Security expert calls out Costco and other retailers on bag searches | Hacker News Reader

Security expert calls out Costco and other retailers on bag searches

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25 pointssunkenvicar56 comments

I'm surprised that the basis of this story wasn't mostly focused on the fact that Costco is different than other retailers, in that as part of your membership agreement (anyone who shops at Costco is a member, and, in theory (and usually practice) must provide evidence of their membership before entering), have to agree to allow a bag and receipt search on exit.

For normal retailers, no such agreement exists, and in the 20+ years of dealing with them, I've never once stopped at the courtesy check, and never once been called on it.

> Vancouver lawyer Kyla Lee says even private clubs that require memberships can't violate a person's rights.

No rights are being denied. Even Costco will not detain you or your property. The worst they might do is cancel your membership.

I have a personal policy of, "I won't wait more than a moment for the Costco receipt check." I can assure you, they will run after you sometimes and stand in front of your cart to keep you from leaving.

Not everyone who shops at Costco is a member. You can shop at their pharmacy without joining.

In a lot of locations you can also buy alcohol without a membership.

I can attest that's the case here in Indiana.

I usually buy alcohol from Sam's Club, since in Indiana its illegal to put any preconditions on an alcohol license, other than what is required by state law (21, not being drunk, etc). There's even signs over the Sams alcohol aisles stating state law.

The door guards aren't told of this, and will make you think that you must be a member of Sams to even enter the store. My opinion: if they want to maintain exclusivity of a 'walmart', they can ditch the alcohol. Otherwise, follow the law.

Where I'm from, Costco is 1.2 hours away if no traffic.

A non-member can also shop at Costco if they have a Costco gift card. You have to get a member to buy the card for you, or in the case of a reloadable card to reload it, but using it does not require membership.

Twice I've had a bad experience shopping or at the check-out stand, and decided I'd had enough of a particular store so I just kept walking past the "courtesy" check.

Nobody's ever protested or followed me. If they did, I'd tell them that I paid for my stuff and my business with their store is complete.

If some day someone presses the point, I hope I'll have the courage to keep on walking and let them try to send the police to my house to enforce some kind of receipt check. I'm sure the police will get right on that.

I had some kid stop me, after I'd checked out at a Target. He wanted to see my receipt and I asked him why. He couldn't really provide an answer without accusing me of being a thief. I not-so-politely asked him if he was accusing me of something and let him know that of he wasn't, he needed to walk away. My wife was angry, embarrassed and proud. Our daughter was barely a year old, so she won't remember but this is how we'll teach her to always handle situations like this. Don't let people treat you like a criminal.

Best Buy stations people near the exits to check receipts, as does Wal-Mart with greeters, and on busy shopping days Best Buy has been known to post signs saying all receipts will be checked and bags provided at the exits. I don’t see it as that much of an inconvenience to stand in a line with everyone else as the receipt and items are checked one last time.

I can’t say it’s effective at catching problems but it probably acts as a good deterrent on a very busy, crowded day... presumably they’re trying to prevent someone from skipping the cash registers on their way out...

Canadian Tire, now there’s a terrible shopping experience, security gates make it nearly impossible to leave without buying something and they still check your receipts as you leave.

> I don’t see it as that much of an inconvenience to stand in a line with everyone else as the receipt and items are checked one last time.

It violates your legal rights though.

I’ve always felt like a criminal when I leave Costco. I am forced under threat of membership cancellation to show my receipt, cart contents, and bag contents to an employee.

I am fine with the Costco policy since its in the terms of membership and Costco is a club. If you're random retailer and wanting to search for people who haven't agreed to anything since the store is open to the public, that is a problem.

How does this in any way differ from any other retailer, except that Costco adds an admission fee?

Waving a magical membership wand over my head doesn’t change any of the material facts.

You literally consented to it in writing when you became a member.

It's arguable whether this is legal even if you signed a contract. There are many legal rights that can't be signed away in a contract (e.g. someone has the right to beat you up, etc.)

> It's arguable whether this is legal even if you signed a contract

If you ever take Costco to court, I'll follow along curiously.

In a lawsuit-hungry country like the US, I'm not sure how long a large company like Costco can get away with something illegal in their contract.

Signing a contract that says "you can look in my bag" doesn't seem like it would be one of the automatically void unconscionable contracts.

A lot of fulfillment companies search their employees when they leave. Its only time I've seen metal detectors used when leaving a building.

On the corporate side, I am required to disclose all my financial dealings including non-public equity deals(stock options in startups I work at) to my wife's work. If I don't, she can get fired.

No one reads the fine print.

It’s relevant because that membership, which is the one thing that sets Costco apart, is also their only remedy.

They don’t get to chase you down. They don’t get to hold you. They can’t call the police. (Well, they can, but the police won’t give a shit.) All they can do is refuse to let you buy more stuff from them.

Everybody gets to do what they want. Costco can ask to check your stuff. You can refuse. Costco can cancel your membership. None of these things are problematic.

There have been stories about Costco exit check not being about theft at all, it’s mostly about checking for possible errors or fraud on the part of the cashier

I've had them catch mistakes before, like an item being double-scanned. I was actually pretty impressed that they looked at the total count on the receipt and cross-checked it against the contents of the cart.

Back when Costco accepted Discover and allowed cash-over on purchases, when I took cash over, I would be asked by the receipt-checker, "did you get your $30?". On two separate occasions, I had in fact forgotten. One of those, I was given the missing cash immediately without question. The other time, the manager was skeptical but agreed to close and count the drawer, and I received the $30 immediately after that process.

Have they ever actually checked you that closely? Every time I leave Costco, it’s a cursory glance, a swipe of a marker (which prevents receipt reuse), and that’s it.

Same at Home Depot, the ceaseless beeping informing to the presence of surveillance when any movement is detected is enough to drive you insane. I’m just looking at drill bits for crying out loud! They even have a screen showing you a supposed live feed of the security room where people are presumably supervising the feed from the surveillance camera...

Worse yet, at our kroger (0), in many higher margin aisles are cameras and lcd screens hanging from the ceilings. They turn on to show the customer that they see us. You could possibly cover your face, but I'm pretty sure store personnel would ask you to leave.

My much more sardonic and dark view are that these cameras and the associated "kroger loyalty card" are going to an internal database to show how we travel through the store, what we look at, and how long. Of course, theft is an incidental plus to stop.

We already know for quite some time that Target (1) uses your credit card as the user hash, much like a loyalty card. There's no opting out of this one.

(0) https://www.google.com/maps/place/Kroger/@39.1636963,-86.589...

(1) https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...

> You could possibly cover your face, but I'm pretty sure store personnel would ask you to leave.

Now that sounds like fun. Is there a store like this on the San Francisco Peninsula so I can try it and see what happens?

Uhh, I have no clue. But I would assume that every major store that has cameras (all!) probably feed their video output to a ML classifier for facial recog and dwell times/locations in aisles. And if I were constructing such a system (I'M NOT!), I'd also tie it to the cash registers for complete path history and item purchase history, whether you use a 'shopper card' or not.

The only way I think you would have legal standing with a full shorud over your face is if you're a female Muslim adherent. In that case, I think you'd be defended by the 1st amendment protections. Then again, that also sounds like a 2-5 year legal battle assuming SCOTUS would even get involved. But you being in SF, the 9th circuit would likely go in favor of 1st amendment.

Long story short, our freedoms and relative anonymity are probably completely fucked. And those that demand privacy/anonymity are few and far enough between that we would be easily profiled in other ways.

> Target (1) uses your credit card as the user hash, much like a loyalty card. There's no opting out of this one.

Does Target still accept cash?

Another one I've heard of is stores using wifi and bluetooth to track shoppers by their smartphones. This is possible even with bluetooth turned off in some cases.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/14/opinion/bluet...

For Costco (in the US) and every other store I just walk past the guards. If they say something, I just say "no thanks". I decided I'd be happy to just stand there while they call their manager and then the real police, but I've never had too. IANAL but they can't detain you if they don't see a crime, much like a citizen's arrest. In any case if you are calm and polite the downside isn't that bad for you.

My guess is they are just counting on customers trying to be nice.

From FindLaw:

"Though these laws vary, store owners and their employees generally are allowed to detain an individual when they have probable cause to suspect shoplifting. However, any such detention of a suspected shoplifter must be reasonable in length and manner. Detentions without probable cause, for an unreasonable amount of time, or in an unreasonable manner may leave the store open to liability for false imprisonment and possibly other claims.

What constitutes probable cause to suspect shoplifting comes down to case by case specifics. Mere suspicion typically will not suffice. Most states require that the store or its employees have evidence which would lead a reasonable person to believe that shoplifting had occurred or was in progress. If the store bases its detention of a suspected shoplifter on information from a non-employee informer, that informer must have a reasonable basis for suspecting shoplifting." [1]

[1] https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/shoplifting.ht...

The risk at Costco isn’t them detaining or calling the police, the risk is revoking your membership.

The official story is the the cart is compared with the receipt to catch errors more than shoplifting [1]. As far as I can remember ever seeing, Seattle Costcos just look in the cart, they don’t search personal bags.

[1] https://www.sfgate.com/living/article/Costco-exit-greeters-c...

FTA: "the fact that retailers, by law, aren't allowed to search customers' bags."

This is a Canadian story. Does anyone know if this is also true elsewhere?

Same in France. They can stop you awaiting for the police but that's all.

I told my children to say "I do not agree for you to touch me, please call the police and my parents immediately, or let me go"

I'm fairly certain that's the case in most of the US. I know when I worked retail (over a decade ago) we were specifically instructed that if someone didn't stop to do nothing. The worst case was to follow them and get a license plate number.

They can't search your bags in England.

They can perform a citizen's arrest, but to avoid unlawful arrest it means you have to have committed the offence - strong and reasonable suspicion isn't enough.

I'm pretty sure they can ask to search your bag, and revoke your membership if you refuse, so I guess you can get away with that once.

In the US, they can ask, but they can’t stop you from walking out the door if you say no.

In the United states this has been an issue at Frys electronics and circuit city, but it really boils down to these two facts:

- once you pay, and have a receipt, it is your property.

- guards can only do one of two things: 1. wave you by and tell you to have a nice day or 2. Detain you for shoplifting.

number 2 gets pretty ugly. If the "loss prevention officer" as theyre called has video evidence of you stealing, or can prove from witness that you are in possession of stolen property, they will detain you in standard police style handcuffs and march you to the office. only the police can legally remove the handcuffs at this point.

now, if you havent stolen anything, and you are detained, this is unlawful imprisonment. You hire a lawyer, you go to court, and you count your settlement cash or push the company to do the unthinkable...not issue a public apology, but admit wrongdoing.

most companies have shied away from this kind of strongman tactic of inspecting bags for one reason. its not because customers dont like it, its because it can put the business at enormous financial and shareholder risk if it backfires for any reason.

Costco, however, is a membership organization, and this is a stated condition in the membership agreement.

You can't use a contract to sign away your right to not be enslaved (with the exception of prisoners). Similarly you can't sign away your right to not be illegally held captive by another person.

Of course if you leave without allowing Costco to check your bag, they have every right to cancel the contract which was breached. But if they don't let you leave and handcuff you, you have every right to sue them.

This works at the airports; is there legal clarity or consensus on what kinds of rights you can't give away?

Airports are different. They're the property of governments or quangos like airport authorities. There, the people checking you are government employees acting on behalf of the government for the public good.

A 17-year-old at Best Buy is only acting on a power trip enabled by his boss, and has zero legal authority to detain you if you're not stealing anything.

> only the police can legally remove the handcuffs at this point.

That doesn't sound quite right to me. Do you have a citation?

...and 3. 86 you.

The proportion of innocent people who will turn down a bag check if it means they can't return to a local retailer I estimate at 0.1%. For any right not to be searched to be meaningful, I'd have to be a right not to habe a search requested of you.

Especially since the outcome of refusing a search will likely be a policeman searching you in the parking lot, or on the side of the road during your walk/drive home.

I have refused such a check at Walmart and the result was an employee trying to physically obstruct my exit from the store, accusing me of stealing, and calling me rude names. I left anyway. No cops. No attempt to ban me from the store.

I think the past purchase receipt check isn't about the shopper, it's about the person at the register. It is a check to be sure that, at a cursory level, everything was charged, and also to ensure that you have goods you paid for. In electronics stores this was one method of handling inventory shrinkage on expensive components.

Costco has never made me feel as if I did something wrong, and they found that I'd forgotten to pick up something from the cage at the service desk.

I am fanatically opposed to random, suspicionless searches of personal property, whether psysical items or data. I don't find Costco offensive. They make it clear up front that's how it is and they search everyone rather than discriminating. Also, there are no bags, you take your items out in full view in an open cart, and after you leave you can do as you please. I don't have to shop there. Really, the confirmation of items leaving is just part of the standard checkout process.

Superstore has a no bag policy. Their security may stop you and demand you check your bag. They accept no liability for losing it. Due to their lack of offer to accept that liability I've declined to enter their store. I have no problem with it because we both have our own terms and if they aren't mutually acceptable we don't have to do business.

Do you have to comply if Superstore security asks to check your bag? Seems like the only authority they really have legally is to kick you out of the store, but I don't know that much about the laws surrounding that.

If you want to shop there, yes. They can deny you entry if you want to bring something inside that they don't want in their store.

i'm fanatically against the burden of fraud prevention falling on honest people, rather than squarely on the dishonest.

companies may want to externalize such costs on customers in the form of privacy invasion and dignity denigration, but as an equal party, the customer can choose to negotiate different terms.

and no, small print agreements don't absolve companies of such negotiations, as those are simply risk reduction, not risk absolution, measures by companies.

individuals are the atomic units of power, not companies.

not many comments yet, but i suppose people don’t understand the point of the bag search isn’t to reduce customer shoplifting, it’s to prevent employee theft. employees not ringing items is a super trivial way inventory shrinks.

it’s sad that the pain is borne by the customer. but, on the bright side, it means prices are lower than they would be otherwise.

Indeed. I used to work in a business that was peripherally related to the security industry, and the conventional wisdom was that shoplifting was typically either an inside job, or an inside job with a customer as a confederate. Most of the security products (20+ years ago) were oriented towards monitoring employees, such as a gadget that superimposed the register transactions on the security video tape.

That's why big stores have the highest concentration of security cameras above the checkout lanes, exactly where a customer is least likely to try and hide something.

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