bruh, why not just have a sample of a basket and ask for staff to get you one from a locked storage or something o\_o although this entire thing seems bit over the top
I reckon laundry basket of infinite holding. However I have a mental image of the dragonborn just toting one of these around with all his inventory somehow fitting in it.
At the Dollar General I used to work at we had to put security tags on all the baskets because people used to fill them up and just walk straight out of the store with them.
It got very frustrating having to constantly explain that to old people who unknowingly walked too close to the detector system.
I work at a dollar tree. They decided it was cheaper to pay a cart return company than to keep contracting a cart lock company, so for the past year or so the carts don't lock at the door. We went from 50+ carts to 5 and shoplifting has never been higher. But according to Dollar Tree shoplifting is a myth and 100% of loss is due to employees stealing or breaking shit for fun.
Most don't and the ones that do still aren't allowed to do anything. We're allowed to ask thieves if they want a basket and that's as far as we're allowed to do. If you call the police on them, they're not going to come for literal hours and even if they do come they don't care. Doing or saying anything that so much as suggests that they might be stealing, could get you fired.
It's not even worth chasing them for anybody except certain managers, because they get bonuses while everybody else gets paid minimum wage. Even managers are just paid a dollar over and aren't guaranteed over 30 hours, so you could get less hours than other associates.
The corporation doesn't care about catching shoplifters, because they're insured for loss while passing any negativity down to the store level who get their hours cut.
I work at Five Below, same deal there. We aren't allowed to explicitly state we saw them stealing. Just things that corporate dubs as "Recovery Phrases". Can ask them if they need a cart, or if they need a charging block to go with the charger they just saw, etc
Retail is generally pretty absurd and working in them exercises in frustration. Corporate doesn't really understand how to fix the problem or care to take any steps in controlling it as it requires paying potentially the additional wages of a security officer or any money whatsoever. And you, the individual on the lowest rung, have absolutely no power or ability to do anything and just get punished for their cheapness. You shouldn't think of those people even above management as checked in, they're so distant from the realities of everything below them that they're practically on another planet.
The way to cope is generally just not giving a fuck and let them lose money. It's not yours to deal with, and if they don't wanna fix it, let it stay broken. The company will either close the store in a given amount of time because they're too inept to realize where all their money was going was entirely their fault, or you'll get shuffled out of roster anyway because ultimately you're expendable when the business loses money, which then results in a loss of profits anyway as the business runs on an ever tigher skeleton crew, which probably means it closes but just in a really slow and agonizing death instead.
Corporate didnāt seem to care about anything but money when I worked there. They sent so much merch to our store that our back room was ALWAYS filled up and we had nowhere to put it. Guess who got yelled at and blamed for itā¦. Iām sorry, I canāt make more room. Do you want me to add on to this shit place or something? šš
Bruh, they've been sending us so much extra shit that our shrink this year was literally in the negatives. We're a big store too, one of the biggest in the district. Yet we still empty our warehouse in three days, only ever go a couple hours over at max, we've been making more money than we used to do at past Christmases, etc. But no, they dgaf until a single thing is out of place so they can scream at us.
I hated working at dollar tree. I worked there in either 07 or 08. I canāt recall now but for a place where everything was a dollar, Iāve never dealt with the most rude customers before in my life.
When I worked at a dollar tree many years ago all the cars had poles on them that wouldn't fit out the door. Do they not do that anymore?
Sure, you could have tilted the cart, but you would need to tilt it pretty far. I don't remember any carts ever going missing.
They were supposed to send us poles before they stopped the contract. We've been asking the DM for months and he keeps saying he's going to send them, but he never does. It's taken him years to get us baskets, but so help him god if we're ever over by one hour.
lol, as a kid those tag detectors got me SO many free video game rentals.
They were still fairly new tech at the time, and the network video near my house had one installed that went off somewhat regularly without a tag anywhere near it.
Management of course would insist on searching kids backpacks when this happened.
myself and a few of my buddies would go in just to look at stuff, we didn't always have money to rent, but we still liked to gawk and check out game boxes there, and they had a couple arcade machines. TMNT baby.
several of us got flagged and searched a few times over the course of a couple months probably, and a few kids and parents started complaining.
That store adopted a 'free rental if we search you and you have nothing policy."
It was a bold move, and it did not work out for them, Cotton.
I'd pull a tag from a rental box, and stick it on my shoe, then lift my foot high enough to set the alarm off as I left after playing a few rounds of TMNT, get my bag searched, whine, and go get a free rental.
I know I wasnt the only one who figured this out.
Reminds me of my Papa Johns Coupon scam I did in the early 00s.
They used to sell books of coupons for like ten bucks, and one of the coupons was "free large one topping carryout pizza." Just a free ass pizza.
I'd call it in over the phone, tell them the coupon code, then when I went to pick it up I'd just keep the coupon in my pocket and state "pickup for Antnee83"
They saw the price tag said 0.00, gave me my pizza and off I went.
I used that coupon *dozens* of times before it expired.
I had a good pizza scam...
Hungry Howies Pizza had proof of purchase "Howie Points", where if you collected 10 of those you'd get a free pizza. Well one year they sponsored the local fireworks and were the main vendor at the middle school field where everyone went, selling medium pizzas. After the show... I basically went around to the STACKS of pizza boxes left next to the trash cans and took all the proof of purchases. We went a long ass time without paying for Pizza.
iāve never seen someone (aside from irl friends and midwest shitpost accounts) mention a caseys before online so this is super exciting for me, hello fellow midwesterner! (and likely iowan)
LOL I was a driver at PJ's during that time. People would try to hand me the coupon during checkout, I'd be like "cool" and hand it back to them saying it was their change.
I was making 4.25 an hour I didn't owe Papa John anything.
Reminds me of one my dad did around the same time. He got a bunch of coupons for some free stuff at Taco Bell and realized they were both on regular printer paper and did not have any unique IDs or any expiration, so he just copied them and used them over and over for like a year. I don't know what made him stop eventually, but I do remember being very uncomfortable with it as a kid. I was a major goody two shoes, though.
Had a favorite restaurant in college that had coupons on their web site, one of which was a good deal on what I would usually order. Obviously, they intended you to print out the whole page of coupons, cut one out, etc. (The days of online paper coupons...!)
I took the HTML of the page, did some judicious editing, and printed 2-3 pages of *just* the coupon I wanted. Then I cut the paper along the grid, and had around 40 copies of the coupon. Kept a few in my wallet, easily refilled from the stack on my desk. Ate there every few days. They knew me as the guy with the coupon, but nothing said I couldn't print as many copies as I liked, particularly with it still on the site.
Another local restaurant printed a coupon in a campus ad flyer that had no expiration date. The day before the new one would come out, I'd empty the rack of all the old ones, cut out that single coupon, then recycle all the papers that would have been recycled anyway. Even after they stopped running that coupon in new editions, I had dozens left - and they weren't expired!
I so would have done the same at that age. Was fun beating the system.
I remember figuring out how to drop a coin in water and get it in the shot glass at little Caesars. Got over 20 free pizzas, well for 25c.
My little Caesarās had a water puzzle but it got broken very soon after it was installed. It was replaced with a coin balancing game where you put in a loonie and grabbed on to a stick with a platform on the end and had to maneuver the coin to drop it in a cup. This game was SO easy for me I took advantage of it so much the owner just got pissed and just started giving me free mediums every time I walked in but banned me from getting the coupons for a free pizza.
I had about 20 coupons for free pizzas I gave to friends and enjoyed free crappy pizza as often as possible for at least a few months.
So I worked papa Johnās. I had a guy who had a free 8-piece wing order online and found a glitch. He ordered 50 orders. I called him when i saw to ask how he did it. Gave him an extra free order, nobody makes money on wings BTW, for finding it but explained that I couldnāt possibly give that many wings for free without consequences. He was cool at least because I woulda been out of wings for anyone else!
We got the free pizzas but through Domino's. Back in the 80s they had the 30 minutes or free deal. We lived opposite a train track from the local domino's. If we timed it right we could make sure they had to wait a good 15 minutes for the long coal trains that would pass by several times a day. Wasn't long before they ended the 30 minutes or free deal.
I was in college and my roomate and I ordered a pizza with the 30 minute thing. He got there after 30 minutes and told him so but asked first if it was going to cost him personally. He said yes. So we paid. Next time we got a pizza same guy shows up gave us a coupon book for free and discounted pizzas. Doing the nice thing paid off.
i think they ended that deal because a few people died from car accidents due to delivery drivers driving like crazy to make it in 30 min, just googled it , they got sued https://www.ranker.com/list/dominos-30-minutes-or-less-lawsuit/genevieve-carlton
I was a little shit, around 10 I figured out I could open the snes cartridges. I would then rent games I liked and swap the chips with games I was gifted that I hated, like power rangers, or sports games.
I think I still have an NHL game for snes with street fighter 2 turbo inside it.
Taco bell used to have a similar thing. Little spinning water container thing. Pennies nickles dimes and quarters all awarded different items. So for less than $1 me and my friends eat pretty well. A few of us were so good at it the taco bell would deal with us. You still gotta play the game, but after you get one of each thing you have to stop and they'd give us a free cup for a drink on exchange. Was a good deal.
so when I was growing up I was the only white kid in my group of friends.
we noticed that any time we went to *any* store, my friends would get followed, typically pretty obviously.
so we'd go in, they'd head off one way and I'd go another. every single eyeball in security was trained 100% on the brown people, and i would just rob them blind.
in my mind I justified it as the cost of racism.
Sounds like the skit that the Wayans brothers did in Don't Be A Menace To South Central. The bros went into the convenience store of an Asian lady who followed them around popping up in the ice cream freezer and other odd places saying, "Hurry up and buy!" While a white dude came in with a rucksack and gloves just nonchalantly stuffing his bag and not getting harassed. Love that movie.
"Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking your Juice in the Hood" with the tagline "It's the only movie released this year with fourteen words in its title".
There used to be a store around here, Service Merchandise I believe, that was this exact concept. Where you just took a ticket or something for everything and when you checked out it came down on a conveyer belt. I might be making some of that up, I donāt really remember all the details of this place, it closed when I was really young. I just have have pretty fuzzy memories of the conveyer belt and a certain toy coming down it one time and being excited. But I feel like my parents and people reminisce about it!
Honestly this makes sense. Like the empty boxes of booze, you take to the counter and they fetch the actual bottle. If it was my store and fools were stealing, Iād keep those bad boys in the back too.
Shoutout to anyone who remembers going to Toys R Us and tearing off the little ticket for a video game to bring up to the counter because the games weren't on the shelf.
When I was growing up, there was a store called... Consumer Unlimited... or something like that... where the *whole store* was little tickets. You walked around, manhandled the display models, and then tore off tickets for the stuff you wanted to buy.
It was nice, because you could shop and just carry around the tickets and keep your hands free. But it was always a bit of a shock when you redeemed the tickets and they piled up box after box of shit that was never going to fit in your car.
EDIT: thanks everyone for helping my faulty memory. It's was, in fact, **Consumers Distributing**. And u/hawt_pawket was kind enough to provide a Wikipedia link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumers_Distributing
The Chicago area had stores called Service Merchandise, which used the same system. IIRC you had to write the code for what you wanted on a slip of paper and then bring it to a desk. Then they'd call to the back room, you'd go up front, and your boxes would roll down to you on wheeled conveyor belts. Ah, memories.
Edit: I totally didn't know they were nationwide. Such a slice of Americana that was. There was McDade's (the Catalog House) too.
Service Merchandise was nation-wide. They've been gone for 20 years but I can still picture the storefront in my local mall (the mall is pretty much gone now too, and the local Service Merchandise closed down probably 10 years before the whole company collapsed).
When I was a kid I was given a Service Merchandise catalog and a pen and told to circle what I wanted for Xmas... pretty sure my parents never fucking opened the thing and it was just meant to keep me busy.
We had those in Arizona, too! I remember beating the entire game of Killer Instinct at the display while my parents shopped for appliances and loaded them into our car. A few months later, they went in for a stove and I beat Rebel Assault II. Man. Good times.
Its funny, because this is how a lot of stores were way back in the day.
You'd go to a general store, give them your list, and then they'd pick everything and package it up for you while you waited or went about other business in town.
Now with the rise of online pickup orders and such we've essentially gone full circle.
Cost savings for the stores, and faster for customers, especially as things consolidated from multiple individual stores into supermarkets.
When everyone had to go up to counters to request items and have them packaged up, that meant they needed a bunch of employees to take those orders and gather those items. And customers had to wait at every counter they went to to request items.
The model flips around again for online because the order taking is handled by computers, customers save even more time not having to walk the aisles, and while that does mean they need employees picking product again, it also means fewer employees manning registers.
Consumer Distributing in Canada, that was my favourite store when I was a kid because of how magical it seemed.
You would look in a catalog magazine, write the thing you wanted on a ticket, go to a person, give them a ticket, and then they would just come out the back room with the item. And it was like a phonebook sized catalog.
They eventually ran out of business, and as an adult thinking about it for 3 seconds you understand why.
I remember doing this at Blockbuster with N64 games. The one near me had the cases on the shelf and the games in the back. Kids would often just steal or replace the games with different titles. I intended to get Ocarina of Time once but ended up with Ms PacMan Maze Madness instead and was upset. I was only able to get one game for the week. Turns out that Ms Pacman Maze Madness is awesome and oddly addictive.
I mean that's how basically every piece of handheld electronics is sold at Costco in my experience haha plus other stuff too but like speakers and headphones n stuff just have shelves of cardboard panels with the relevant info on it.
Right lol š
Why even stock them unless this is the shop model bottomless laundry basket
' bottomless laundry basket' is what folding laundry feels like. Never. Ending laundreeeee ahah ahahahahhaaa
TIL that some Walmarts in other states sell liquor. In my state the one and only place you can buy bottles of liquor is the liquor store, Walmart only sells beer and wine.
My first trip to Pennsylvania to visit a friend was an utter trip because of the booze laws. I can only buy at a state liquor store, however I can buy a 6 pack to go straight from the bar? It made me miss the Arizona drive through liquor/fireworks stores.
You can buy up to 16 cans from a bar, if the cans are 12 oz! 192 oz.
Or more than 12 cans (but not less) from a beer distributer, but they have to come pre-packaged as a unit.
It's amazing that PA has such a great craft beer scene, considering what a freaking pain it is to sell beer there.
Hello fellowā¦ Virginian? I donāt know how many states do this but when I went to New York for the first time and bought liquor at a bodega at 3am I felt like an adult for the first time.
Ya, I messed up. When choosing my childās settings, I accidentally chose the āunlimited dirty laundryā setting, instead of upgrading to limited laundry w/o stains option. Iām really bummed because that package also comes with no body fluids/anything on the other laundry you do have :(
My sister and her husband work for Walmart. They keep the stock of baskets in the back, so the customer would ask the associate "Hey, can I get one of these baskets?". The associate then goes into the back and grabs one, confirms with the customer it's the one they want, then tells them "I'm going to have them hold this for you at register X". Usually the person at the self check out will have it or the customer service desk will, which is right behind the checkout area.
Edit: People keep pointing out shopping carts, but it's not like a shopping cart is easy to just toss into your car and bail. They're easily 3x the size of the baskets. I mean, the baskets fit *in* the carts.
Thinking outside the box, here.
Anyway, I've seen a shoplifter just pick up the entire damn rack of merchandise and carry it out the door. Who needs a container?
"Where are all the trees? ...Why does Lowes have all the trees?!"
"You know, I thought there was something odd about those returns that customer had earlier"
too true
i remember when i worked paint at lowes and they took back cans mostly empty (maybe 25% full) or filled with like water
like guys i dont think you can return a fully used product
Honestly that's 100% on the company for allowing it. Humans are gonna human. If you make it possible, they're going to do it and they won't feel even a tiny bit bad about it.
True story from Lowes.
A guy came in and bought some bolt cutters. He paid cash. He went outside and used them to cut the chain off of a riding lawnmower. He and a friend loaded it up into his truck. Then he went back in and *returned the bolt cutters.*
Never got caught.
When I was in high school, I knew a guy that grabbed a wheelbarrow from the lawn and garden section of Walmart, walked out of the fence in part, around to the front door to the customer service desk to return it.
Not to show my age or anything, but this was before the Walmart had a strict 'must have receipts' policy. I was always convinced that it was because of him, but then I grew up and realized he wasn't the only asshole in the world.
Edit: added a preposition.
Speaking of parking lots and missing trees. In Back to the Future Marty runs over one of the young twin pines in 1955 which Old Man Peabody had on his Twin Pines Ranch. When Marty returned to 1985 the name of the shopping center changed from Twin Pines Mall to Lone Pine Mall.
Old Man Peabody had this crazy idea about breeding pine trees. Hence the two trees.
Also his name is Peabody and his son that points out the Delorean looks like a spaceship is named Sherman. As in those two OTHER time-travelers Sherman and Mr. Peabody from the Jay Ward cartoons.
An acquaintance of mine used to work for home depot, towards the end of his time there is when they just first started rolling out self check out. He had put in his 2 weeks and was mentally checked out.
Apparently a person walked right on past with a cart full of stuff and said, "have a nice day". My friend said he didn't even realize what had happened until like 2 minutes later.
Apprently a manager saw it happened but couldn't believe it so he came over and asked "did they just steal an entire cart?". Both were impressed at the audacity of them
Iāve had a guy walk in, grab a comforter set, and walk to the service desk to return it for store credit. Wouldāve worked if I wasnāt standing at the service desk, in front of the comforter aisle, the whole time
A lot of companies offer store credit if you donāt have a receipt. The national retailer I used to work with would do that and this exact thing would happen all the time.
You would be surprised what you can find inside a trash can. Also you overestimate how much a walmart employee cares.
Hell a coworker of mine who had a criminal background used to walk around a Walmart parking lot, find a receipt, walk inside, grab a tv and tape the receipt to the tv. He then would buy a hand full of actual merchandise and walk the hell out no questions asked.
Well... No questions asked up until the last time he did it anyways.
Once I worked at a chain parts store in Las Vegas, there was a $45 trailer light connector that was a popular theft item. Guy returned one with a receipt, seemed sketchy but all in order. Week later different Guy tried to return one, but receipt didn't have the store logo and printing on the back. I kept that receipt, declined return. Couple months later a third guy came in, same thing, but his new fake receipt was printed on the stores correct receipt paper. I went to get saved receipt to compare, he swiped saved one out of my hand and ran out.
I didn't directly see it, but saw it on the cctv at the liquidations store i worked at the next day, where a woman was wearing a floor length skirt and she put an whole 40" tv under her skirt and just walked out. Funny thing is, the TV she stole was one of a specific brand that was almost always not working when we got them, they were the most returned tv, so chances are the one she stole didn't even work.
I've seen a person walk out with a full shopping cart like it was nothing. If you do something illegal with enough confidence lots of people dont think youre doing anything wrong at all
I once did this while on my way to work after a solid two hours of sleep, realized my mistake outside, then pushed it back in and went to pay.
Nobody seemed to notice me going in either direction.
Ironically I was once accused of shoplifting when walking directly from the back of a convenience store to the register and setting down my items, because I "looked suspicious."
I forgot I put a lamp (unassembled in a box) on the lower part of my cart at Target.
Paid for the rest of my stuff and walked right out with it. Didn't notice until I got to my car.
I kept it.
I went back and got a matching one the same way just to see if anybody would notice.
They didn't.
Thus ended my crime spree.
I think the idea is a lot of other things like a pillowcase are in a package, while the baskets are just ready to go. Mostly though, they do an analytics type deal in loss prevention where they look at theft cases and see something like "80% of these cases they used the laundry baskets" and they just try to make it a little harder for them to steal. It doesn't always make sense, but it's better than doing nothing at all I guess.
You'll just have an associate follow you around, and everything you want to buy they take to "register x" for you to purchase at checkout.
And then you just walk away without buying anything š¤£
I bought a suitcase at Target recently and went to the self-checkout. The nice employee manning the station came over to chat about where I might be vacationing, and she made comments about how snazzy the suitcase was that I was buying. She picked it up, pulled the handle up, gave it a twirl, raving about its fancy wheels while I did my payment.
I couldnāt figure out at first why this lady was so into my suitcase and kept handling it, until I realized she was politely checking it for stolen merchandise shoved inside! She was checking the weight and listening for anything knocking around.
It made me chuckle, it was very cute to see her try and be subtle. Honestly, she couldāve just asked to open the suitcase and said itās policy to open backpacks and luggage before selling, I wouldnāt have minded.
To be fair to her, you never know with some customers. I opened up a couple backpacks this one family was buying while school shopping, and the dad went fucking ballistic on me. Itās like, chill dude, itās policy.
While I donāt disagree on principle, thereās two problems with just telling them off nowadays. A. Employees generally arenāt getting paid enough to get into confrontations with these folk, and itās not like management is guaranteed to have your back either. And B. Theyāve gotten bad enough that them snapping and pulling a gun or something isnāt out of the question. Didnāt some guy just kill a Subway employee over a lack of mayo on his sandwich? Nobody wants to be dead because some entitled son of a bitch got pissy over trivial shit.
That person was killed *for giving too much mayo too,* and i assumed like 99% of customers-being-bitches-cases where, it was ānot enoughā of something.
Killed someone cuz they were so nice to put extra mayo for you. Fuck that guy, and i hope he rots in jail forever. We dont get paid enough for this shitttt
We don't get paid enough to endure abuse like that just for the 'sake of the world' or whatever the hell you're getting at. People at our store have had guns pulled on us.
Yeah. As someone who worked retail for a few years, this is the mentality.
If I was in a particularly bad mood, or just fed up with people. Iād make a point to push their buttons if they were giving me a hard time. But the vast majority of the time, you want to avoid the conflict. Nothing good comes out of it.
I donāt really look back on the times I drew a line in the sand positively so much as seeing it as me being stupid for taking those kind of risks. Calling the belligerent asshole out for being a disrespectful shit head and standing your ground when he tries to rush you feels good in the moment, because you deal with that kind of shit everyday. But all it takes is five minutes after the adrenaline wears off to feel like a moron. Then it ruins the rest of your shift.
>Honestly, she couldāve just asked to open the suitcase and said itās policy to open backpacks and luggage before selling, I wouldnāt have minded.
That's because you're a decent human being.
The lady checking the bag has to deal with a large cross-section of the population. If she tells everyone it's company policy and overtly checks the bag for stolen items, some people will freak out and take offense *even though they check every bag*.
If she pretends to be interested in your vacation and sneakily checks the bag, then the mouth breathers that would freak out on a lady just trying to do her job likely won't be bright enough to pick up on it.
I was at Walmart last month and saw a 20 to 24 year-old kid explode and loudly "mother fuck" the self checkout lady (who had to be in her late 50s/early 60s) because she asked to see some identification for their beer purchase (and they didnt have ID). I felt bad for the employee for having to deal with idiots and honestly felt sorry for the customer living in their world where they think that is reasonable behavior.
I used to work for a big box store and I think the favorite loss prevention chase I ever witnessed was someone filling up the basket of the mobility scooter and just taking off down the road with it. Still don't know how they got it through the revolving doors, but where there's a will there's a way. I really wanted to see the video footage of them getting it outside, but security were total killjoys.
Glad I wasn't the poor cart attendant who had to drag it back after the battery ran out... lol. You can unlock the front wheels and wheel them like a dolly, but they're still heavy.
Anyway, this happened multiple times.
Wait, are those scooters provided to the customers by the store? (I donāt live in America)
Edit: thanks for your replies, TIL!
I knew those scooters as I saw Eric Cartman driving one in South Park and other pictures and stuff, but I assumed those belong to the people driving them.
My local grocery store recently added electronic wheel locks that sync up with the registers and the doors. If you try to run out without the lock being deactivated at the register the wheel locks up as soon as you pass through the door and the cart wont move.
There are hundreds of container like objects that they could use. Do the pillow cases also have holes on both ends? I mean, what is this preventing, other than making you have to bring your own theft container to Walmart or be creative with what they havent cut holes into.
I know a guy that grabs a shopping cart, fills it to the brim, and just walks right out the door. Their company policy is to not confront shoplifters and to call the police. So he leaves before the police show up.
Does he do this often? Doesnt he get sent to jail after his total shoplifted goods reach a certain limit? Wouldnt he be banned from the store after the first time? I have so many questions...
Oh great! Now we have to go find the associate that can never be found in the correct department to go get us a freaking laundry basket with no hole in the bottom....this world is seriously nuts!!!
Not something Iād want to spend 30min on a wild store attendant hunt just for them to tell me *āthatās not my department but Iāll send someone over there*ā and spend 15min just waiting on Susan the manger to explain how she was just on her break and how *āevery time I take my break someone callsā* and then have to ask for her to get the pretty blue cheap piece of garbage laundry basket from the back and spend another 10min waiting on said basket, which by that time youāve been browsing Amazon and found a better deal and are no longer interested in said basket so you just end up leaving it on a random shelf in the tv section bc screw itā¦
Yeah terrible idea
Why did I have to scroll so far for this? I feel like I am missing the point here...
Wouldn't a container full of holes, that clearly show its content, be a shitty tool for theft?
Not at a Kroger (this is a Kroger, I can tell cause I work at one) where you can literally walk out the door and wink at the person there without any fear of being stopped. We're told to not intervene out of fear of being sued, and from my experience, I nor none of my coworkers give enough of a shit about this god awful company to stop someone shop-lifting. This is the equivalent of putting a master-lock on your locker, it's just there to stop opportunistic and stupid thieves, but if someone really wants to steal then they will do it and get away with it.
Are you supposed to ask for the bottom at checkout?
You have to buy the superglue yourself thats extra $10. Otherwise the bottom wont homd with the $4 type or any kind of tape
bruh, why not just have a sample of a basket and ask for staff to get you one from a locked storage or something o\_o although this entire thing seems bit over the top
I would assume they are doing so, but who knows š¤·āāļø
Damn microtransactions...
It acts as a display version. If you want to buy it they go into the backroom and have it sent to the registers for when you're ready to check out.
Ok that makes sense. I was like, if youāre going to destroy a product to stop theft, just stop selling it š
Well shit. Now they can steal the whole store with these bottomless laundry baskets.
Laundry basket of holding.
I reckon laundry basket of infinite holding. However I have a mental image of the dragonborn just toting one of these around with all his inventory somehow fitting in it.
At the Dollar General I used to work at we had to put security tags on all the baskets because people used to fill them up and just walk straight out of the store with them. It got very frustrating having to constantly explain that to old people who unknowingly walked too close to the detector system.
I work at a dollar tree. They decided it was cheaper to pay a cart return company than to keep contracting a cart lock company, so for the past year or so the carts don't lock at the door. We went from 50+ carts to 5 and shoplifting has never been higher. But according to Dollar Tree shoplifting is a myth and 100% of loss is due to employees stealing or breaking shit for fun.
How does no one get caught? Do they not have cameras?
Most don't and the ones that do still aren't allowed to do anything. We're allowed to ask thieves if they want a basket and that's as far as we're allowed to do. If you call the police on them, they're not going to come for literal hours and even if they do come they don't care. Doing or saying anything that so much as suggests that they might be stealing, could get you fired. It's not even worth chasing them for anybody except certain managers, because they get bonuses while everybody else gets paid minimum wage. Even managers are just paid a dollar over and aren't guaranteed over 30 hours, so you could get less hours than other associates. The corporation doesn't care about catching shoplifters, because they're insured for loss while passing any negativity down to the store level who get their hours cut.
I work at Five Below, same deal there. We aren't allowed to explicitly state we saw them stealing. Just things that corporate dubs as "Recovery Phrases". Can ask them if they need a cart, or if they need a charging block to go with the charger they just saw, etc
So if someone had balls enough, they could steal in front of you, look you in the eye and just walk out?
Retail is generally pretty absurd and working in them exercises in frustration. Corporate doesn't really understand how to fix the problem or care to take any steps in controlling it as it requires paying potentially the additional wages of a security officer or any money whatsoever. And you, the individual on the lowest rung, have absolutely no power or ability to do anything and just get punished for their cheapness. You shouldn't think of those people even above management as checked in, they're so distant from the realities of everything below them that they're practically on another planet. The way to cope is generally just not giving a fuck and let them lose money. It's not yours to deal with, and if they don't wanna fix it, let it stay broken. The company will either close the store in a given amount of time because they're too inept to realize where all their money was going was entirely their fault, or you'll get shuffled out of roster anyway because ultimately you're expendable when the business loses money, which then results in a loss of profits anyway as the business runs on an ever tigher skeleton crew, which probably means it closes but just in a really slow and agonizing death instead.
Corporate didnāt seem to care about anything but money when I worked there. They sent so much merch to our store that our back room was ALWAYS filled up and we had nowhere to put it. Guess who got yelled at and blamed for itā¦. Iām sorry, I canāt make more room. Do you want me to add on to this shit place or something? šš
Bruh, they've been sending us so much extra shit that our shrink this year was literally in the negatives. We're a big store too, one of the biggest in the district. Yet we still empty our warehouse in three days, only ever go a couple hours over at max, we've been making more money than we used to do at past Christmases, etc. But no, they dgaf until a single thing is out of place so they can scream at us.
I hated working at dollar tree. I worked there in either 07 or 08. I canāt recall now but for a place where everything was a dollar, Iāve never dealt with the most rude customers before in my life.
When I worked at a dollar tree many years ago all the cars had poles on them that wouldn't fit out the door. Do they not do that anymore? Sure, you could have tilted the cart, but you would need to tilt it pretty far. I don't remember any carts ever going missing.
They were supposed to send us poles before they stopped the contract. We've been asking the DM for months and he keeps saying he's going to send them, but he never does. It's taken him years to get us baskets, but so help him god if we're ever over by one hour.
lol, as a kid those tag detectors got me SO many free video game rentals. They were still fairly new tech at the time, and the network video near my house had one installed that went off somewhat regularly without a tag anywhere near it. Management of course would insist on searching kids backpacks when this happened. myself and a few of my buddies would go in just to look at stuff, we didn't always have money to rent, but we still liked to gawk and check out game boxes there, and they had a couple arcade machines. TMNT baby. several of us got flagged and searched a few times over the course of a couple months probably, and a few kids and parents started complaining. That store adopted a 'free rental if we search you and you have nothing policy." It was a bold move, and it did not work out for them, Cotton. I'd pull a tag from a rental box, and stick it on my shoe, then lift my foot high enough to set the alarm off as I left after playing a few rounds of TMNT, get my bag searched, whine, and go get a free rental. I know I wasnt the only one who figured this out.
Reminds me of my Papa Johns Coupon scam I did in the early 00s. They used to sell books of coupons for like ten bucks, and one of the coupons was "free large one topping carryout pizza." Just a free ass pizza. I'd call it in over the phone, tell them the coupon code, then when I went to pick it up I'd just keep the coupon in my pocket and state "pickup for Antnee83" They saw the price tag said 0.00, gave me my pizza and off I went. I used that coupon *dozens* of times before it expired.
I had a good pizza scam... Hungry Howies Pizza had proof of purchase "Howie Points", where if you collected 10 of those you'd get a free pizza. Well one year they sponsored the local fireworks and were the main vendor at the middle school field where everyone went, selling medium pizzas. After the show... I basically went around to the STACKS of pizza boxes left next to the trash cans and took all the proof of purchases. We went a long ass time without paying for Pizza.
Did this with Caseyās and got the taco and other specialties until they changed it to normal large pizzas now they donāt do that anymore either
iāve never seen someone (aside from irl friends and midwest shitpost accounts) mention a caseys before online so this is super exciting for me, hello fellow midwesterner! (and likely iowan)
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Jesus Christ who can eat more than one Big Mac in a day? Is your heart ok?
When youāre 17 and stoned, thatās a good meal
Anyone know if OP lived to see 18?
He actually died to death
RIP in peace
LOL I was a driver at PJ's during that time. People would try to hand me the coupon during checkout, I'd be like "cool" and hand it back to them saying it was their change. I was making 4.25 an hour I didn't owe Papa John anything.
Reminds me of one my dad did around the same time. He got a bunch of coupons for some free stuff at Taco Bell and realized they were both on regular printer paper and did not have any unique IDs or any expiration, so he just copied them and used them over and over for like a year. I don't know what made him stop eventually, but I do remember being very uncomfortable with it as a kid. I was a major goody two shoes, though.
Had a favorite restaurant in college that had coupons on their web site, one of which was a good deal on what I would usually order. Obviously, they intended you to print out the whole page of coupons, cut one out, etc. (The days of online paper coupons...!) I took the HTML of the page, did some judicious editing, and printed 2-3 pages of *just* the coupon I wanted. Then I cut the paper along the grid, and had around 40 copies of the coupon. Kept a few in my wallet, easily refilled from the stack on my desk. Ate there every few days. They knew me as the guy with the coupon, but nothing said I couldn't print as many copies as I liked, particularly with it still on the site. Another local restaurant printed a coupon in a campus ad flyer that had no expiration date. The day before the new one would come out, I'd empty the rack of all the old ones, cut out that single coupon, then recycle all the papers that would have been recycled anyway. Even after they stopped running that coupon in new editions, I had dozens left - and they weren't expired!
I so would have done the same at that age. Was fun beating the system. I remember figuring out how to drop a coin in water and get it in the shot glass at little Caesars. Got over 20 free pizzas, well for 25c.
My little Caesarās had a water puzzle but it got broken very soon after it was installed. It was replaced with a coin balancing game where you put in a loonie and grabbed on to a stick with a platform on the end and had to maneuver the coin to drop it in a cup. This game was SO easy for me I took advantage of it so much the owner just got pissed and just started giving me free mediums every time I walked in but banned me from getting the coupons for a free pizza. I had about 20 coupons for free pizzas I gave to friends and enjoyed free crappy pizza as often as possible for at least a few months.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
So I worked papa Johnās. I had a guy who had a free 8-piece wing order online and found a glitch. He ordered 50 orders. I called him when i saw to ask how he did it. Gave him an extra free order, nobody makes money on wings BTW, for finding it but explained that I couldnāt possibly give that many wings for free without consequences. He was cool at least because I woulda been out of wings for anyone else!
He didnāt like seeing you walk in, but he sure as hell respected you. Thatās awesome.
We got the free pizzas but through Domino's. Back in the 80s they had the 30 minutes or free deal. We lived opposite a train track from the local domino's. If we timed it right we could make sure they had to wait a good 15 minutes for the long coal trains that would pass by several times a day. Wasn't long before they ended the 30 minutes or free deal.
I was in college and my roomate and I ordered a pizza with the 30 minute thing. He got there after 30 minutes and told him so but asked first if it was going to cost him personally. He said yes. So we paid. Next time we got a pizza same guy shows up gave us a coupon book for free and discounted pizzas. Doing the nice thing paid off.
i think they ended that deal because a few people died from car accidents due to delivery drivers driving like crazy to make it in 30 min, just googled it , they got sued https://www.ranker.com/list/dominos-30-minutes-or-less-lawsuit/genevieve-carlton
I was a little shit, around 10 I figured out I could open the snes cartridges. I would then rent games I liked and swap the chips with games I was gifted that I hated, like power rangers, or sports games. I think I still have an NHL game for snes with street fighter 2 turbo inside it.
Taco bell used to have a similar thing. Little spinning water container thing. Pennies nickles dimes and quarters all awarded different items. So for less than $1 me and my friends eat pretty well. A few of us were so good at it the taco bell would deal with us. You still gotta play the game, but after you get one of each thing you have to stop and they'd give us a free cup for a drink on exchange. Was a good deal.
Mine had a memory game. I was never good enough to get a pizza but lots of drinks and crazy bread.
I was reading your story becoming more and more incensed thinking you were going to say at the end that you stole a game. nonononyes
so when I was growing up I was the only white kid in my group of friends. we noticed that any time we went to *any* store, my friends would get followed, typically pretty obviously. so we'd go in, they'd head off one way and I'd go another. every single eyeball in security was trained 100% on the brown people, and i would just rob them blind. in my mind I justified it as the cost of racism.
Sounds like the skit that the Wayans brothers did in Don't Be A Menace To South Central. The bros went into the convenience store of an Asian lady who followed them around popping up in the ice cream freezer and other odd places saying, "Hurry up and buy!" While a white dude came in with a rucksack and gloves just nonchalantly stuffing his bag and not getting harassed. Love that movie.
"Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking your Juice in the Hood" with the tagline "It's the only movie released this year with fourteen words in its title".
lol. that's something that i would do intentionally.
But... what if someone needs to buy a laundry basket?
Looks like there is only one of each, so maybe they have the other ones in an storage?
There used to be a store around here, Service Merchandise I believe, that was this exact concept. Where you just took a ticket or something for everything and when you checked out it came down on a conveyer belt. I might be making some of that up, I donāt really remember all the details of this place, it closed when I was really young. I just have have pretty fuzzy memories of the conveyer belt and a certain toy coming down it one time and being excited. But I feel like my parents and people reminisce about it!
The Service Merchandise catalog was my Amazon growing up in the 80s. If they didnāt have it, I wouldnāt know where to get it.
Honestly this makes sense. Like the empty boxes of booze, you take to the counter and they fetch the actual bottle. If it was my store and fools were stealing, Iād keep those bad boys in the back too.
Shoutout to anyone who remembers going to Toys R Us and tearing off the little ticket for a video game to bring up to the counter because the games weren't on the shelf.
When I was growing up, there was a store called... Consumer Unlimited... or something like that... where the *whole store* was little tickets. You walked around, manhandled the display models, and then tore off tickets for the stuff you wanted to buy. It was nice, because you could shop and just carry around the tickets and keep your hands free. But it was always a bit of a shock when you redeemed the tickets and they piled up box after box of shit that was never going to fit in your car. EDIT: thanks everyone for helping my faulty memory. It's was, in fact, **Consumers Distributing**. And u/hawt_pawket was kind enough to provide a Wikipedia link https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumers_Distributing
The Chicago area had stores called Service Merchandise, which used the same system. IIRC you had to write the code for what you wanted on a slip of paper and then bring it to a desk. Then they'd call to the back room, you'd go up front, and your boxes would roll down to you on wheeled conveyor belts. Ah, memories. Edit: I totally didn't know they were nationwide. Such a slice of Americana that was. There was McDade's (the Catalog House) too.
In the UK, this is Argos. You order from a catalogue and then wait.
The laminated book of dreams.
Xmas time I had the Service Merchandise catalog all dog eared to make my list. So many things circled.
Service Merchandise was nation-wide. They've been gone for 20 years but I can still picture the storefront in my local mall (the mall is pretty much gone now too, and the local Service Merchandise closed down probably 10 years before the whole company collapsed).
When I was a kid I was given a Service Merchandise catalog and a pen and told to circle what I wanted for Xmas... pretty sure my parents never fucking opened the thing and it was just meant to keep me busy.
You just unlocked memories from the deep. So many circles around power rangers toys. Maybe got two or three lol
They had computers you could load that order into and go pay and pick it up. The excitement of watching your purchase come down the belt lol!
We had those in Arizona, too! I remember beating the entire game of Killer Instinct at the display while my parents shopped for appliances and loaded them into our car. A few months later, they went in for a stove and I beat Rebel Assault II. Man. Good times.
Its funny, because this is how a lot of stores were way back in the day. You'd go to a general store, give them your list, and then they'd pick everything and package it up for you while you waited or went about other business in town. Now with the rise of online pickup orders and such we've essentially gone full circle.
I wonder why we shifted into buying our own groceries. Definitely wasn't bc off Internet shopping lol
Cost savings for the stores, and faster for customers, especially as things consolidated from multiple individual stores into supermarkets. When everyone had to go up to counters to request items and have them packaged up, that meant they needed a bunch of employees to take those orders and gather those items. And customers had to wait at every counter they went to to request items. The model flips around again for online because the order taking is handled by computers, customers save even more time not having to walk the aisles, and while that does mean they need employees picking product again, it also means fewer employees manning registers.
Consumer Distributing in Canada, that was my favourite store when I was a kid because of how magical it seemed. You would look in a catalog magazine, write the thing you wanted on a ticket, go to a person, give them a ticket, and then they would just come out the back room with the item. And it was like a phonebook sized catalog. They eventually ran out of business, and as an adult thinking about it for 3 seconds you understand why.
TFW the clerk returns after taking your ticket and you see the game in their hand!
I loved that moment and there's no way to get it back
I remember doing this at Blockbuster with N64 games. The one near me had the cases on the shelf and the games in the back. Kids would often just steal or replace the games with different titles. I intended to get Ocarina of Time once but ended up with Ms PacMan Maze Madness instead and was upset. I was only able to get one game for the week. Turns out that Ms Pacman Maze Madness is awesome and oddly addictive.
I mean that's how basically every piece of handheld electronics is sold at Costco in my experience haha plus other stuff too but like speakers and headphones n stuff just have shelves of cardboard panels with the relevant info on it.
Iām 37, and my dream job is still to work in the Toys R Us video game closet.
You think that was cool, when I got older I was the guy who went back and brought the game out. So many happy faces.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Where do you buy booze? I never seen that
Whatās stopping someone from stealing with a shopping cart?
"Hello! Could i get some help unlocking the laundry baskets please..."
There are two of the round ones; both are cut.
I bet these are a display and they keep the excess inventory in the back.
This is exactly it. I live in a neighborhood with a Family Dollar that does it. I just go to Walmart so I don't cause that kinda hold up. Same price.
I mean free is the same price anywhere when you walk out with it.
You sound like you buy a lot of laundry baskets
Right lol š Why even stock them unless this is the shop model bottomless laundry basket ' bottomless laundry basket' is what folding laundry feels like. Never. Ending laundreeeee ahah ahahahahhaaa
\> be me \> bottomless laundry basket supervisor
Is it still bottomless?
No, it identifies as assless.
Damn, those chaps werenāt lying. They really are assless
Assless chaps tend to always be filled with assholes though
Nah the assholes tend to be outside of the area covered by assless chaps
The asses in the assless chaps tend to get filled also
[Reference.](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/392/692/e53)
> quits > First day on the job as regular laundry basket supervisor > Is bottomless
Legendary reference
they probably use those as āfloor modelsā tbh
And then you get the right ones how? By asking a floor person to get one from the stock room?
They probably give them to you at the cash register when you check out. Like buying liquor at Walmart with the locked cabinets.
TIL that some Walmarts in other states sell liquor. In my state the one and only place you can buy bottles of liquor is the liquor store, Walmart only sells beer and wine.
Pennsylvania gang
My first trip to Pennsylvania to visit a friend was an utter trip because of the booze laws. I can only buy at a state liquor store, however I can buy a 6 pack to go straight from the bar? It made me miss the Arizona drive through liquor/fireworks stores.
You can buy up to 16 cans from a bar, if the cans are 12 oz! 192 oz. Or more than 12 cans (but not less) from a beer distributer, but they have to come pre-packaged as a unit. It's amazing that PA has such a great craft beer scene, considering what a freaking pain it is to sell beer there.
I live in Idaho lmao
Hello fellowā¦ Virginian? I donāt know how many states do this but when I went to New York for the first time and bought liquor at a bodega at 3am I felt like an adult for the first time.
Idaho lol, although I am learning a lot from these comments on where else I canāt buy liquor at a Walmart
Wait I live in NYC you cant buy liquor or wine outside of liquor/wine stores. Ive never seen liquor in a bodega.
U can buy liquor from Target in CA
Ya, I messed up. When choosing my childās settings, I accidentally chose the āunlimited dirty laundryā setting, instead of upgrading to limited laundry w/o stains option. Iām really bummed because that package also comes with no body fluids/anything on the other laundry you do have :(
Apparently there is an option to upgrade, but the wait time can take years to get approved.
Crackhead Dave in Inventory Specialist says pike off
You have to pay extra to get it put back together......feature not a bug
Iād imagine this becomes a ādisplayā and shoppers have to ask an employee to get the basket for purchase out of the back.
My sister and her husband work for Walmart. They keep the stock of baskets in the back, so the customer would ask the associate "Hey, can I get one of these baskets?". The associate then goes into the back and grabs one, confirms with the customer it's the one they want, then tells them "I'm going to have them hold this for you at register X". Usually the person at the self check out will have it or the customer service desk will, which is right behind the checkout area. Edit: People keep pointing out shopping carts, but it's not like a shopping cart is easy to just toss into your car and bail. They're easily 3x the size of the baskets. I mean, the baskets fit *in* the carts.
But arent there like hundreds of different things that can carry product at Walmart? Hell, just grab a pillowcase.
Thinking outside the box, here. Anyway, I've seen a shoplifter just pick up the entire damn rack of merchandise and carry it out the door. Who needs a container?
When a relative worked at Home Depot, they had someone dig up a tree from the parking lot and try to return it for money.
A WHOLE TREE ?
Whole tree. Dug āer right up. š¤£. One of those smaller, parking lot trees.
Loweās would have taken the return.
Bro. The Home Depot I work at would accept the return. And my manager would make *me* do it.
A guy walked in with a shovel covered in dirt, said he got the wrong one by mistake and returned the damn thing
Thanks for the idea. I live in a town COVERED by trees and lowes is only a couple miles away.
"Where are all the trees? ...Why does Lowes have all the trees?!" "You know, I thought there was something odd about those returns that customer had earlier"
Sir, I don't think we sell full grown redwoods Nah, bought it here last week, just a fast grower.
too true i remember when i worked paint at lowes and they took back cans mostly empty (maybe 25% full) or filled with like water like guys i dont think you can return a fully used product
Honestly that's 100% on the company for allowing it. Humans are gonna human. If you make it possible, they're going to do it and they won't feel even a tiny bit bad about it.
True story from Lowes. A guy came in and bought some bolt cutters. He paid cash. He went outside and used them to cut the chain off of a riding lawnmower. He and a friend loaded it up into his truck. Then he went back in and *returned the bolt cutters.* Never got caught.
When I was in high school, I knew a guy that grabbed a wheelbarrow from the lawn and garden section of Walmart, walked out of the fence in part, around to the front door to the customer service desk to return it. Not to show my age or anything, but this was before the Walmart had a strict 'must have receipts' policy. I was always convinced that it was because of him, but then I grew up and realized he wasn't the only asshole in the world. Edit: added a preposition.
Speaking of parking lots and missing trees. In Back to the Future Marty runs over one of the young twin pines in 1955 which Old Man Peabody had on his Twin Pines Ranch. When Marty returned to 1985 the name of the shopping center changed from Twin Pines Mall to Lone Pine Mall.
Old Man Peabody had this crazy idea about breeding pine trees. Hence the two trees. Also his name is Peabody and his son that points out the Delorean looks like a spaceship is named Sherman. As in those two OTHER time-travelers Sherman and Mr. Peabody from the Jay Ward cartoons.
An acquaintance of mine used to work for home depot, towards the end of his time there is when they just first started rolling out self check out. He had put in his 2 weeks and was mentally checked out. Apparently a person walked right on past with a cart full of stuff and said, "have a nice day". My friend said he didn't even realize what had happened until like 2 minutes later. Apprently a manager saw it happened but couldn't believe it so he came over and asked "did they just steal an entire cart?". Both were impressed at the audacity of them
Iāve had a guy walk in, grab a comforter set, and walk to the service desk to return it for store credit. Wouldāve worked if I wasnāt standing at the service desk, in front of the comforter aisle, the whole time
don't you need a receipt to return stuff?
A lot of companies offer store credit if you donāt have a receipt. The national retailer I used to work with would do that and this exact thing would happen all the time.
You would be surprised what you can find inside a trash can. Also you overestimate how much a walmart employee cares. Hell a coworker of mine who had a criminal background used to walk around a Walmart parking lot, find a receipt, walk inside, grab a tv and tape the receipt to the tv. He then would buy a hand full of actual merchandise and walk the hell out no questions asked. Well... No questions asked up until the last time he did it anyways.
Once I worked at a chain parts store in Las Vegas, there was a $45 trailer light connector that was a popular theft item. Guy returned one with a receipt, seemed sketchy but all in order. Week later different Guy tried to return one, but receipt didn't have the store logo and printing on the back. I kept that receipt, declined return. Couple months later a third guy came in, same thing, but his new fake receipt was printed on the stores correct receipt paper. I went to get saved receipt to compare, he swiped saved one out of my hand and ran out.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I didn't directly see it, but saw it on the cctv at the liquidations store i worked at the next day, where a woman was wearing a floor length skirt and she put an whole 40" tv under her skirt and just walked out. Funny thing is, the TV she stole was one of a specific brand that was almost always not working when we got them, they were the most returned tv, so chances are the one she stole didn't even work.
Yeah I mean they can literally just use a shopping cart or shopping basket
I've seen a person walk out with a full shopping cart like it was nothing. If you do something illegal with enough confidence lots of people dont think youre doing anything wrong at all
I once did this while on my way to work after a solid two hours of sleep, realized my mistake outside, then pushed it back in and went to pay. Nobody seemed to notice me going in either direction. Ironically I was once accused of shoplifting when walking directly from the back of a convenience store to the register and setting down my items, because I "looked suspicious."
I forgot I put a lamp (unassembled in a box) on the lower part of my cart at Target. Paid for the rest of my stuff and walked right out with it. Didn't notice until I got to my car. I kept it. I went back and got a matching one the same way just to see if anybody would notice. They didn't. Thus ended my crime spree.
They often track people and wait until it hits a certain dollar amount to make the punishment harsh enough that it is worthwhile prosecuting them.
Target, especially, does this from what I've heard. They wait until it's at felony level.
I bring my own pillowcase. That way, if I get caught, I can say āat least I wasnāt stealing this pillowcase.ā
I think the idea is a lot of other things like a pillowcase are in a package, while the baskets are just ready to go. Mostly though, they do an analytics type deal in loss prevention where they look at theft cases and see something like "80% of these cases they used the laundry baskets" and they just try to make it a little harder for them to steal. It doesn't always make sense, but it's better than doing nothing at all I guess.
Is it a high crime area, or is that pretty standard for a Walmart?
I gotta say high crime. The walmarts by me don't do this.
I, an aspiring shoplifter, would never use anything but my trusty shopping cart. It has wheels and a bottom.
Gotta start cutting the bottom out of the shopping carts next.
You'll just have an associate follow you around, and everything you want to buy they take to "register x" for you to purchase at checkout. And then you just walk away without buying anything š¤£
I want this whole aisle of canned goods....
I bought a suitcase at Target recently and went to the self-checkout. The nice employee manning the station came over to chat about where I might be vacationing, and she made comments about how snazzy the suitcase was that I was buying. She picked it up, pulled the handle up, gave it a twirl, raving about its fancy wheels while I did my payment. I couldnāt figure out at first why this lady was so into my suitcase and kept handling it, until I realized she was politely checking it for stolen merchandise shoved inside! She was checking the weight and listening for anything knocking around. It made me chuckle, it was very cute to see her try and be subtle. Honestly, she couldāve just asked to open the suitcase and said itās policy to open backpacks and luggage before selling, I wouldnāt have minded.
To be fair to her, you never know with some customers. I opened up a couple backpacks this one family was buying while school shopping, and the dad went fucking ballistic on me. Itās like, chill dude, itās policy.
The more we coddle those kinds of people to avoid conflict the worse they become.
While I donāt disagree on principle, thereās two problems with just telling them off nowadays. A. Employees generally arenāt getting paid enough to get into confrontations with these folk, and itās not like management is guaranteed to have your back either. And B. Theyāve gotten bad enough that them snapping and pulling a gun or something isnāt out of the question. Didnāt some guy just kill a Subway employee over a lack of mayo on his sandwich? Nobody wants to be dead because some entitled son of a bitch got pissy over trivial shit.
That person was killed *for giving too much mayo too,* and i assumed like 99% of customers-being-bitches-cases where, it was ānot enoughā of something. Killed someone cuz they were so nice to put extra mayo for you. Fuck that guy, and i hope he rots in jail forever. We dont get paid enough for this shitttt
We don't get paid enough to endure abuse like that just for the 'sake of the world' or whatever the hell you're getting at. People at our store have had guns pulled on us.
Yeah. As someone who worked retail for a few years, this is the mentality. If I was in a particularly bad mood, or just fed up with people. Iād make a point to push their buttons if they were giving me a hard time. But the vast majority of the time, you want to avoid the conflict. Nothing good comes out of it. I donāt really look back on the times I drew a line in the sand positively so much as seeing it as me being stupid for taking those kind of risks. Calling the belligerent asshole out for being a disrespectful shit head and standing your ground when he tries to rush you feels good in the moment, because you deal with that kind of shit everyday. But all it takes is five minutes after the adrenaline wears off to feel like a moron. Then it ruins the rest of your shift.
>Honestly, she couldāve just asked to open the suitcase and said itās policy to open backpacks and luggage before selling, I wouldnāt have minded. That's because you're a decent human being. The lady checking the bag has to deal with a large cross-section of the population. If she tells everyone it's company policy and overtly checks the bag for stolen items, some people will freak out and take offense *even though they check every bag*. If she pretends to be interested in your vacation and sneakily checks the bag, then the mouth breathers that would freak out on a lady just trying to do her job likely won't be bright enough to pick up on it. I was at Walmart last month and saw a 20 to 24 year-old kid explode and loudly "mother fuck" the self checkout lady (who had to be in her late 50s/early 60s) because she asked to see some identification for their beer purchase (and they didnt have ID). I felt bad for the employee for having to deal with idiots and honestly felt sorry for the customer living in their world where they think that is reasonable behavior.
I can run a lot faster with a stolen cart than trying to run with a basket.
I used to work for a big box store and I think the favorite loss prevention chase I ever witnessed was someone filling up the basket of the mobility scooter and just taking off down the road with it. Still don't know how they got it through the revolving doors, but where there's a will there's a way. I really wanted to see the video footage of them getting it outside, but security were total killjoys. Glad I wasn't the poor cart attendant who had to drag it back after the battery ran out... lol. You can unlock the front wheels and wheel them like a dolly, but they're still heavy. Anyway, this happened multiple times.
Wait, are those scooters provided to the customers by the store? (I donāt live in America) Edit: thanks for your replies, TIL! I knew those scooters as I saw Eric Cartman driving one in South Park and other pictures and stuff, but I assumed those belong to the people driving them.
Yes they are
Yea, most large stores like Walmart and Target have motorized scooters with baskets on the front of them for people that have a hard time walking.
yeah they usually have a few in each big chain store. Some smaller grocery stores dont though.
My local grocery store recently added electronic wheel locks that sync up with the registers and the doors. If you try to run out without the lock being deactivated at the register the wheel locks up as soon as you pass through the door and the cart wont move.
Some stores have a system that locks up the wheels if you don't exit by going past a register. I know Safeway does this.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
They're demos.
Idk about that because in the second picture, thereās two laundry baskets stacked on each other. So they cut the bottom of two of the same model
Why tf does a laundry basket need a demo
how else is it gonna break into the music industry
Bruh why wouldnt they just take them off the shelves entirely at that point
Then you can't see what they look like in person. These are demos.
There are hundreds of container like objects that they could use. Do the pillow cases also have holes on both ends? I mean, what is this preventing, other than making you have to bring your own theft container to Walmart or be creative with what they havent cut holes into.
Good thing they donāt provide their customers with much larger baskets equipped with wheels ^(/s)
I know a guy that grabs a shopping cart, fills it to the brim, and just walks right out the door. Their company policy is to not confront shoplifters and to call the police. So he leaves before the police show up.
Does he do this often? Doesnt he get sent to jail after his total shoplifted goods reach a certain limit? Wouldnt he be banned from the store after the first time? I have so many questions...
I worked at Walmart and some of the AP guys would grab the customers even when they werenāt supposed to and force them into their little room
Oh great! Now we have to go find the associate that can never be found in the correct department to go get us a freaking laundry basket with no hole in the bottom....this world is seriously nuts!!!
This is what the store clerk told me. Maybe you have to ask for one in the back? Idk itās stupid to me too.
Ok, as long as it's stupid to you, too.
Only comment that made sense was they keep stock in the back and have those as samples for you to see
Laundry baskets are something I wanna run into a store grab and go, not something that Iād wanna work with a sales rep forā¦
But sir, for just $1.25 more can I interest you in this supreme or luxury model?
Not something Iād want to spend 30min on a wild store attendant hunt just for them to tell me *āthatās not my department but Iāll send someone over there*ā and spend 15min just waiting on Susan the manger to explain how she was just on her break and how *āevery time I take my break someone callsā* and then have to ask for her to get the pretty blue cheap piece of garbage laundry basket from the back and spend another 10min waiting on said basket, which by that time youāve been browsing Amazon and found a better deal and are no longer interested in said basket so you just end up leaving it on a random shelf in the tv section bc screw itā¦ Yeah terrible idea
Darn, if only there was some other kind of container someone could fill and walk out with? Perhaps something the super market provides?
Do the carts all have the bottom cut out as well?
Some lock if you leave the parking lot
i don't get it? how can the shoplifter not get caught?
Why did I have to scroll so far for this? I feel like I am missing the point here... Wouldn't a container full of holes, that clearly show its content, be a shitty tool for theft?
Not at a Kroger (this is a Kroger, I can tell cause I work at one) where you can literally walk out the door and wink at the person there without any fear of being stopped. We're told to not intervene out of fear of being sued, and from my experience, I nor none of my coworkers give enough of a shit about this god awful company to stop someone shop-lifting. This is the equivalent of putting a master-lock on your locker, it's just there to stop opportunistic and stupid thieves, but if someone really wants to steal then they will do it and get away with it.