Some Walmart employees say customers are getting hostile at self-checkout — and they blame anti-theft tech
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.
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
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
Many supermarkets and shopping centers have implemented devices that “lock” their shopping carts if they’re taken outside of an approved boundary (e.g, a parking lot). This talk examines some of the technology that’s used to do this, as well as ways to capture and spoof the control signals to defeat these devices. We will go over the anatomy of remotely lockable shopping cart wheels, their basic theory, and get into how they’re controlled. We’ll deconstruct some samples of the lock and unlock signals captured using a homemade antenna and a HackRF, and briefly discuss methods of rebroadcasting them – as well as the challenges inherent to this process. DISCLAIMER This talk is the result of a personal project. Any views, opinions, or research presented in this talk are personal and belong solely to the presenter. They do not represent or reflect those of any person, institution, or organization that the presenter may or may not be associated with in a professional or personal capacity unless explicitly stated otherwise.
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 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.
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.
Tell us you’re not listening without telling us you’re not listening
This dumbass with a keyboard knows their worth and knows it is rarely if ever worth it to pay full price for stuff. Especially expensive necessities, for example meat, for which the prices skyrocketed thanks to the lockdowns and aren’t going back down because of the horrifyingly astounding greed of big corps like Walmart who largely control the market.
Hence, stealing stuff like that from Walmart is justified.
It’s justified simply because it is Walmart, but that is the more detailed justification.
It doesn’t matter either way, though, because people are going to keep doing it regardless of what you think.
So carry on, dumbass keyboard warrior. The only one you’re hurting is you. 😎
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?
Sureee you will.
No, you’ll stand there and look around annoyed like everyone else, all your saying is your gonna be a dick to whoever has the misfortune of helping you.
You’re getting ripped off even with a stolen Walmart bike.
I work at a shop and people call us snobs because we won’t work on those deathtraps
normal checkout, which had the problem that my steaks had already been scanned
Lol, that meat had a serial number.
Dang, from one ‘local’ establishment to the next.
And I bet you’re paying more, too.
Why do people get hostile when they are showed a video of themselves moving items to the bag without scanning the item? Why not just accept your fate at this point and pay or give the goods back?
This leads me to think about how Walmart’s focus on cheap low quality goods with stores placed in areas where finances are often tight has created this “I want it but can’t afford it” despair.
You walk into this soul-less, hyper efficient box store and it’s easy to notice they have a lot of stuff but not a lot of staff. And the staff are not exactly motivated to care about theft.
It’s not a long shot to start to think it would be easy to get away with grabbing something, because perhaps Walmart is an easy target. But the efficiency of the place is where that mistake falls short.
The truth is, there are very few businesses with as sophisticated an anti-theft system. Walmart is dealing with petty theft on a global scale and understands exactly how much it costs them, especially if they are perceived as an easy target.
Walmart has the technology to wait until the number of thefts from a single person exceeds the local felony levels and only then press charges. It’s a trap, and ripping off Walmart is a lot less profitable than it might seem.
I caught someone stealing a felony amount of alcohol by using their young children(<5) and they acted like I was the wrong one in the situation.
You got caught, accept the consequences of your actions. Nope, I am the bad guy because I recognozed someone who stole a felony amount of an unnecessary product the other week, watched them on the cameras, and called the police station next door to wait in the lot for them.
They also didn’t show in court and got a warrant for it.
I don’t understand that level of incredulous lack of accountability for your own actions.
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.
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