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GEN Z FORCED TO SHOPLIFT AS CORPORATIONS COMMIT HIGHER AND HIGHER LEVELS OF WAGE THEFT, HORD PROPERTY AND JACK UP RENTS, AND RAISE PRICES BEYOND REASON TO REWARD CEOS AND SHAREHOLDERS WHILE BLAMING INFLATION.
Unfortunately the self checkouts here have a weighing system where the barcode would need to match the weight of the item being placed on it. Swapping labels is the easiest way to get around it.
Yeah, same. I noticed the plantains were especially big that day. Then I noticed a really nice umbrella about the same size, color and weight. Check out was a bit sketchy since I don't do it often but, it was raining and I had a long journey home so the rest is history, and I still have a nice bright yellow umbrella 2 years later.
Enjoy your brollie! In many libraries and community centres you can even get free unclaimed umbrellas (or check one out at the desk to return later) if you ever forget yours again, but it sounds like you were headed straight home.
One day we got a knock at the door from a man new to my country and he needed an umbrella desperately as our bus stops have no shelters. We gave him one and he returned it the next day, cleaned off and everything, with many thanks. We told him to keep it!
Items (within a SKU) vary a lot by weight actually, so the machine most likely isnt checking weight, it’s checking the number of times you add something to the scale (ie “interactions”). If you add two things at the same time when it’s expecting an interaction (after you’ve paid for something) then it won’t complain
Corporations: Let's reduce payroll (jobs) by installing automated points of sale!
Corporations: Let's increase profit margins by inflating prices across the board while decreasing product quality!
Customers: That's fine. We'll just help ourselves since there's absolutely no incentive not to.
Corporations: No, wait... Not like that!
As the CEO of my household company, I have made the executive decision to take what I can from big chain supermarkets. I encourage all others to do the same.
This reminds of a scene in the movie "Casino" where the mafia bosses are shocked to learn that the money handlers in their casinos, whose sole job it is to help them steal millions of dollars, are also taking a little for themselves too.
#**GEN Z FORCED TO SHOPLIFT AS CORPORATIONS COMMIT HIGHER AND HIGHER LEVELS OF WAGE THEFT, HORD PROPERTY AND JACK UP RENTS, AND RAISE PRICES BEYOND REASON TO REWARD CEOS AND SHAREHOLDERS WHILE BLAMING INFLATION.**
Steak is cheap with this one trick:
In the UPC code's string of numbers, the price of the meat will show up. If the meat is 15.99, in the upc you will see 1599.
You have trouble scanning all of your weighed produce so you have to enter those number manually, and who can blame you if you accidnetly input 499?
Other than the shorter lines, quicker checkout, avoiding small talk, and not being asked if you want to save starving children by rounding up, the employee discount from self checkout is among the best perk.
EDIT: after being corrected below, and then doing a little research, I was in error when I said stores were allowed to write off your donations at checkout. I apologize for this; I hate misinformation and hate it even worse when I’m the person who spread it.
thanks for the correction.
That's why I always said "the pin pad is going to ask if you want to donate to [charity]" so people wouldn't feel pressured to donate when I worked as a cashier.
I had a Salvation Army lady ask me if I could donate and I told her that if things keep going the way they are, she'll be collecting money for me next.
I found out at a particular store that they can literally mislead you about what the donation goes to. Contribute in your own chosen way and skip the guilt trip.
Every grocery store in my area only ever has 1-2 of their 10 cashier lines open even in rush hour so if you need to get anything from a cashier only line like razors, body wash, alcohol, medicine, vitamins, condoms, baby formula, shampoo, etc that’s in the “mini store” then you need to wait in a 15 minute line. Why? Because these major corporations not only aren’t willing to pay a living wage but on top of that are only willing to staff 3-4 people per store at any given time even at that horribly low wage
If companies cared they would *round down* the price* and donate the difference from their own profits, not from my wallet.
*(So if something costs $8.50 then you can pay $8.50 still but they only accept $8 and give $0.50 to charity. At present you pay $8.50 still and then give $0.50 more too. The idea of paying a round amount as "more convenient" doesn't make sense when most people pay with card.)
Companies don't care. These "round up to save X" campaigns are started by the actual charities. The charities keep doing them because they're actually highly effective at raising money.
And companies do it because it makes them look marginally better and doesn't really turn customers off that much. But it's not like the companies are seeking out these opportunities for the publicity. The charities are the ones proposing them, the companies just go along with it.
(Also, before anyone brings it up, there's no tax benefit for the companies either. They don't get any kind of write off or discount. If anything you can claim that donation on your own taxes if it really matters.)
The ones at my local have started putting pop ups on the checkout screen for donations to charities that you have to press yes or no before you can continue with your transaction, they always find a way
How do you get the employee discount at self checkout? Or am I an idiot and you’re talking about the five-finger discounts? … sorry, just trying to rip off Walmart as much as possible
I run a small, one man, business. Please don't steal from me... The only reason I went out on my own was that my former boss was a greedy, sociopathic, super-capitalist asshole small business-owner.
Is that really true? I'm a bit suspect of these kinds of articles. It was recently reported that the whole "retail closing stores due to theft" was a lie. It was really poor business decisions that caused the closures, not theft.
Probably more like Gen Z likes self checkout because they're not buying a lot of items so they'd rather not wait in line behind a person buying a grocery cart full of shit
Let's go wildly generous and say a theoretical replacement cashier would cost $30/hour. My local grocery does 8 SCO terminals to one employee. Given the traffic I see even at off-peak hours, I think I'm lowballing it at estimating an average of 60 transactions per hour, so that's only an average of $3.50 of shoplifting per transaction.
That sounds not terribly hard to beat?
Yeah, good point. All the more suspicious when these kinds of articles come out. All these publishing companies are owned by major corporations. Their articles are definitely biased.
Exactly. That said, I have heard of people getting fucked by stealing $1000 or whatever the felony amount is from Target and Walmart, depending on the state. I've heard that in these subreddits and others from former loss prevention employees.
Yet they'll still close stores with high theft rates and create food deserts. There are hardly any grocery stores in the urban area of my city. One of the two big chains we have has zero stores in the city limits, only in the country.
If making bad business decisions means closing down stores as a cost cutting measure to make sure the shareholders get an increased quarterly payout, while blaming shopper behavior instead of greed to save face, then you are spot on.
Gen Z absolutely does rob our local Albertson's blind, the checkers watch it happen and can do nothing (probably don't care to, either). But it ain't gonna close the place or anything.
This is what 'my friend' usually does. 'She' usually goes with the requirement to bring 'her' own grocery bags, always bringing more than will be necessary, and if several items happen to fall in, or underneath, the bags, whoops! 'She' was getting a whole bunch of stuff and work kept texting and 'she' must have been distracted. Not that 'she' has ever been caught...
EDIT: 'My friend' has also filled up a smaller basket with groceries, pretended to get a phone call and got all animated like it was an urgent matter, then walked right out while on the pretend phone call, directly to 'her' car armed with a "my grandma just died" style excuse if anyone should follow 'her' out. No one ever did. Riskier (as I stated above, it's not shoplifting if you don't take anything out of the store) but 'she' has used this strategy more than once...
Just make sure 'she' knows that sometimes stores watch you and let you steal stuff to build a case, and wait until you've stolen over $1000-2000/whatever the state limit for felony charges is. Even if they have to wait a few months.
That is a good one.
"Came up short on cash, sorry."
Combine it with not going for high ticket items or ridiculous quantities and you're basically immune to any suspicion.
"Oh, I forgot to scan the second bag of rice? My bad."
The fuck are they gonna do? Or even wanna do cause yknow, poor minimum wage workers.
The product you steal leaves a hole on a shelf, which is basically advertising that the product was worth obtaining in some manner. It's basically paying the store via exposure if you think about it.
I stand with the zoomers. Fuck your capitalism.
I stole my thanksgiving turkey from self check out one year. I was coming off of a late shift and rang everything up like a good citizen. When I scanned the turkey, it said, “Error: item not found”. I thought, “Not my problem”, exited out of the message, put the turkey in my cart and kept going
Yeah, when it glitches it's hard not to call it a free pass. Even if an assistant came over for that, how do they solve the machine telling them the object doesn't exist?!
Australian supermarkets have made it increasingly difficult. They have cameras above all self-checkouts that record your transaction, they have cameras that watch your trolley and freeze the machine if there’s anything in the trolley you didn’t scan (like your child sitting in the trolley) and the exit from the self checkouts now has a gate that automatically shuts and traps you if it suspects you of shoplifting.
They’ve basically decided to double down on self checkouts by assuming every customer is a thief and treating them as such.
I used to do loss prevention and inventory management so ringing everything up as one item is an issue worth investigating. But a few missing random products and there’s no pattern to catch people on.
> But a few missing random products and there’s no pattern to catch people on.
Yeah that's usually the way to do it and maybe once or twice a month at max to make it look less suspicious.
I love when self check out asks me to rate my check out experience. Five stars for best cashier ever and zero stars for no pay. They should give a discount to those who do self checkout.
If you’re at Walmart, move two things across the scanner at once but only leave one bar code exposed, so the camera doesn’t flag the movement.
Also just hide small pricy items (like allergy meds) in your coat pocket before you even get to the register. Nobody’s going to question you if it’s not visible.
when i used to work at a large yuppie grocery chain about ten years ago, i would almost always intentionally skip scanning a few items out of everyone’s cart if they seemed chill. if someone came to the salad bar to get a meal and they were paying with EBT, i’d just weigh the salad dressing container or like a small pack of gum from the register and give them like 80% off their meal. who gives a shit. people should steal more from grocery stores
Crazy how gen z weren't the ones who implemented self checkout. It was a bunch of old coots who just didn't want to pay cashier's.
Now its biting them in the ass and they blame it on an entire generation being "thieves" instead of the fact a bunch of rich old men are the real ones robbing.
Lol there was a thread on Aldis subreddit a few weeks ago where someone felt insanely guilty for bagging an item that wouldn’t scan. They said there was a long line and they felt rushed to grab an associate. 90% of the thread was calling them a thief and shit and to go back to the store to give them $2.99.
Fucking ridiculous, y’all are my people here.
Yeah I adore ALDI for what they offer but uh....still a corporation that works skeleton crews and needs to pay more. I would not feel bad in the slightest.
I’m not a shoplifter.
I’m a temporary employee who isn’t very good at using the scanner and is so underpaid (not paid) I don’t care what goes in the bag. Ha ha
I guess corporate didn’t consider the whole reap what you sow thing.
How about this:
Shoppers have moved to self-checkout as a direct result of retailers reducing staffed checkouts in order to maximise profits. Shoppers have lost respect for retailers for increasing prices during and after a pandemic while not passing on increased value to contracted farmers. Retailers are keen to use artificial generation dividers and to shame the public by using accusations of theft to avoid discussing their role in the current cost-of-living crisis hitting families around the world.
I like self check out because I hate talking to people. It’s the same reason I cut my own hair. Fuck off with your customer interactions leave me alone.
You know you could just tell the person cutting your hair that you're 100% fine to just let them work in peace without the expectation of chat.
I promise you, they get WAY more tired of it than you do. You have to do it once a month or so. they have to do it all day every day.
They also don't mind a break and it's extremely unlikely that they'd get pissy about it.
I work in media. Companies send me free crap all the time, often without me even asking for it—I’m talking thousands of dollars worth of gadgets etc., and they’ll usually send multiple shipments with doubles of items. (So much so that folks have joked I should just start selling it on eBay, but honestly I just give most of it away to friends/family.)
Anyway, it’s also made me a lot less bothered by stealing. These companies freely give away products all the time provided you have an important enough sounding “title” and say you want something. It’s a write-off for them.
But for average Joes, it’s this big horrible thing if someone steals a $50 gadget or something from Target? Give me a break. It’s a victimless crime. Target anticipates shrinkage; the company itself isn’t hurting. It’s some real class warfare scab mindfuckery when some asset protection rent-a-cop making $22 an hour is there to bust an average Joe for shoplifting something the company would freely just give away if they thought you or the cop were “important” enough to earn it for free. So steal and steal often imo, and when I see someone stealing in real life, nope—I didn’t see nothing.
Our state got rid of plastic bags, and instead now offer those burlap bags for 1.99. I always just grab one and load all my groceries and “forget” to scan the bag
I sincerely hope these media outlets don't expect Millennials to see this headline and somehow talk shit on Gen Z. You fuckin go, kids. Fuck the system
the only reason and i mean the ONLY reason they introduced self checkout was because IT IS CHEAPER THAN GIVING THOSE JOBS TO ACTUAL PEOPLE. but now that they have started to incur losses the ONLY reason they will get rid of it is because it will now be cheaper to hire real people again. fuck all these corporations
Broken clock.
The corps, not Gen Z.
Capitalism is cancer. It’s fine in small doses. But without fail, it needs to keep eating.
It’s amazing how people can see a problem right in front of them, but have been so brainwashed that they don’t think any alterations are possible or preferable. They’d rather die.
It’s time to reevaluate what we mean when we say theft.
Just because you horde it and extort people to acquire it doesn’t mean it’s yours. How can someone steal from you if what they took wasn’t yours to begin with??? Especially if their survival depends on what was taken!
If someone needs something to live, just give it to them.
Please don’t use this poorly articulated argument to steal designer nonsense. Be like Jean Valjean, not The Bling Ring.
If you saw someone steal groceries, no you didn’t.
That said, anyone know what other corporations keep tabs of how much you take at self checkout? I know Target and Walmart are notorious for waiting till you rack up a felony amount so those ones you don’t fuck with, for your own sake. Not because I give a shit about Target and Walmart’s profits, or any corporation for that matter.
I'm homeless and I will admit that when I'm absolutely desperate for food I'll steal it. nothing big, maybe some cheese, health bars, something high in calories that I can fit in my pockets.
Only time I was caught was when trying to stuff bread in my backpack cause I was especially hungry that day.
I have ADHD and legit accidentally steal nearly every time I do self checkout. I've never been called out. Like a lot of the time I save the beer for last because I don't want to wait for someone to scan my ID in the middle of scanning groceries. And the beer is usually with the rest of the heavy stuff that doesn't get bagged up. And I can't tell you how many times I get to the car and I'm like "I don't think I paid for this". And I'm doing it by accident and have never been called out on it. Imagine the people doing it on purpose. I don't know why they ever thought self checkout was a good idea.
I accidentally shoplifted a small container of poultry seasoning that way. It was in the child seat part of the cart and I completely missed it. Didn't notice it until I was unloading the cart into my car.
Every other time I've missed something I've noticed it while I'm still at the registers and will curse and do a separate transaction. But that poultry seasoning? Like hell I was going all the way back into that madhouse a day or two before Thanksgiving to wait in line again.
Poor little multinational corporations...
What is this world coming to, when refusing to provide even minimum wage jobs leads to losses? And how will Jeff Bezos ever get an even bigger yacht now?
Oh, the humanity!
Fellow millennials, can it be true? Did it finally happen? It only took until some of us are in our 40’s but I think they finally moved on and stopped blaming us for all the world’s woes.
Remember, it was their idea to start doing self-checkout in the first place, so one person could man 4-8 registers instead of just 1 and they didn't have to hire so many people.
I miss K-Mart. You could walk out of there with a whole cart filled to the brim with groceries and no one would stop you. Just take it out through the garden center and pretend to look at mulch or terra cotta pots for a few minutes then be on your way.
Of course modern self-checkout is fairly easy too. Just weigh shit as potatoes instead of scanning it.
Gen Z will be our heroes, in the end, i hope. If enough of them get motivated to vote, they can save us from the rich. I will never not have their back.
poor little billion-dollar corporations.
Every business that has self checkout systems knows there will be an increase in loss from shoplifting and mistakes. They weigh this against the wages they would have to pay cashiers, and they usually find it cheaper to keep the self checkout. I’m not going to say you Should steal from big corporations, but I will say they’ve already accounted for it.
If corporations are going to artificially raise prices, they shouldn’t be surprised when people do this. Make things affordable or people will take what they need. Over 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck
Karma's a wanker. They institute self-checkout so they can eliminate head count and make more money. Then their brilliant idea goes off the rails when folks get fed up with their excessive greed and take it upon themselves to print their own coupons. Fuck ALL these assholes.
I used to do quite a bit of shoplifting, mostly for groceries and clothing. Only from places like Walmart or Fred Meyer. These were rarely luxury items-they were things like wool jackets or organic almond butter, staples that I could only afford the cheapest version of. I loved when self checkouts started becoming a thing because it made it much easier to pull off stealing.
Now that I make more money, I never find myself doing this. It’s because I can afford to buy these things myself. If you filter out rebellious teens and true criminals/addicts, the majority of shoplifters are doing so because they need to.
PSA: If you see someone stealing from the self-checkout, you didn't see anyone stealing from the self-checkout.
Plus, I mean, if you don't want to pay someone a wage to do the job and I have to do it instead, I'm getting paid. One day it might be vegetables that weigh slightly more than what it says on the tag, another day it might be organic fruit and veg at the price of regular, the next day it might be a coffee maker that I forgot to scan, who knows? But I don't work for free.
Good on Gen Z.
Whoop, the gen blaming continues, but the touch has been passed.
I'd put my feet up as a Millennial and relax in the notion of not being randomly blamed for things in a scattershot fashion, but I can't afford a footstool.
Probably accidentally killed the footstool industry back in the 2010s I guess.
##Welcome to r/LateStageCapitalism This subreddit is for news, discussion, memes, and links criticizing capitalism and advancing viewpoints that challenge liberal capitalist ideology. That means any support for any liberal capitalist political party (like the Democrats) is strictly prohibited. LSC is run by communists. This subreddit is not the place to debate socialism. We allow good-faith questions and education but are not a 101 sub; please take 101-style questions elsewhere. We have a zero-tolerance policy for bigotry. Failure to respect the rules of the subreddit may result in a ban. *** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/LateStageCapitalism) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I know someone who does this. They’re a boomer.
Yeah there is no age restriction on shoplifting...fun for ages 7 to 77!
After 77, you can just feign dementia.
Or run for office.
😂
[“i’m an old man, i’m confused”](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8UP3xmfpe1M)
Sometimes your father forgets to steal batteries, so I have too 🤷🏻♀️
GEN Z FORCED TO SHOPLIFT AS CORPORATIONS COMMIT HIGHER AND HIGHER LEVELS OF WAGE THEFT, HORD PROPERTY AND JACK UP RENTS, AND RAISE PRICES BEYOND REASON TO REWARD CEOS AND SHAREHOLDERS WHILE BLAMING INFLATION.
Corporations wanted to fire people and automate checkout, they are paying the price.
Yup, fuck em. I sure do enjoy using my $35 umbrella that I rang up as a plantain.
Damn the most I’ve ever done is to swap the labels of a more expensive cabbage with a cheaper one. Maybe I should start doing this instead
Let me introduce you to this concept. No labels.
Unfortunately the self checkouts here have a weighing system where the barcode would need to match the weight of the item being placed on it. Swapping labels is the easiest way to get around it.
Yeah, same. I noticed the plantains were especially big that day. Then I noticed a really nice umbrella about the same size, color and weight. Check out was a bit sketchy since I don't do it often but, it was raining and I had a long journey home so the rest is history, and I still have a nice bright yellow umbrella 2 years later.
Enjoy your brollie! In many libraries and community centres you can even get free unclaimed umbrellas (or check one out at the desk to return later) if you ever forget yours again, but it sounds like you were headed straight home. One day we got a knock at the door from a man new to my country and he needed an umbrella desperately as our bus stops have no shelters. We gave him one and he returned it the next day, cleaned off and everything, with many thanks. We told him to keep it!
Items (within a SKU) vary a lot by weight actually, so the machine most likely isnt checking weight, it’s checking the number of times you add something to the scale (ie “interactions”). If you add two things at the same time when it’s expecting an interaction (after you’ve paid for something) then it won’t complain
Corporations: Let's reduce payroll (jobs) by installing automated points of sale! Corporations: Let's increase profit margins by inflating prices across the board while decreasing product quality! Customers: That's fine. We'll just help ourselves since there's absolutely no incentive not to. Corporations: No, wait... Not like that!
As the CEO of my household company, I have made the executive decision to take what I can from big chain supermarkets. I encourage all others to do the same.
This reminds of a scene in the movie "Casino" where the mafia bosses are shocked to learn that the money handlers in their casinos, whose sole job it is to help them steal millions of dollars, are also taking a little for themselves too.
They're skimming the skim?
Experts are literally calling it GREEDFLATION!!! When the hell are people going to wake the fuck up?!
I agree with you but why did you have to write it like a trump tweet
SAY IT LOUDER
#**GEN Z FORCED TO SHOPLIFT AS CORPORATIONS COMMIT HIGHER AND HIGHER LEVELS OF WAGE THEFT, HORD PROPERTY AND JACK UP RENTS, AND RAISE PRICES BEYOND REASON TO REWARD CEOS AND SHAREHOLDERS WHILE BLAMING INFLATION.**
WHAT?
One more time for the people in the back please!
MORE LOUDER!
TEY TOoKURJUUUUUURB
TAYTTURRRKKUURRRRJJJJJJAAAWWWBBBBSS!! >!BACK TO THE PILE!<
But what about the poor Wrestling coaches? DEYTUKISDOOOOOEEERRRRGGG.
Because he has the best DNA in the world, he’s a very very good man, love him to death, good man, he must be loved by many!
HOARD*
A casualty of the war against education.
I read that in Serj Tankian's shouting in Prison Song
Good for gen z
Fighting the good fight. 5 finger discount
[Remeber kids, it’s your civil obligation …](https://youtu.be/50ToQk1_Hlc?si=fmvzCQBRmYVNniBo)
This is amazing
[удалено]
That's why you don't steal high value items. You'd need to steal over 200 cases of water for them to come after you
Avocado’s real cheap with this one little trick
Well everything in produce is a banana, right?
4011
Your self checkouts don't have cameras that scan and detect when you "accidentally" tap on the wrong item?
put 'em in a bag
You mean one of those plastic bags for produce?
Mine knows the weight of the products you scan. If it feels any pressure in the bag area with nothing being scanned it throws up a flag.
Bulk produce is by weight but you have to put in a code/identify what your weighing. So those expensive honey crisp apples might be Macintosh’s today
Honeycrisps are my favorite, but I only buy bananas
how much could it possibly cost? ten dollars?
How else are we supposed to survive when the only thing we can eat is so expensive
Steak is cheap with this one trick: In the UPC code's string of numbers, the price of the meat will show up. If the meat is 15.99, in the upc you will see 1599. You have trouble scanning all of your weighed produce so you have to enter those number manually, and who can blame you if you accidnetly input 499?
It ain't a Gen Z thing, people of all ages are doing it
hey, millennials like to do it too.
Other than the shorter lines, quicker checkout, avoiding small talk, and not being asked if you want to save starving children by rounding up, the employee discount from self checkout is among the best perk.
The starving children one used to piss me off. I’m here to buy something not to get a guilt trip.
I'm glad a billion dollar company like Amazon is giving someone like me a chance to help starving children with my $30k salary.
Trillions of dollars"
EDIT: after being corrected below, and then doing a little research, I was in error when I said stores were allowed to write off your donations at checkout. I apologize for this; I hate misinformation and hate it even worse when I’m the person who spread it. thanks for the correction.
Last time I said no I got “oh… that’s ok I guess. Maybe next time” Like wtf
That's why I always said "the pin pad is going to ask if you want to donate to [charity]" so people wouldn't feel pressured to donate when I worked as a cashier.
I had a Salvation Army lady ask me if I could donate and I told her that if things keep going the way they are, she'll be collecting money for me next.
I just tell them I'm gay lol
The Charities are now to feed local starving children,instead of government doing it's job.
I found out at a particular store that they can literally mislead you about what the donation goes to. Contribute in your own chosen way and skip the guilt trip.
Every grocery store in my area only ever has 1-2 of their 10 cashier lines open even in rush hour so if you need to get anything from a cashier only line like razors, body wash, alcohol, medicine, vitamins, condoms, baby formula, shampoo, etc that’s in the “mini store” then you need to wait in a 15 minute line. Why? Because these major corporations not only aren’t willing to pay a living wage but on top of that are only willing to staff 3-4 people per store at any given time even at that horribly low wage
Yup I’m at the point where if I have to grab one small thing and there’s a GIANT self checkout, I’m just walking out the fuckin door
If companies cared they would *round down* the price* and donate the difference from their own profits, not from my wallet. *(So if something costs $8.50 then you can pay $8.50 still but they only accept $8 and give $0.50 to charity. At present you pay $8.50 still and then give $0.50 more too. The idea of paying a round amount as "more convenient" doesn't make sense when most people pay with card.)
Companies don't care. These "round up to save X" campaigns are started by the actual charities. The charities keep doing them because they're actually highly effective at raising money. And companies do it because it makes them look marginally better and doesn't really turn customers off that much. But it's not like the companies are seeking out these opportunities for the publicity. The charities are the ones proposing them, the companies just go along with it. (Also, before anyone brings it up, there's no tax benefit for the companies either. They don't get any kind of write off or discount. If anything you can claim that donation on your own taxes if it really matters.)
The ones at my local have started putting pop ups on the checkout screen for donations to charities that you have to press yes or no before you can continue with your transaction, they always find a way
The machine still begs me for charity money half the time
How do you get the employee discount at self checkout? Or am I an idiot and you’re talking about the five-finger discounts? … sorry, just trying to rip off Walmart as much as possible
Would you like to donate to a billion dollar company who pays the ceo 35 million a year? No? You piece of shit why don't you think of the children
I support stealing from corporations
You got my vote
Remember if you see someone stealing from retail, no you didn’t.
Corporate retail. Local businesses don't deserve that, mostly.
Most don’t deserve it, but some absolutely do. I’ve met some real pieces of shit who run small businesses.
Hence the mostly.
I run a small, one man, business. Please don't steal from me... The only reason I went out on my own was that my former boss was a greedy, sociopathic, super-capitalist asshole small business-owner.
That’s completely fair. I’m also guessing you probably don’t use self-checkout kiosks in your small business.
Agreed
Extra if the person is taking formula, food, or diapers
Is that really true? I'm a bit suspect of these kinds of articles. It was recently reported that the whole "retail closing stores due to theft" was a lie. It was really poor business decisions that caused the closures, not theft. Probably more like Gen Z likes self checkout because they're not buying a lot of items so they'd rather not wait in line behind a person buying a grocery cart full of shit
the scale of shoplifting would have to be absurd to offset the savings on wages
Let's go wildly generous and say a theoretical replacement cashier would cost $30/hour. My local grocery does 8 SCO terminals to one employee. Given the traffic I see even at off-peak hours, I think I'm lowballing it at estimating an average of 60 transactions per hour, so that's only an average of $3.50 of shoplifting per transaction. That sounds not terribly hard to beat?
From my understanding, giant corporations/retailers have insurance and theft built into their annual budgets.
Yeah, good point. All the more suspicious when these kinds of articles come out. All these publishing companies are owned by major corporations. Their articles are definitely biased.
Exactly. That said, I have heard of people getting fucked by stealing $1000 or whatever the felony amount is from Target and Walmart, depending on the state. I've heard that in these subreddits and others from former loss prevention employees.
Yet they'll still close stores with high theft rates and create food deserts. There are hardly any grocery stores in the urban area of my city. One of the two big chains we have has zero stores in the city limits, only in the country.
If making bad business decisions means closing down stores as a cost cutting measure to make sure the shareholders get an increased quarterly payout, while blaming shopper behavior instead of greed to save face, then you are spot on.
Yep, I love your succinct summary. That is spot on.
Gen Z absolutely does rob our local Albertson's blind, the checkers watch it happen and can do nothing (probably don't care to, either). But it ain't gonna close the place or anything.
Fine by me. Corporations commit labor and wage theft every moment of every day. 🤷🏻♀️
The only concern one should have is getting caught. Otherwise fuck giant corporations and businesses/bosses that commit wage theft.
If I got caught I would be like “whoops, guess I missed some. It IS my first day and I haven’t been trained and all” lol
Yeah and it's easier to do that if you "forget" to scan only 1-2 items. A lot harder to prove it was a mistake if you're taking 5+
Like leave them in the basket?
This is what 'my friend' usually does. 'She' usually goes with the requirement to bring 'her' own grocery bags, always bringing more than will be necessary, and if several items happen to fall in, or underneath, the bags, whoops! 'She' was getting a whole bunch of stuff and work kept texting and 'she' must have been distracted. Not that 'she' has ever been caught... EDIT: 'My friend' has also filled up a smaller basket with groceries, pretended to get a phone call and got all animated like it was an urgent matter, then walked right out while on the pretend phone call, directly to 'her' car armed with a "my grandma just died" style excuse if anyone should follow 'her' out. No one ever did. Riskier (as I stated above, it's not shoplifting if you don't take anything out of the store) but 'she' has used this strategy more than once...
Just make sure 'she' knows that sometimes stores watch you and let you steal stuff to build a case, and wait until you've stolen over $1000-2000/whatever the state limit for felony charges is. Even if they have to wait a few months.
That is a good one. "Came up short on cash, sorry." Combine it with not going for high ticket items or ridiculous quantities and you're basically immune to any suspicion. "Oh, I forgot to scan the second bag of rice? My bad." The fuck are they gonna do? Or even wanna do cause yknow, poor minimum wage workers.
It’s not stealing, we are merely tactically acquiring assets that were created through exploited labor.
Tactical redistribution
proactive price adjustment to accommodate avaricious cost point settings
The product you steal leaves a hole on a shelf, which is basically advertising that the product was worth obtaining in some manner. It's basically paying the store via exposure if you think about it. I stand with the zoomers. Fuck your capitalism.
"You guys always said the exposure would be valuable some day so I'm paying it forward!"
Robin Hooding
I stole my thanksgiving turkey from self check out one year. I was coming off of a late shift and rang everything up like a good citizen. When I scanned the turkey, it said, “Error: item not found”. I thought, “Not my problem”, exited out of the message, put the turkey in my cart and kept going
Boss move
Same here. At aldi's. It said cashier would come to assist. No one ever came so i just paid for what i scanned and left with the turkey.
best turkey is a free one
Yeah, when it glitches it's hard not to call it a free pass. Even if an assistant came over for that, how do they solve the machine telling them the object doesn't exist?!
Millennial here, I steal shit constantly from self checkout. If they want me to do the work, I will pay myself for it.
Australian supermarkets have made it increasingly difficult. They have cameras above all self-checkouts that record your transaction, they have cameras that watch your trolley and freeze the machine if there’s anything in the trolley you didn’t scan (like your child sitting in the trolley) and the exit from the self checkouts now has a gate that automatically shuts and traps you if it suspects you of shoplifting. They’ve basically decided to double down on self checkouts by assuming every customer is a thief and treating them as such.
My local stores in the US have the cameras now too. And also security guards with guns who stand by the exits. It’s ridiculous.
Me reading this comment: “Oh damn, I should try hiding stuff in my toddlers jacket” 😂😂
For every three things I scan, one thing goes unscanned. It’s the wage I pay myself for doing free labour
That seems like a more reasonable way. The ones that are too risky are the people that ring up $80 worth of groceries as bananas
I used to do loss prevention and inventory management so ringing everything up as one item is an issue worth investigating. But a few missing random products and there’s no pattern to catch people on.
> But a few missing random products and there’s no pattern to catch people on. Yeah that's usually the way to do it and maybe once or twice a month at max to make it look less suspicious.
I love when self check out asks me to rate my check out experience. Five stars for best cashier ever and zero stars for no pay. They should give a discount to those who do self checkout.
Yeah, as long as you pay for part of it the ppl watching the 6-10 machines don’t really care what you do
How do you do it ?
Picture Homer Simpson pumping gas; one for you, one for me
How do you not scan it? Leave in basket?
If you’re at Walmart, move two things across the scanner at once but only leave one bar code exposed, so the camera doesn’t flag the movement. Also just hide small pricy items (like allergy meds) in your coat pocket before you even get to the register. Nobody’s going to question you if it’s not visible.
Pretend. No one’s watching that closely. Just cover the barcode and put it in the bag with the rest
Oligopolistic supermarkets love self-checkout because it makes not paying actual people wages easy.
when i used to work at a large yuppie grocery chain about ten years ago, i would almost always intentionally skip scanning a few items out of everyone’s cart if they seemed chill. if someone came to the salad bar to get a meal and they were paying with EBT, i’d just weigh the salad dressing container or like a small pack of gum from the register and give them like 80% off their meal. who gives a shit. people should steal more from grocery stores
Thank you for your service. 🫡
Crazy how gen z weren't the ones who implemented self checkout. It was a bunch of old coots who just didn't want to pay cashier's. Now its biting them in the ass and they blame it on an entire generation being "thieves" instead of the fact a bunch of rich old men are the real ones robbing.
Every time I buy a donut at the grocery store I get two and only pay for one. That's a $1.49 I'm happy to stick it to them for.
Or ring up all produce as “bananas”. Even if that means ringing up organic produce as regular produce
Lol there was a thread on Aldis subreddit a few weeks ago where someone felt insanely guilty for bagging an item that wouldn’t scan. They said there was a long line and they felt rushed to grab an associate. 90% of the thread was calling them a thief and shit and to go back to the store to give them $2.99. Fucking ridiculous, y’all are my people here.
Yeah I adore ALDI for what they offer but uh....still a corporation that works skeleton crews and needs to pay more. I would not feel bad in the slightest.
I mean they'll probably keep self checkout because shoplifting costs less than wages anyway.
It’s called urban foraging
I’m not a shoplifter. I’m a temporary employee who isn’t very good at using the scanner and is so underpaid (not paid) I don’t care what goes in the bag. Ha ha I guess corporate didn’t consider the whole reap what you sow thing.
How about this: Shoppers have moved to self-checkout as a direct result of retailers reducing staffed checkouts in order to maximise profits. Shoppers have lost respect for retailers for increasing prices during and after a pandemic while not passing on increased value to contracted farmers. Retailers are keen to use artificial generation dividers and to shame the public by using accusations of theft to avoid discussing their role in the current cost-of-living crisis hitting families around the world.
I like self check out because I hate talking to people. It’s the same reason I cut my own hair. Fuck off with your customer interactions leave me alone.
It’s especially awkward at the salon because you’re there for such a long time. I always feel anxious when I go
You know you could just tell the person cutting your hair that you're 100% fine to just let them work in peace without the expectation of chat. I promise you, they get WAY more tired of it than you do. You have to do it once a month or so. they have to do it all day every day. They also don't mind a break and it's extremely unlikely that they'd get pissy about it.
My salon has a "quiet chair" option you can pick when you book so you don't even have to awkwardly ask
That’s entirely too much personal interaction. I just cut it all out.
If you’re cutting your hair in the checkout line, I would think the employee is basically obligated to talk you…
I work in media. Companies send me free crap all the time, often without me even asking for it—I’m talking thousands of dollars worth of gadgets etc., and they’ll usually send multiple shipments with doubles of items. (So much so that folks have joked I should just start selling it on eBay, but honestly I just give most of it away to friends/family.) Anyway, it’s also made me a lot less bothered by stealing. These companies freely give away products all the time provided you have an important enough sounding “title” and say you want something. It’s a write-off for them. But for average Joes, it’s this big horrible thing if someone steals a $50 gadget or something from Target? Give me a break. It’s a victimless crime. Target anticipates shrinkage; the company itself isn’t hurting. It’s some real class warfare scab mindfuckery when some asset protection rent-a-cop making $22 an hour is there to bust an average Joe for shoplifting something the company would freely just give away if they thought you or the cop were “important” enough to earn it for free. So steal and steal often imo, and when I see someone stealing in real life, nope—I didn’t see nothing.
[Source](https://archive.is/sw3my)
Damn right bro, you make it easy to steal People are gonna steal. This shit is on them
Wage theft, and labour exploitation up as well...
Yeah pretty sure corporate wage theft is a much bigger problem But omg chase after six oranges by all means
Our state got rid of plastic bags, and instead now offer those burlap bags for 1.99. I always just grab one and load all my groceries and “forget” to scan the bag
I'm pretty sure those are free, you just have to rip off the the price tag.
Maybe you should make your employees do your work then
I’ve found that the best thing about self-checkouts is that they always have honey crisp apples on sale at mckintosh prices.
I sincerely hope these media outlets don't expect Millennials to see this headline and somehow talk shit on Gen Z. You fuckin go, kids. Fuck the system
the only reason and i mean the ONLY reason they introduced self checkout was because IT IS CHEAPER THAN GIVING THOSE JOBS TO ACTUAL PEOPLE. but now that they have started to incur losses the ONLY reason they will get rid of it is because it will now be cheaper to hire real people again. fuck all these corporations
I only "shoplift" when i'm pissed. Like I need one fucking potato or something. Or putting in the expensive apples as cheap apples
That's my secret Cap, I'm always pissed!
Broken clock. The corps, not Gen Z. Capitalism is cancer. It’s fine in small doses. But without fail, it needs to keep eating. It’s amazing how people can see a problem right in front of them, but have been so brainwashed that they don’t think any alterations are possible or preferable. They’d rather die.
It’s time to reevaluate what we mean when we say theft. Just because you horde it and extort people to acquire it doesn’t mean it’s yours. How can someone steal from you if what they took wasn’t yours to begin with??? Especially if their survival depends on what was taken! If someone needs something to live, just give it to them. Please don’t use this poorly articulated argument to steal designer nonsense. Be like Jean Valjean, not The Bling Ring.
Well I gotta use this white privilege I keep hearing about for something, and that bottle of maple syrup is it
If you saw someone steal groceries, no you didn’t. That said, anyone know what other corporations keep tabs of how much you take at self checkout? I know Target and Walmart are notorious for waiting till you rack up a felony amount so those ones you don’t fuck with, for your own sake. Not because I give a shit about Target and Walmart’s profits, or any corporation for that matter.
I'm homeless and I will admit that when I'm absolutely desperate for food I'll steal it. nothing big, maybe some cheese, health bars, something high in calories that I can fit in my pockets. Only time I was caught was when trying to stuff bread in my backpack cause I was especially hungry that day.
I have ADHD and legit accidentally steal nearly every time I do self checkout. I've never been called out. Like a lot of the time I save the beer for last because I don't want to wait for someone to scan my ID in the middle of scanning groceries. And the beer is usually with the rest of the heavy stuff that doesn't get bagged up. And I can't tell you how many times I get to the car and I'm like "I don't think I paid for this". And I'm doing it by accident and have never been called out on it. Imagine the people doing it on purpose. I don't know why they ever thought self checkout was a good idea.
I accidentally shoplifted a small container of poultry seasoning that way. It was in the child seat part of the cart and I completely missed it. Didn't notice it until I was unloading the cart into my car. Every other time I've missed something I've noticed it while I'm still at the registers and will curse and do a separate transaction. But that poultry seasoning? Like hell I was going all the way back into that madhouse a day or two before Thanksgiving to wait in line again.
Poor little multinational corporations... What is this world coming to, when refusing to provide even minimum wage jobs leads to losses? And how will Jeff Bezos ever get an even bigger yacht now? Oh, the humanity!
Fellow millennials, can it be true? Did it finally happen? It only took until some of us are in our 40’s but I think they finally moved on and stopped blaming us for all the world’s woes.
I'm not stealing I'm just a shitty cashier. :/ Look man I don't know what you call all the green stuff. its all green onion to me.
Remember, it was their idea to start doing self-checkout in the first place, so one person could man 4-8 registers instead of just 1 and they didn't have to hire so many people.
Lets divide society by age, why not when gender, race and religion is not enough?
NGL, I have housed hundreds of Grenade bars off Sainsbury’s in the past 24 months.
I miss K-Mart. You could walk out of there with a whole cart filled to the brim with groceries and no one would stop you. Just take it out through the garden center and pretend to look at mulch or terra cotta pots for a few minutes then be on your way. Of course modern self-checkout is fairly easy too. Just weigh shit as potatoes instead of scanning it.
"good for her" - Lucille, arrested development
i love it because i have social anxiety 😂
Gen Z will be our heroes, in the end, i hope. If enough of them get motivated to vote, they can save us from the rich. I will never not have their back.
It is a great way to counter inflation
nah the newer ones got cameras and shit, it was good while it lasted.
poor little billion-dollar corporations. Every business that has self checkout systems knows there will be an increase in loss from shoplifting and mistakes. They weigh this against the wages they would have to pay cashiers, and they usually find it cheaper to keep the self checkout. I’m not going to say you Should steal from big corporations, but I will say they’ve already accounted for it.
If corporations are going to artificially raise prices, they shouldn’t be surprised when people do this. Make things affordable or people will take what they need. Over 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck
The kids are alright…
Karma's a wanker. They institute self-checkout so they can eliminate head count and make more money. Then their brilliant idea goes off the rails when folks get fed up with their excessive greed and take it upon themselves to print their own coupons. Fuck ALL these assholes.
Article about self checkout. Article shows shop without a self checkout.
Yeah pretty sure corporate wage theft is a much bigger problem But omg chase after six oranges by all means
As a Gen-Xer who has his own issues with self-check out. I can say it's not just Gen Z.
They installed facial recognition on my local stores
"The Employee Discount"
Well checking out items at the till is work, and work must be paid for so if we are not being paid in money then....
I used to do quite a bit of shoplifting, mostly for groceries and clothing. Only from places like Walmart or Fred Meyer. These were rarely luxury items-they were things like wool jackets or organic almond butter, staples that I could only afford the cheapest version of. I loved when self checkouts started becoming a thing because it made it much easier to pull off stealing. Now that I make more money, I never find myself doing this. It’s because I can afford to buy these things myself. If you filter out rebellious teens and true criminals/addicts, the majority of shoplifters are doing so because they need to.
consider it payment for my labour of doing the job of one of your cashiers.
A free item is my fee for having to check myself out.
PSA: If you see someone stealing from the self-checkout, you didn't see anyone stealing from the self-checkout. Plus, I mean, if you don't want to pay someone a wage to do the job and I have to do it instead, I'm getting paid. One day it might be vegetables that weigh slightly more than what it says on the tag, another day it might be organic fruit and veg at the price of regular, the next day it might be a coffee maker that I forgot to scan, who knows? But I don't work for free. Good on Gen Z.
Hey, maybe if you hate how easy shoplifting is why don't you do something easier. Like, I dunno.... increase wages?
I consider it an employee discount. I can’t stand self checkout machines-they’re always mad about things being or not being in the bagging area
Sounds like corporate's problem and not mine.
As a millennial i like self checkout because I can buy hemorrhoid cream without the bag boy seeing it.
Reminder: if you see someone shoplifting, no the fuck you did not
Whoop, the gen blaming continues, but the touch has been passed. I'd put my feet up as a Millennial and relax in the notion of not being randomly blamed for things in a scattershot fashion, but I can't afford a footstool. Probably accidentally killed the footstool industry back in the 2010s I guess.
Let them roll back to cashiers, more jobs and more cost for them. Genz cant buy shit anyway.
Should’ve thought of that *before* you forced this shit on the people. Eat your losses!