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So if someone is on food stamps, (EBT Card) you get to tell them what they're allowed to eat? Are you SERIOUS? You don't "mind" helping some family out as long as you approve of their nutritional decisions??? You have GOT to be kidding me.
Why not? If the person using the EBT does not want to be told what to eat, then they should use their own money.
This person bought three bags of chips. Its possible they were pork rinds... but I couldn't see the exact type. The rest of the items were four different flavors/colors of a Gatorade/Powerade type drink.
I didn't have a cart, and he walked in front of his, so all I had to do was look down and I could see everything in his cart.
It really wasn't a big deal.
I was just surprised that he gave the cashier a different number than what was in his cart. I thought that was pretty brazen. I know that people shoplift, but I had never seen something so flagrant before. Its also possible he miscounted.
This happened at night when the store was pretty empty. I thought about saying something to the cashier, but I didn't want to be in a situation involving any sort of confrontation with this guy. I also figured that it was more on the clerk for just accepting what he said. She didn't even glance into his cart.
My wife works as a cashier in a grocery store and has observed this happening many times. I'd guess quite often it's truly just a mistake, but there are a few people who try this trick on a regular basis. Since it's sometimes hard for the cashier to actually see in the cart and count while scanning items, the cashiers work together many times. If the one in the next booth over isn't waiting on someone, they can hear the conversation and see everything very clearly in the cart.
There is one gal and her mom who virtually tried this trick every time they were in the store. Many times they most likely got away with it judging by the large number of times they were caught at it. Some cashiers generally let it slide (perhaps didn't like conflict), some never let it slide, and with others it depended on how backed up and busy they were.
Just a couple months ago, it was national doughnut day (or something like that). My wife said this gal (her mother/accomplice died a few years ago) came up with 5 opaque wax bakery bags filled with the sale doughnuts which were 25 cents each. She put one up on the counter and said she had 4 more in the cart filled with a 6 doughnuts in each one. My wife, not wanting to actually count the number of doughnuts in each bag, did look in the one she put up on the belt and said she could clearly see there were more like 10 or 12 in there, she counted the number of bags in the cart and there were indeed 4 more bags in the cart. She let it slide since she wasn't about to touch each doughnut by taking it out of the bag to count them, and charged the gal accordingly at 5 total bags and 6 doughnuts each. Right after the customer left, the other clerk across the aisle noticed another white bakery bag dumped on the floor out of eyesight of my wife. Indeed it was filled with a dozen doughnuts.
Aparantly, when my wife challenged this gal by opening the bag and looking inside rather than just taking her word that there were 6 doughnuts in each bag, she got spooked and dumped the extra bag fearing she'd get caught for lying about the number of bags too.
Anyway, my point is, this does happen.....I hear about it far to often for it to be "just a mistake" all the time. It always seems to be in the customers favor too strangely enough
We have neighbor one street down who's been busted for shoplifting in the store my wife works at twice, and other places in town two other times. They appear to have plenty of money, so obviously some people just have a problem paying their own way. Maybe they get off on the thrill of getting something for nothing and putting one over on you, who knows what drives them.
I can say that once you get a reputation for this sort of thing, you do get watched much more closely by the cashiers and the security team than a general customer according to my wife.
it's very common for a cashier to have friends come in and they dont charge them for items and let them take stuff without paying, they usually pay for small items and dont scan other items or scan a lower priced item instead of the more expensive item just to look like the customer is paying.
Ive heard of numerous cashiers getting fired and arrested for doing this
I'm also surprised the cashier didn't tell him she needs to scan the different flavors (like the Gatorade you mentioned) as for inventory control, you have to scan each flavor.
Plus bagging, the bags are usually on the cashier's side, she should have asked for the items to bag them.
I think the cashier is friends with him or is truly dumb and trusting.
Why not? If the person using the EBT does not want to be told what to eat, then they should use their own money.
So let me make sure I understand your position.
Between my husband and I, we've worked appx. 60 years paying taxes etc.
Those taxes we paid fund a system where we can get a little bit of help when we desperately need it after illness and the economy laid us out flat financially.
But because we actually need the help that we've helped fund - WITH OUR OWN MONEY - you get to decide what we can eat.
Did I get all that right?
God help you if you ever need some help - just be grateful that not acting like a sanctimonious, elitist, insulting jerk isn't a requirement. I'm guessing if it was, you'd be hungry in pretty short order.
There are a lot of us who have good powers of observation when we are grocery shopping or maybe we don't have a cell phone in our face.
My favorite theft was the customer who put a few steaks at the bottom of her basket. Then, she put one of the 25# bags of dog food on top. When she got to the register, the checkout cashier noticed the dog food but could not see the steaks.
===================
My favorite scam took place at my favorite local independent supermarket.
I went into the store late in the day. They had some Amish whole chickens that looked to me to weight 4#+. However, the weight on the packages were all 2.50# or 2.75# or 2.25# . It is almost impossible to find one chicken, much less all of them to be at exactly a quarter pound. I reweighed a could of the chickens and they were all well over 4#.
Basically, the meat employees were misweighing the chickens, placing the chickens at the bottom of the pile so that their friends could get cheap chicken.
I reported it to the manager and he had a new guy in the meat department the following week.
Ive actually seen this plenty of times. I bought 5 pillows the other day at walmart and for obvious reasons only handed one to the cashier and said there were 4 more in the cart. She didnt even glance over to count and just scanned the tag 5 times. Ive worked in the grocery business and the bulk of employees are treated so poorly that they could care less if you scanned 4 verses 5 cans of tuna. All theyre thinking about is the fact that their time off request was denied and that they have to work Thanksgiving.
I wouldn't say this is universally true. I think it depends on the type of person working.
I always have varying experiences when I go to Walmart. Some checkers are nice, some rude, some attentive and some couldn't care less.
Just today I went to Walmart and had a lot of price matches for them, like I usually do. The check-out lady wasn't so attentive as to ask to see the ad to confirm the prices. But when it came to the milk she insisted it was $2.00 for the milk on sale elsewhere and not the $1.99 price that I told her it was. I had to pull out the ad to show her that it was indeed on sale at Albertsons for $1.99 as opposed to the $2.00 sale price at Smith's that she had in her head. (Many of the cashiers will memorize sale prices for popular items such as milk because so many people do price matches for those in a day).
Many other times I get a cashier who is so attentive they ask to see the ad and for me to point out the price for every item that I ask to do a price match. I usually will comply, but sometimes it gets so time-consuming and burdensome that I have to gently remind the cashier that Walmart does not require you to have the ad or show it to receive a price-match. Their policy states that the only times that they may require verification is when you give a price which is so much below their regular price or when the item is unusual or quite expensive itself. The register will automatically prompt for a manager's approval in those cases. So it's not the cashier's/checker's call or job to weed those things out.
And that brings me to another point. I find that there is often a great range in how knowledgeable the checkers (and even managers) are about their own store policies. Some will know the policies well, others I sometimes have to show them on my phone their policies from the Walmart website to get them to stop insisting upon whatever they claim as true. That happens a lot, too. I've had cashiers who seemingly pull made-up policies out of their butts. A few times I've had cashiers claim that you can't use a coupon for an item you've had price-matched, which is absolutely untrue as that is nowhere to be found in Walmart's Ad Match or Coupons policy guidelines found online.
This variation in how interested, knowledgeable and attentive the employees at Walmart are is what necessitates the overall non-stringent policies they have in place, to try to keep the line moving. Some may take advantage of that and make up sale prices or do what is described in the OP, but I don't think it's a huge number of people who do this. Certainly there are many thieves, especially at a store like Walmart, but I wouldn't say it's large percentage-wise to the overall huge volume of customers at Walmart on a given day.
As to the OP, I've never witnessed anything like that myself. But I have seen (and had) some cashiers request all items be placed on the belt or who will come to the other side of the checkout counter to verify and scan each item that was left in the cart. Of course, many times, cashiers/checkers will just take the customer's word.
But the fact that some will do the verification is proof that under-reporting of items and quantities is a known theft tactic to stores. Just plain leaving stuff in the cart is a known tactic as well. I know for a while it seemed every Walmart checker would ask if there was anything in the bottom level of the cart. Apparently, people were leaving things under there in order to not pay for them. The people at the door also would check the receipts of anyone who had stuff in that bottom level of the cart or that wasn't bagged in the basket of the cart itself. All of that has waned in the last few years, though.
Overall, though, store policies are like the IRS, they mainly operate on an honor system and also on the fact that most people don't want to gamble or risk the fact that sometimes verification will occur (an audit or a checker asking to confirm the number of items or a sale price). As I said, this is done mainly for efficiency.
Why not? If the person using the EBT does not want to be told what to eat, then they should use their own money.
The main problem with this is that people don't agree on what is healthy or not when it comes to food.
I think it is Republicans who mainly want to see more stringent guidelines for what can be bought with EBT/SNAP/Food Stamps. But it is also those Republicans who have such huge issues with the First Lady's healthy kids initiatives. etc. It's quite ironic that they have a problem with one but not the other.
On the flip side you could also say that Democrats are hypocrites for promoting healthy kids and opposing food restrictions for those on food assistance, but actually you will notice that many of the most liberal Democrats are actually on board with both ideas, so it's not something which is universally opposed by Democrats.
Me myself, I know that I don't like much of the stuff that is held up as healthy these days, such as kale, or organic this and that. I would never wish to force those things onto those who receive food assistance.
Candy is the only thing which is currently allowed to be purchased with food stamps that I would support being banned. I was shocked when I found out you could buy gum with food stamps. It floored me that you couldn't buy a rotisserie chicken (hot items) from the deli but you could buy candy with food stamps.
Obvious things which aren't food like alcohol and cigarettes are already banned and of course I'm fine with those restrictions as well.
But other food items which may be unhealthy such as chips or cookies and even soft drinks? Give me a break. Sure, they may not be healthy but to start telling people that they can't eat those is like telling people they can't be human and will be our Guinea pigs to test out our latest theories on healthy eating.
Those theories are always changing and often based on rather dubious studies and opinions.
Remember that butter was demonized years ago and now foodies and healthy eaters advocate for 'whole' things like that over the processed margarine which many replaced butter with and thought they were eating healthier with.
I'm also surprised the cashier didn't tell him she needs to scan the different flavors (like the Gatorade you mentioned) as for inventory control, you have to scan each flavor.
Plus bagging, the bags are usually on the cashier's side, she should have asked for the items to bag them.
I think the cashier is friends with him or is truly dumb and trusting.
Yes, this is something which I think needs to be done and which annoys me when it isn't.
There've been times where I bought the same item, but in different flavors/colors/varieties in quantity and I would ask the cashier specifically to make sure to scan each item individually or to make sure to separate and count each flavor/color/variety when doing multiples (eg 10 at 5 for $1.00). I once had a door person at Walmart check my receipt and they couldn't find an item in my cart on the receipt because the cashier didn't scan it as the variation it was but instead scanned for two of the other variation. It was easy enough to point out and explain, but it was sort of embarrassing standing there for the time it took to clear up the issue, looking like I was taking something without paying for it. I've also had this issue come up when trying to return an item. The uncomfortable feeling in that situation was a thousand times worse than the door situation. So was the amount of trying to explain and also convince the customer service person of what happened.
The inventory issue is also key. I wonder how much suspected theft or loss of items is actually attributable to uncareful scanning of items by checkers.
Last edited by ABQalex; 08-18-2015 at 01:29 AM..
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