[conductr]

The visual risk of walking out without paying is much greater than the risk that anyone actually investigates AND tries to track him down for it.

Back when I was a kid it was common to still just have simple price tag stickers on every single item. We’d pull off a cheap sticker and put it on an expensive item. If they noticed, we’d just shrug and say “oh Nevermind then” when they found the right price.

The only problem was most cashiers actually knew all the prices of stuff and paid attention, believe it or not they even knew how to make change back in those days /s. So you couldn’t always get super aggressive.

[JCTheDenthog]

A year or two ago I had a cashier ring up my zucchini as cucumbers because he apparently couldn't tell the difference. Young guy, looked barely 18. I have no idea if he overcharged or undercharged me as a result, but I didn't care enough to point it out because he seemed like the type who would have needed 20 minutes to figure out how to change it (or would have needed to call down a manager for help) and I didn't want to waste any more of my time (or his).

[ButlerianJihad]

I've had dates like that

[fragmede]

Did it get rung up as a drupe?

[forgotaccount3]

> The visual risk of walking out without paying is much greater than the risk that anyone actually investigates AND tries to track him down for it.

So scan everything, then put it in the cart and walk off without putting in the credit card. Again, both are stealing but paying some fake, reduced rate is leaving your calling card at the scene of a crime.

[conductr]

Calling card doesn’t actually mean anything without enforcement. My city police didn’t have time to investigate when someone kicked in my back door and fled once the alarm sounded. I really doubt they give a crap about looking me up and coming to cite me for misdemeanor charges.

Anything that risks an employee might confront you in the store is a greater risk IMO. And, usually they light on the register is green (or a similar indicator) so they do know right then if you don’t pay.

[ssl-3]

Police may not care about stealing fifty dollars worth of steaks one time by entering a PLU of 4011 and declaring them to be bananas. It's hard to prove, and even if everyone takes the time to prove it: Then what? A misdemeanor?

But at some point, they do start to care.

Stealing fifty dollars worth of steaks on 20 different occasions (every couple of weeks, say), with video and transaction evidence of the acts happening over and over again? That's a lot easier to prove, and in many states adds up to a nice juicy felony.

[fc417fc802]

There will be video either way though. They'll either have security footage of you walking out the door without paying or they'll have security footage of you "paying". The only important variables here (AFAICT) are the likelihood of getting noticed coupled with the frequency of the act.

[ssl-3]

They're different risk profiles.

When a thief takes a steak from the cooler and walks out the door, they don't know who that person is. And while they may have video of parts of this, they don't necessarily see enough to prosecute. (Acting like you're stealing a steak but not actually doing it isn't a crime. Shoplifting can be hard to prove; part of that proof means demonstrating that they didn't change their mind and just drop off the steak somewhere else in the store.)

When a thief takes a steak from the cooler and walks it up to self-checkout and pays for it as if it is a bunch of bananas with their credit card, they have identified that person. They have them on video at the self-checkout committing this crime.

It actually doesn't matter much if they leave the store with their bounty or not in this second case. The crime is already done by converting the steak into bananas.

[fc417fc802]

In principle I agree with you but in practice I feel like this really misses the reality of the situation. If it was an isolated incident at an isolated store in the mid 90s I think you'd be right. But presumably the thief makes a habit of this (otherwise why worry), it's likely a major chain with centrally coordinated loss prevention, the thief has presumably made a legitimate purchase from this chain at some point in the past and will again at some point in the future, and facial recognition is a thing.

In that scenario it seems to me that the best the thief can do is to "accidentally" ring up a steak as bananas occasionally and hope that if someone ever takes note that the past events will remain undetected.

That said, I'm pretty sure all of the self checkouts I've interacted with over the past several years would automatically flag such a "mistake". There are some things they're still bad at and they generate plenty of false positives but they seem to be reasonably good at identifying obvious "errors".

[ComputerGuru]

Police know which side their bread is buttered on. Target is famous for being to get local cops to do exactly what they need post-facto (now prosecutor is another story).

I.E. just because police don’t “waste” time investigating a crime with $1000 of damage to your personal property does not mean they won’t dedicate the time to pursue $200 in losses for the local mega mart.

[fc417fc802]

What Target is famous for is doing their own investigations rather than expecting the police to do the grunt work. They operate such a sophisticated forensics lab that they actually do contract work for LE agencies across the country.

If you funded your own private investigation which unambiguously identified the culprit and demonstrated damages sufficient for a felony I imagine the local police would readily act on your behalf as well.

[conductr]

Breaking and entering into a home is more serious of a crime than $1000 of property damage. But regardless of that, it’s a point just to highlight how little policing resources exists and tells a broader story. At least in my city, cops don’t do anything for minor crimes. On my local Reddit, I see people mentioning that you have to mention that you have a gun in your hand if you ever want them to actually show up. I think our police force has half the personnel they’re supposed to have given our city size. I think this is becoming more common in the US.

There’s plenty of documented cases where local police are the basically henchmen for large corporations, but I’ve seen no evidence of this and believe it’s kind of a fear mongering meme to think they have enough power over them to dictate them to do roundups after the fact. They may however give all the evidence they collect on you to the police with a bow on it and the cops may decide to take it seriously. Where I am, I do not see this happening. The police will have expected the retailer to have protected their inventory. Off duty police officers make a lot of money working private security and they don’t want to disturb that dynamic.

[Marsymars]

> So scan everything, then put it in the cart and walk off without putting in the credit card.

I actually saw someone do this a couple weeks ago.

[istjohn]

I'm absent minded enough to accidentally do this on a bad day. I haven't yet, to my knowledge.

[MisterTea]

> The only problem was most cashiers actually knew all the prices of stuff and paid attention,

Yup. I was in a local super market and saw Tomahawk steaks priced at $4-6 each. It had to be a mistake but I figured I would give it shot and see if they noticed. Cashier looked at the price, did a confused double take and immediately called over the manager. Turns out the decimal point was off by one so my $4.50 tomahawk was really $45. I bought it anyway and it came out great in the oven.

[TeMPOraL]

Did you pay the sticker price or the intended price?

Over here in Poland we have a law that the store must sell you the good for the price it advertised, so in that case they'd be forced to accept $4.50 because of their mistake. May sound too biased in favor of the customer, but before that, the "errors" in price tags were more common.

[mrgoldenbrown]

We have similar rules in the US, but depends on your state. In mine they have to give you the price on at least one of the items but you can't demand they give you 100 of them at the wrong price. Or yes you can demand but they are not required to do so.

[MisterTea]

Intended price. Costly but it was too late as I already had steak on my mind.

[lazide]

In most US states, you have the same rules.

[codethief]

Might have been a marketing strategy. :-)