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Comment by chneu | Hacker News Reader

For a while a lot of grocery stores were randomly auditing self checkout. I haven't had it happen to me in a couple years though.

It always seemed to be random and coincided with Kroger doing the "scan as you shop" trial thing.

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As long as their losses on self checkout are less than the cost of paying cashiers and baggers they are happy.

Cashiers can steal too (not ring up their friends, shrinkage, etc.)

The scan as you shop thing seems to be pretty heavily audited, which really removes the point of doing it, since it just slowed things down. I think when I tried it I put up with it for about 4 out of the first 6 shops winding up slower than just going through the self-checkout or a regular one because of the extra faff.

I regularly do scan as you shop and have started to notice some patterns in auditing. If I change my mind on a product and remove it from the basket while shopping I'll get audited almost every time, similarly if I add a single onion (which is a weighed product) to my basket. I do enjoy the company line of asking "did you have trouble scanning anything" just before they do the check, which is blatantly a get out of jail free card to say "oh, yes, I did in fact have some trouble scanning that 42" TV that doesn't appear in the basket currently".

In France at the Monoprix chain, I'm randomly audited about once a month.

Which is doubly annoying, because I'm in that line to save time, and now I have to hunt down one of the employees who isn't paying attention or where they're supposed to be.

I noticed that I am often audited when I am unshaven and wear hoodies and almost never when I have a sports jacket on...

I regularly get flagged for review during self checkout at my local market. It occurred to me the other day that when a cashier handles the scanning, I don’t take on any risk. Now I have to do the checkout work myself, and if I do it poorly, I can go to prison. Welcome to the future!

In Belgium, Albert Hijn, I get audited about half the time. It's pretty quick so I don't really mind, but it happens a bit too frequently to my taste.

In NL AH for me it seems to come in waves. For a while I'll be checked every other time, and then not at all for some time. This could just be me seeing patterns where they aren't though, perhaps I should track it for curiosity.

You can just refuse that BS in non-membership stores. After payment, your debts are settled and the merchandise is your property. If they want oversight they need to eliminate self-checkout and staff their registers.

At my local supermarket self-checkout they moan at me for removing the security tags from bottles of wine when the staff are busy. It's my wine!

That's not true in most the USA. Shopkeepers privilege allows them to confine you and/or the goods, which depending on state only requires something akin to "reasonably believed you were stealing." In my state a shopkeep can confine me until police arrive on pretty flimsy evidence, which if in the country could be a very long time. It is better just to find stores that don't do it and shop there - - I stopped shopping at walmart after I was confronted by gigantic bouncers accusing me of stealing (yes in the hood Walmart is very aggressive with shopkeepers privilege, if you live in wealthy area and refuse they much more likely to just let you go).

You could try to stop them but if they are hurt in the process it could very well end in a lengthy trip to prison.

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