The exit search is completely voluntary. Most people will see the line of people having their bags searched and willingly join it themselves without further thought. I always walk past this check point and give them a firm "no" when they ask me to stop. It never has gotten beyond that.

Vote with your wallet and simply stop shopping at the stores that do this...

At Costco it's mandatory -

They do it here in NJ at Home Depot, Costco, Target, Walmart...etc.

I don't get how this 'search' is effective. Most of the time, they don't even glance in the bags, they just look at the receipt, make a check mark, and off you go. Yeah, I feel real secure... :rolleyes:

-Z

If it slows me down, I just go on thru. Costco, or whatever. No one has ever chased me down. Just give them " is it worth your life, look".

Wow, I have never ever found an issue with this. Only store I shop at that does it I can think of at the moment is Sams.

at costco, the only annoyance is that it creates just one extra logjam. i dont really care, it isnt so much of a search, they just look at my 5 gallon container of ketchup, and verify. i dont shop at FRY's. just try to return something and you will see why.

Same here. They just count the number of items in your cart and the reciept and make sure they match.

I've never seen this anywhere else. Must be that all you big city folk feel entitled to a store's merchandise...:p

I have seen it done at a walmart in Alabama. I never have really thought about it but now I will either wall on by or ask them to stop me about 200 feet from the store. I believe it is a legal thing. After 200 feet you can't say you were looking for a salesperson. Not sure what state gave us that one. After 200 feet they are detaining you and violating you rights. I guess I might hold up the receipt as I walked by. Here they usually have an off duty cop standing there with a store salesperson. Thanks

I hate these receipt checks. They are a waste of my time and money. Yes, my money. By shopping at that store, I am paying the wages of the clerk doing the shopping. I am convinced that the wage cost of those employees is greater than whatever shoplifting they might prevent.

Case in point: I was recently shopping with someone else at a store that does these checks. We each paid separately. We put all our stuff in the same cart, yet only showed the clerk one of our receipts. He waved us through without even noticing all the stuff in the cart that was not on the one receipt he saw.

last Christmas, i went into a "things remembered". my girlfriend wanted to get the dogs, stocking stuffers. silver name tags. so i wandered around. naturally i found the flask. kinda neat, so i played with them and just to see if it would fit, put it into my back pocket. out of nowhere, some fool yells, "hey! stop that you thief!" and i feel a hand grab my arm. i put the flask back ( i was a bit red faced) and went outside to sulk. given a few seconds, i got pissed. so i went inside to search the manager. she saw me looking for her. i said, "do you want to talk about this here, or will you want more privacy? i tore her employee a new a-hole. she tried to find the idiot to apologize to me, but i couldnt care less. my girlfriend thought it was funny. i wished the guy knocked me to the ground and frisked me...hahaha.

They do it at the local Big K-Mart (I only buy cat litter there).

One thing I've seen that's pretty strange to me is at a particular Best Buy, where all the security guards seem to be Black. they're pretty thorough checking Black customers but seem to just wave me (middle-aged white buy) through. Someday I'll have to ask 'em why they can't show me the same respect...

Z, They do it at Costco up here but non of the other places you mention....at least the ones I go to.

Personally I think it's ineffective. Perhaps a deterrent to the occasional shoplifter or someone who's buddys with a cashier.

Well, somebody's pilfering billions of dollars worth of stuff. I'm sure most of it goes out the back door, or does it? You'd be surprised what gets stuck between someone's loins on the way out the door. Not that a clerk is going to pat you down, but maybe it's just another checkpoint to deter potential perps.

Maybe they should use rottweillers foaming at the mouth .... unleashed.

Sherwood

Two recent anecdotes from the automotive industry: one, a VP of the ocmpany was ocming in Saturdays and bringing large trucks to load up and pilfer inventory from a huge warehouse for over a year. The management figured he'd taken $1.4 million worth...

In the other, a VP at a parts retailer cooked up a deal with a large wholesale customer for a cash exchange for a quarter million in inventory. All caught on tape by a PI -- as it took place in a strip club parking lot.

Shoplifters do a lot of damage, but the really big scores often involve insiders.

"Maybe they should use rottweillers foaming at the mouth .... unleashed."

Uh....maybe you should see the 'women' at our local Costco.
They have no leash law, unfortunately.

My wife just said:

"Like I'm gonna put a 5 gallon jar of mustard in my pants"

I'd actually like to see that.

Yes, it does. Most retail theft is committed by employees. Too lazy to find figures.

In high school, one of my friends worked at Best Buy unloading the trucks at night and stocking the shelves. He said it was not uncommon to see more than one employee leave with over $1,000 in merchandise, each night. When they started cracking down (managers actually started watching the unloading--and stopped letting people park next to the unloading truck), the employees got inventive. One trick was that they would load all of the stuff the wanted into a safe that was for sale, and then take the keys to the safe home. The next day, they'd come in when they weren't working and use their employee discount to buy the safe full of merchandise...

I thought that is what these searches were all about. Like if your best friend is the clerk and doesn't ring up the plasma TV in your cart. The door guard is supposed to catch it.

Now that makes sense - !