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Whats the big deal? Depending on the line to exit, you sacrifice a few minutes/ seconds of your time for them to check your receipt? It's the least you can do especially if youre eating all those free samples they have inside the store
Oh good grief. The stupid things that people waste energy on. Warehouse stores don't bag your items like other strores do, so it makes perfect sense to me that they check your receipt on the way out. It would be way too easy for people just to pick up merchandise and walk out the door with it. Get over it.
Actually, once you purchased a product in a store, the property is yours and you are under no legal requirement to produce that item for inspection if asked.
However, there are some variations. If the store suspects you of stealing, they can inspect for stolen goods. This is not the same as examining your purchases against a sales recipient, it is to retrieve items they have a reasonable suspicion you stole.
Membership Clubs are exempt from the private property rule because you agreed by contract to allow them to inspect and compare items to sales receipts. You have absolutely no rights to privacy in your purchases if you agreed to the rules.
Although you can refuse to show the items or sales receipt, the store can revoke your permission to enter and basically prohibit your entry. You can refuse to have the items and receipt examined and they can refuse to allow you to shop in the store.
Lastly, some states have enacted laws that allow store owners to inspect if they conspicuously post signs BEFORE you enter telling you of their practice. This gives you the option of agreeing or turning around and walking away.
Location: The Circle City. Sometimes NE of Bagdad.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ChessieMom
Oh good grief. The stupid things that people waste energy on. Warehouse stores don't bag your items like other strores do, so it makes perfect sense to me that they check your receipt on the way out. It would be way too easy for people just to pick up merchandise and walk out the door with it. Get over it.
My Costco at least boxes the items I buy if possible, Sam's not so much.
I just went to the Chef Store in Columbia, SC. I checked out with three items (they give you no bags, just the three items.)
I was the only one checking out of the store - the only one at the registers.
I put the receipt in my pocket and walked the 7 feet from the register to the man who just watched me get rung up. "I need to see your receipt sir!"
So, I walked back to the still empty counter so I could put down the items in my hands - get my receipt from my pocket to show him, and then pick up my items again and leave.
No, you have no such right. Are you 12 or something?
Actually, it's not necessarily so simple and will depend ultimately on the laws of where you're located. As another poster wrote, once you purchase something, you legally own it and generally speaking DO NOT have to prove to store security that you did or didn't purchase it; heck, you already completed the purchase with the store so an agent of the store already knows your the status. If a store refuses your exit because you don't want to show a receipt for items you own, that store (or its agents) is risking false imprisonment charges. Now things get more complex with membership stores where you agree to have your receipt checked upon leaving, but, even here, the most legally sound remedy for the store for failure to adhere to that policy isn't to deny your exit, but to cancel your membership. If a store denies your exit under any of those circumstances without having lawful justification to do so (and, note, failure to have your receipt checked when your items are bagged and you went through checkout isn't on its own lawful justification . . . things are different if your item isn't bagged, however), then they risk the same result. Functionally, the burden will be on the store to prove it had legal justification to prevent you from leaving the store (i.e. that it was reasonable for them to believe you stole), not the other way around. Note, outside of criminal law, depending on where one is such actions by a store may open the store up to a civil false imprisonment case, which the store, depending on the jurisdiction, would lose if it's determined that the customer ultimately didn't steal, regardless of whether the store's belief to the contrary was reasonable or not. Now, as I alluded to above, certain jurisdictions make it easier for stores to detain you under similar circumstances, but I'm not referring to those places.
Last edited by prospectheightsresident; 01-21-2015 at 08:59 AM..
Yes. It IS so simple.
You agree to the practice when you get your membership.
If you do not want to, don't become a member!
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Warehouse stores don't bag your items like other strores do, so it makes perfect sense to me that they check your receipt on the way out. It would be way too easy for people just to pick up merchandise and walk out the door with it. Get over it. 
