Receipt Checks

[Jay 2K Winger]

After reading Smiley's thread today, I'm reminded of an incident with SCs at my job recently.

As I've stated in the past, on weekends, I work in LP at a wholesale club, cashiering the rest of the week. As our club does charge membership, your receipts get checked as you leave the store. Periodically, we'll get people who'll raise a little bit of a stink about the whole thing. One time I had a woman accuse me of checking her receipt more carefully because I was a racist, never mind that she had a much longer receipt than the last four people I'd checked.

Anyway. This particular incident. This couple walks up and try to push straight on past, so I of course stop them.

SH: Sucky Husband
SW: Sucky Wife
J2K: Yours Truly

J2K: "Excuse me, you have your receipt?"
SH: "She does."
*he tries to keep going, so I stop him*
J2K: "I need to check your receipt."
SH: "No you don't."
J2K: :???: "Yes, I do."
SW: *handing over receipt* "It's against the law."
J2K: :???: "Sorry?"
SH: "There's no law in the state of Virginia that says I have to let you check my receipt."

I check their receipt and let them go on their way, a bit irritated that I'm dealing with this sort of nonsense again. All I said was, "Well, feel free to take us to court, then," fairly confident that they won't do so, this being typical SC "wah wah I don't feel like following your rules" jabber.

Usually, the accusation is that we're conducting "illegal search and seizure," which we (my fellow FDLP coworkers and I) always respond by saying the Constitution protects citizens against illegal search and seizure by the government, not private companies.

Sadly, my brain was not fast enough to come up with valid rejoinders for this couple's remark:

"That's right. It also means there's no law stopping me from making you show your receipt."

This whole thing kinda soured my mood for the rest of the day.

[Jack Doe]

I take a very, very strong stance against involuntary receipt checks, but shit, Costco, Sam's, you sign a contract of membership saying "Yes, I agree to let you search my packages/receipt" as a cost of membership. Wal-Mart? Pissoff. Sam's Club? Yes sir, here's my receipt.

[otakuneko]

Hehe, what a dip.

I'd never get sightings off receipt checkers here. The local walmart doesn't seem to do it at all, and at Fry's they don't care if you walk on by. Guess I'm kinda glad of that though.

[friendofjimmyk]

Illegal search and seizure? No, I don't think so. You are performing a search...which, as another poster stated is probably laid out in the membership contract which I'm willing to bet 90% of your members don't read. As far as the "seizure" part - I imagine you would only be seizing things if it was not on their receipt.

[MTNLaurelPoacher]

Wow! Politicians seem to be keeping very busy. There are all these new laws out that seem to protect people from anything (HUGE Sarcasm). A law against checking receipts, based on unlawful search and seizure. How interesting. It seems there is a law or a "constitutional right", to do anything. Including smoking at a lumber yard and sex on the skytrain.

Oh well... guess I'm going to go find some new laws to make. It's my "Constitutional Right!" to read Customers Suck!

[AmericanKryptonite]

The customer's technically correct about the law. Virginia requires merchants to meet the established legal standard of probable cause in order to detain a customer suspected of shoplifting. If he had tried to leave without showing his receipt and was prevented from doing so, the employees who blocked his path would be guilty of illegal detention/false imprisonment.

Warehouse clubs can make customers agree to receipt checks/cart searches as a condition of membership. However, a private membership agreement doesn't supercede state law, and shoppers who choose to waive their rights under state law also can choose to exercise them at any time.

However, the store would be well within its rights to cancel such a customer's membership for breach of contract.

My take: Receipt checks are ineffective loss prevention and poor customer service. I encourage everyone to decline the searches at general merchandise stores. But, if you agreed to the practice in writing, you should keep your word or cancel your membership.

[Auto]

I always respond by saying the Constitution protects citizens against illegal search and seizure by the government, not private companies.

Sadly, my brain was not fast enough to come up with valid rejoinders for this couple's remark:

"That's right. It also means there's no law stopping me from making you show your receipt."

Correct that US Constitution protects against illegal search form government entitites.

But private citizens and private companies have no right to search another private citizen.

Your right to ask for a receipt and look through their bags is based on the contract they signed when they were given membership.

If they violate that contract, you can cancel their membership. But that's it.

You can't search them unless they consent.

[Jay 2K Winger]

My take: Receipt checks are ineffective loss prevention and poor customer service. I encourage everyone to decline the searches at general merchandise stores. But, if you agreed to the practice in writing, you should keep your word or cancel your membership.

Please, PLEASE don't tell me you're encouraging more of this kind of thing at my job. My job sucks enough as it is.

[Broomjockey]

Things are getting very close to Fratching territory. Further trodding down that road will have comments removed and the commenters messaged to take it over to the Fratching site.

[Mark Healey]

Please, PLEASE don't tell me you're encouraging more of this kind of thing at my job. My job sucks enough as it is.

While I didn't make the original suggestion, I agree with it. If the person asks politely I decline politely. If they try to stop me, out comes the phone and a call to the cops (This hasn't happened yet, but I'm hoping). I will then file a suit and give my winnings to IJ (ij.org).

[AmericanKryptonite]

Things are getting very close to Fratching territory. Further trodding down that road will have comments removed and the commenters messaged to take it over to the Fratching site.

Newbie question: What's fratching? We're all playing nice here, please don't pull the thread.

[Broomjockey]

Newbie question: What's fratching? We're all playing nice here, please don't pull the thread.

If you look on the main page, there's a link titled "Fratching" with the subtitle "Debates and contenious stuff goes here." It doesn't actually matter if you're playing nice or not, debates about whether something is proper, legal, etc are not meant for this site, and are prohibited in the rules because most often it descends in to bickering and sniping, and it's easier for the mods to simply close the thread than to ask people to pull it back on topic after it's gone off the rails, so to avoid closing threads, we'll often issue a warning to "Stay out of Fratching territory" or some such. So if it stays specifically on topic, and no more about people's feelings about receipt checking in general, or about their local laws or interpretations, then the thread will be fine. A good rule of thumb is "If it's a specific incident about something that happened to me, near me, or was told to me" it's more likely to be acceptable. If "it should be" or "I think" is involved in the statement, it's becoming closer to a topic for Fratching.