I was in a popular discount store recently. I had bought and paid for pictures. The clerk asked if I wanted a bag and I said, "No, I'll just stick them in my purse."
I continued shopping and when I went to pay for the rest of my shopping, the clerk saw the pictures in my purse and said that I had to show her my receipt. Being an American, i declined the offer. She insisted. I said, No. The battle continued. I told her she had no business looking in my purse. She said it was store policy. I said, "This is still America." I told her to call a manager. She did. The manager explained that I would have to show the receipt. I said, ask the clerk at the photo shop. The manager declined and instisted I show the receipt. I insisted that in order for them to search my purse, they would have to arrest me. I then offered my wrists for handcuffs. I also, reminded them that if the receipt was in my purse that I'd sue their royal rears. They gave in and asked me to leave. I told them they should ask nicely.
I left. I wrote a complaint to the smiling store and received a warm sorry from the district manager. I do warn you if you choose to shop in these mega stores be sure you don't make a slip up. I know people who are honest who have been arrested for walking out with a pack of gum and were arrested when they realized their error and tried to turn around. The woman I speak of was a wealthy woman whom I know. I hate stupid super stores. BEWARE shoppers.
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Comments: 14
and the movie was not on the receipt.
The cashier not only didn't demagnetize it, she never even rang it up in the first place! I marched him right over to the cashier, and waved the offending movie at her. "You DID check this out, right?" She agreed. I told her it wasn't on the receipt and I'd been stopped at the door. Then, I had to go to the self-checkout and pay for it there... *sigh*
Now one time, I was at Walmart, was buying something marked $5.00, it was a dayplanner, when the girl scanned it it rang up at $22.00. I told her she had to give it to me for $5 dollars, she said I can't do that, I said call the manager. She did and I got it for $5.00.
There are a few door greeters at my store that are fanatical about checking receipts and merchandise. They will pester anyone they see who has loose objects in their cart, or expensive objects (particularly electronics), and will grab onto your cart if they think you're stealing. They do catch a lot of attempted theft (there's plenty of stories about customers attempting to sneak out with self-bagged merchandise valued at hundreds of dollars that they didn't pay for), supposedly.
Then there's the door greeters who are basically just stuck watching the door because the other door greeter is on break or had to go to the bathroom or whatnot. In most cases, you won't get pestered by a receipt from these people unless you are carrying something that's obviously expensive, or something that sets the alarm off.
I will, without fail, make a LARGE amount of commotion about it - and insist on a FULL refund of ALL the things I had purchased - Immediately - mentioning in my "outdoors voice" that I will never shop at a store that insults its honest, paying customers in that way EVER again.
And yes, I will leave 200 dollars worth of groceries behind and do the entire shopping experience again at another store - and have done.
While I realize that theft loss is a very serious issue with stores - especially those catering to a largely less-affluent clientel such as WalMart - There are methods to minimize the insulting behaviors. For instance, if, as Austin says, it is company policy to check that every large-ticket item is paid for - then maybe the company needs to invest in a person to escort legitimate large-ticket purchases to the store exit - possibly even purporting to just want to "Make sure you get out safe and undamaged and easy with that - it's company policy", instead of insulting your customer by insinuating that he stole the merchandise he just paid hundreds of dollars for.
My purse would set off alarms all over - in fact it once set off the alarm as I went INTO a Cub Foods. The manager insisted that I come over and that time I was actually GLAD to have it checked into. (He too couldn't figure out how I would set off the alarm going IN)
We finally narrowed it down to the photos - but even with him trying to de-activate them using his pad thing - they were just stubbornly NOT giving up.
I finally had to just stop bringing the photos to show people anymore. I suspect my photo album now would try to pretend it is stolen.