Walmart, Target & Costco shoppers fume, ‘I’m not an employee’ as self-checkout receipt check open letter goes viral
By Josephine Fuller,
2024-09-01
SHOPPERS are pushing back against retailers checking receipts, especially after self-checkout.
So much so that an open letter to retailers voicing the frustrations of many has gone viral.
In a post on X , the shopper said that on his last few trips to Walmart, Target, and Home Depot, only self-checkout was offered. An employee also checked receipts at the door.
“I didn’t choose to participate in that nonsense. So I just skipped the exit line and left,” he wrote .
“You can either trust me to do self-checkout, or you can put your cashiers back in place like it used to be.”
He said shoppers had to be cashiers “with no training,” and the store should accept the risk associated with it.
“Don’t audit me for a position you refuse to employ any longer.”
The post quickly racked up over 71,000 likes and 12,000 reposts.
“You don’t pay me to scan my own shopping. You don’t give me a staff discount for working for you!” replied another shopper.
Legality of receipt checks and detention
In an effort to curtail retail crime, stores are increasingly turning to receipt checks as shoppers exit.
Legally, stores can ask to see a customer’s receipts, and membership-only stores have the right to demand such checks if shoppers agreed to terms and conditions that authorize it.
Generally speaking, stores have Shopkeeper’s Privilege laws that allow them to detain a person until authorities arrive when they have reasonable suspicion that a crime, like theft, has been committed.
Declining to provide a receipt is not a reason in itself for a store to detain a customer, they must have further reason to suspect a shopper of criminal activity.
Due to the recent nature of the receipt checks, there is little concrete law on the legality of the practice, as it takes time for law to catch up with technology.
Setliff Law, P.C. claims that “there is no definitive case law specifically relating to refusal to produce a receipt for purchases.”
For stores that improperly use their Shopkeeper’s Privilege, they could face claims of false imprisonment.
“The primary law that applies to these types of wrongful detention cases is called ‘False Imprisonment’,” explained Hudson Valley local attorney Alex Mainetti .
“Of course, you’re not literally imprisoned, but you’re detained by a person who has no lawful authority to detain you and/or wrongfully detains a customer.”
It is likely that as altercations in stores over receipt checks continue, more court cases will occur giving clearer definitions and boundaries to the legality of receipt checks.
WALKING OUT
Customers at both Walmart and Target have left behind full carts rather than wait in self-checkout lines.
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