We have a serial shoplifter...

[Dreamstalker]

On Saturday (when we were swamped), a woman came up to me, asked if I was store security--since when does store security wear an apron? I pointed her to the guard at the door and the manager--and showed me a photo from a different store.

Apparently earlier that day, the guy in the photo had come through one of our self-checkouts with over $100 worth of seafood and walked out. He's been hitting other stores as well; the photo I was shown was from one of the larger stores that actually has people watching the cameras.

He had slid a card, but neglected to hit "Finish and Pay" (whether it was an actual payment card or just his Fish-of-the-Month membership I don't know).

A swiped payment card will stay in the system for about 30 seconds if you don't complete the process on the register (some customers in a rush will slide a card and walk off), so if an attendant sees it soon enough the payment can still be completed. On the flip side, if whoever's watching selfscan doesn't know this a paid order can be turned into a walkoff, which I'm sure has happened.

So we know who he is, but still don't have any real security; I'm not about to confront a known shoplifter.

[Sapphire Silk]

Wow. That's brass.

Is there anything saved of the aborted transaction that will let the store track the "customer?"

[DerangedHermit]

This reminds me of what happened to me last night.

I'm on selfscan, there's only another CDH and one cashier on the FE. A walking stereotype comes up to selfscan with 6 or 7 huge bags of dog food in his cart, he fumbles around for a little bit, and angrily asks me "HOW DO YOU USE THIS THING". He set off my shyster radar, so I told him to go to the mainline register. He waits on that line for a little bit, then walks off the line, and says "Have a good night". Noticing that he didn't pay, I tell my CDH that and he follows him outside. He has a getaway driver, but the getaway driver hit the gas a bit early, and so the shoplifter had to run after the car. Realizing that, he stopped running and raised his arms as to fight. The CDH did the same and was able to recover all but one or two of the bags of dog food, as the shoplifter realized he ain't got **** on the fairly built CDH and just left with the two bags he had in his arms.

I've also had a fair share of the "swipe the card, and just straight-up leave without finishing" people. I try not to do so much on selfscan that I get caught in a position to not pay attention, but it happens from time to time.

[Seshat]

A walking stereotype

I love this.

It's also about the best non-racist, non-sexist, non-*ist way I can think of to describe the person. Noone can be offended because we all imagine our own individual stereotypes!

[Dreamstalker]

I have no idea if the registers actually log incomplete transactions; I've been lobbying for the store to get some tracking software designed for self-checkouts that probably does have that capability.

We aren't allowed to void transactions, just save the order and make a note of what (if anything) happened IF we saw it. A saved order does have a record of the customer card they used, but chasing that down would require someone actually doing work (I know we're able to look up cards by phone number, but I don't know how much information we have access to--I've always said that if someone walks off, that order should be added to their card so it will show up the next time they come in and not go away until they pay up).

Another flaw in the system that I discovered: someone in the office watching the camera feed is still useless if there's no easy way to communicate with employees on the front end.

[BlaqueKatt]

Noone can be offended because we all imagine our own individual stereotypes!

Toshiba, definitely.