers. That’s a step too far. I mean, all of it is, but that’s actually a ridiculous concept lmao
It’s pretty funny to think, living in the US, nothing is odd about a privately employed person with a gun guarding groceries or people being violently arrested when they steal said groceries out of necessity.
My wife’s creepy racist incel uncle had a fit once when we went into a store and he saw himself on the security camera. He said he doesn’t like seeing himself. My sister had the same reaction to seeing herself pre transition and apparently it’s a common theme among trans people who haven’t realized it yet.
I know it’s a bit of a tangent, but he’s rabidly transphobic up to the point just short of being blatantly hateful. He’s obsessed with my sister and other trans people and made a lot of obsessive and creepy jokes about dating them.
This post triggered my PTSD.
Yikes, I hope you don’t have to deal with him anymore.
That’s more a body dysmorphia thing than specifically a trans thing. For instance, I hate seeing myself too, and I’m just fat, not trans. I disapprove of the appearance I have, and dislike being reminded of that. Yes, I’m working on it.
He’s a completely out of shape incel, so that’s a possibility. Considering everything else, he seems deep in the closet. He started mentioning trans stuff all the time before he found out that my sister is trans, which caused him to have an existential crisis, because he was obsessed with her and trying to get her to date him. He also has a creepy latent obsession with Russian women. He constantly talked about other trans women and joked about dating them and went through an entire hypothetical situation of introducing a specific trans woman he was obsessed with to his family.
I’m surprised it locked up like that. About 15 years ago I was a frequent customer in a store that had these and I never encountered any problem with it, nor did I hear of anyone else encountering a malfunction while using them.
That store implemented those locks because they were the closest supermarket to a college campus. Some students were taking the carts back to their dorms and chaining them up to a tree with bicycle chains. They would also use those carts to go shopping in a nearby supermarket of another store chain.
Different continent though, so it’s probably not entirely the same technology. People like reinventing the wheel.
People like reinventing the wheel.
I see what you did there.
I always try and smash my cart into the gates extra hard every time I go through
Hackers messing with those anti-theft wheels: https://invidious.flokinet.to/watch?v=fBICDODmCPI
I’ve had too many incidents with spoiled or opened food to ever use curbside pickup.
My wife once ordered some dried basil or similar herb, they said they were out of stock and substituted it with an actual live potted basil plant. We both thought it was hilarious, but also annoying.
Remember everyone. If you see someone shoplifting from Walmart, no you didn’t.
I feel like it depends. Stealing is morally wrong no matter what. But I’d probably act as if I saw nothing if someone just stole a sandwich or similar. I’m not sure I’ll act the same if I see a teenage girl of a family that is obviously very well off steal things like makeup (that one literally bragged about it in front of her parents during a dinner where I was invited).
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I wouldn’t say anything. Not because I care about “muh poor people” but because I actively mind my own business. I would behave the same way if I saw someone steal from a small business as well.
As long as it’s just “shoplifting”. Where I’m at, people will come in on a bike with a trash bag, load it up, roll out, and go to the next town over and sell the stuff on the street in the ghetto.
That’s quite a story.
It’s pretty common here. A lot of stores have been hiring private security, but if the security intervenes then the thief can sue them.
I used to be in security. I couldn’t imagine getting paid a little over minimum wage and giving a shit about theft. The only ones that would were people who took it too goddamn seriously and we called them “tac heads” because they purchased all this tactical gear like the maglights like a fucking billy club and were looking for an excuse to throw down.
Matter of fact that describes some cops too. Damn is there a serious problem with how we staff enforcement jobs.
We call them “Entrepreneurs” lol
Just curious, do you get anything if you tell on them?
Boosters are public servants doing God’s work and I won’t hear a word said against them
What would even be wrong with someone doing that? 🤔
The employees can potentially get fired.
Maybe they should keep some non-self check registers open then. I was a grocery store cashier in high school and college and I got $20/hour for doing it (adjusted for inflation). Right now if I see a store only has self-check open I will walk out, what I want to do is start tracking my time then mailing in a 1099 and an invoice for my time.
I’d never think to harass the poor employee who has nothing to do with the store managenent’s decisions…
However, when I’m pissed or tired I’ll sometimes be rough or sloppy with the machine, and I get pissed if they have too few manned checkouts for how crowded a store is. Banging items against the scanner glass, tap selections on the touch screen forcefully with my ring etc.
To keep the self-checkout machines company, I’ll act like a machine too. If I unsuccessfully attempt to scan something, after 5 tries I “timeout” and move onto the next item.
I give 60 seconds for someone to come fix the self checkout when it fucks up. If no one is available, I’m taking my shit and leaving. I tried to pay, fuck you I don’t have time for this.
I tried to pay, fuck you I don’t have time for this.
Lol, uh huh. Whatever you gotta tell yourself to justify stealing that bag of doritos, dude.
Sucks to suck. Fix your machines.
I’m not gonna cry for a corporation that doesn’t give a fuck if you eat or not. Why are you?
I’m not “crying” for any corporations. I’m laughing at that jackass for their asinine rationalization for shoplifting. If you don’t understand the difference, I don’t know what to tell you.
You’re not crying for them, you’re licking their boots
You’re free to do so, of course, and we’re free to laugh at your dumb ass paying full price for $20 steaks that were only half as much three years ago.
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It’s unethical and I personally wouldn’t do that…
…but in your situation practically speaking, if no one’s going to come and fix the machine in that amount of time, then who would be there to stop you just walking out with your goods?
It’s funny, my local Walmart ditched the weight checking part of the self checkout so it’s quick and easy, yet every time I go at least one person has managed to fuck up badly enough to need to call help over
Meanwhile I’m getting a decent discount on my purchase, which is nice
You’re stealing?
Unexpected item in bagging area?
Fuck you buggy robot, keep up. I’m moving on to the next one.
Didn’t get scanned? The store is getting the quality of checkout that it paid for.
Ah so stealing. Got it.
I refuse to do the unpaid labor of fixing their shitty robot.
If bad business decisions cause accidental shrinkage, oh well.
Lot of mental hoops your jumping through to justify stealing.
I’ll go there. Robot fucks up, I’m stealing.
I tried to pay. Fuck em.
The store is stealing labor from you.
Why are u defending a corporation that’s making you do a job for free that people used to get paid to do.
Stealing from Walmart is a community service.
It’s simply the customer getting paid for the labor of being a cashier. If someone does labor for a company, the company pays them.
Morally maybe, but legally no. Theft requires criminal intent. If the person is honestly attempting to pay for the goods and errors in the payment method cause an over or underpayment, that’s not theft.
It’s gone further here… we have shops with scanners so you scan the goods as you go around… in theory speeding up checkout but…
- 25% of the time you end up selected for ‘random check’ so an employee has to come and rescan everything anyway
- If there are any ‘restricted’ items a like painkillers, a different employee has to come over and allow them.
Given the chronic understaffing meaning you’re basically in a queue for attention, it frequently takes longer to get through the ‘rapid’ checkouts than it would if I simply queued up and got someone else to do it. But as far as the supermarket thinks they’re winning as they pay fewer people.
This is the store policy making the experience suck.
Random checks at Kaufland (European supermarket chain) only require the employee to visually inspect your cart to see if you scanned everything and they only need to rescan like four items, to verify the employee actually took the time to check instead of just waving you through, so it’s all very fast.
Also, all employees can clear restricted items, so that’s fast too. My only gripe is that alcohol-free beer also triggers the age verification, but that’s a minor issue.
I love the hand scanners since thanks to them wonky scales and weight limits are a thing of the past. They really make checkout faster, as long as the store isn’t using them in a boneheaded way.
Non-alcoholic beer still has a little alcohol in it
I don’t understand people that get upset and hostile at employees in these situations. When I go through self checkout I go in with expectations already set that it’s very likely that at some point during the checkout process the machine is going to trigger an alarm and an employee will need to come over and override the alarm. It doesn’t happen too often, but when it does my first reaction isn’t to get all pissy and throw things at the cashier.
If you have no patience for this sort of thing, then go through the regular checkout. See if it takes longer going that route.
The store has chosen to save money by pushing work onto customers via a buggy robot overlord.
Employees are the only person you can complain to.
Just more billionaires making things shitty for everyone.
I could justify it if even a fraction of a percent of the savings were actually passed on, or hell, even distributed to the few employees they still have. But no, it lines the fat cats pockets.
That’s the worst part. It has gotten so miserable for both employees and customers and none of the profits made from these changes has gone back to those most affected by them.
Yeah I do agree that complaining to employees is useless, but it’s also a really frustrating situation and it’s not like you can get the CEO on the phone to complain. I wouldn’t personally complain at an employee, but I do get how someone might in the midst of such frustration.
As a consumer, what’s your other option?
Pretty much nothing, hence why I said I get it 🤷🏼♂️
What regular checkout? Around here they are all closed down and only self checkout is available.
Take all your shit to customer service and check out there.
It’s an asshole move everyone should use until they stop understaffing checkout.
What customer service? That shit’s closed too.
I think a lot of it has to do with that last part of your comment. The amount of times I’ve gone to the grocery store to find there’s no register open other than the self checks or that there’s 1-2 open at a huge grocery store with a 6-8 people in line for them and no self check line… People are being forced into self checking when they don’t want to. These people are obviously going to be more easily upset by issues with the self check machines. Walmart in my limited experience (try to never buy anything there if I can avoid it) is the worst offender I’ve seen.
I would LOVE to go through a regular check out! If only we still actually had more than 2 open in a full supermarket. It’s not about time taken, though, it’s about the sheer level of inconvenience that it’s become. It’s an active pain in the ass to have to do the job that used to be done by employees, with shitty machines that yell at you every few minutes, while actively being recorded and treated like a criminal, and have to go through another checkpoint where they’re going to once again actively treat you like a criminal and look through your receipt. Or I can spend like, 30 minutes in line at one of the two open cashiers.
In Sweden we usually have a self-checkout alternative where you acquire a wireless scanner when walking in, scanning when picking from shelves and put it directly in shopping bags.
At checkout, you just pay and walk out. There is random controls, where an employee will check like 5 randomly chosen things from the bags. This is seldom though, like once every three/four months or something.
Makes for very quick checkout.
I would guess this wouldn’t work in many countries with a more prevalent stealing culture (among which mine, France).
I don’t say that out of nowhere, it shocked me when I went to Sweden and I saw people alone leaving their bags at their place while they go to the bathroom / getting their orders, or just leaving their bike unattached - even for five minutes I would guess it would be quickly stolen in France.
We have it as well. I call it the anti-boomer queue (so no queue)
So basically the boomer queue ensures that cashiers have a job, and it ensures that I don’t have to be treated like a criminal because the cashiers are bagging the groceries and I won’t be subjected to “random controls”. I’m not seeing the negative.
Meh. I can literally leave my house and be back in 10 minutes counted if I miss a couple of ingredients. I got randomly checked like 15 times and they found one time that I beeped two times the same packet of soap instead of beeping one and one (different aroma, same price) and one time they found I was stealing like a 1€ packet of chips that I forgot to scan. They said no problem and didn’t complain at all and made me pay for the chips. For me it’s totally worth it and I don’t see many issues. I agree that the prices are higher and they have less fix costs which make me angry as well but yeah…
I’m cool with checking myself out I actually prefer to but the anti theft nonsense is to much. Nearly everyone triggers it and last time I had to wait an extra five minutes for an employee to clear it and then they had to count 20+ small items all because I waved my arms over the machine fixing the cuff of my shirt… I don’t blame the employees that’s their job
LET ME AT LEAST MUTE IT
Of course. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Often times it’s an honest mistake that a cashier themselves may have made. And now WalMart is treating you, a paying customer like a criminal.
Based on nothing but the people I have seen at Walmart, I would assume there are more people with a convicted criminal history shopping at Walmart than Target.
A key to success in business is knowing your customer base.
All the retail shops that were built 20+ years ago have a ton of un-peopled check-out stands. My local grocery store. My bank branches. The hardware store.
Companies have reduced their staffing to two or three checkers and a self-checkout line.
We’re doing the work for them. They’re hoarding the profits. It’s a mess.
My local BofA branch has twelve or thirteen checker stations and I’ve never seen more than two people at the counter. I don’t know when the branch was built, but it was clearly at a time when the semblance of customer service existed. Now, long lines and poor service are normalized and the idea that you’d shop around for a better experience is non-existent.
Is this an American thing? We had these things in Europe for years, and I never heard of anyone having problems.
Older people still prefer regular checkout, scary computers and that sort of deal.
In my nearest supermarket (europe) it is a pain. You go through self checkout cause it should be faster, but it works like shit, and you have to wait a lot until someone comes to fix the problem. We are civilized, though, we don’t cause problems to the shopkeepers. Still a pain, though
I’m in europe and the issues I’ve had are getting an alert that an employee needs to come to check and sometimes that can take awhile.
One store also has a scanner so you self scan as you go BUT the paying part is at an actual employee instead of a machine. Every damn time they are alerted to randomly pick some items from your cart to check if any weren’t scanned. And every damn time they pick the items at the bottom of my basket and damage stuff because of it. Or sometimes there is no one at the checkout so i stand there with my basket/cart and scanner like an idiot for 3-5 minutes for an employee to show up. That might not seem like a long time but it sure feels like it…
Yep this is exactly why I refuse to do the scan as you go, it ends up seriously frustrating. Self scan at checkout is fine if you don’t have paracetamol or alcohol, otherwise you’re waiting ages for assistance.
It’s definitely an overall worse experience
Kinda funny how much faster Europe has adopted retail tech lately. Last time I was there 7 years ago they were still mostly using cash for transactions, but now the cashiers get a little buttmad if I don’t tap my phone to the scanner immediately. I hardly see anyone using phone payments in the US and I don’t understand why it hasn’t caught on. At least not where I live. It’s about as fast and convenient as it gets.
Or maybe it’s just because I’m in a major city right now and kit everywhere in Europe is like this.
Pretty much in any major town in my tiny country, this is the case also.
Not at walmart, but one of our supermarkets in town has two self-checkouts. I tried them a few times, and they were so f-ed up that I gave up on them. One time, the machine did not accept any cash, but was stuck in the menu choice “pay by cash” without a “back” button. So I took my stuff to the normal checkout, which had the problem that my steaks had already been scanned. Solution: leave a bag of 20+ Euro meat at the checkout, and get a new one from the butchers shop.
normal checkout, which had the problem that my steaks had already been scanned
Lol, that meat had a serial number.
Meat heist is unironically a real thing
We hang cattle rustlers round here…
The last few times I’ve walked into a Walmart, the place has been a disaster.
Shelves empty and in disarray, no evidence that they ever did carry the product I was after, the building in an increasing state of disrepair.
I’m done with this company.
Have they choked out all other options in the vicinity?
