[Theodores]

I am amazed at how many people do this (or put fruit through as 'onion' on self checkout). It isn't just completely stupid people that do it either, people with jobs to lose, a criminal record that doesn't need to be added to, posh people with a sense of entitlement - all kinds.

On learning of such a trait in someone I ask 'what if you get caught?', but actually it is not them getting caught that matters. Think of the people that work in that shop and the position they get put in having to deal with petty cheats. Also, would you really want to be banned from the store you get your groceries from? That would be a big inconvenience.

[triton]

Actually people don't give a shit who work there (a big chunk of the staff steal produce or write it off and take it home as well), there are plenty of other shops to choose from, the police don't care (in the UK they send you a letter if you get mugged apologising for not coming out) and the business find it costly to deal with the people. It's only significant if it's more than a few pounds/dollars which is why high value retail tend to have competent security.

When capitalism pushes profit margins, some losses are insignificant not to invest in otherwise they will hurt the margins they are trying to protect.

Also if they gave a shit, they'd have staff on all checkouts and not use self-service checkouts. Staff are more expensive.

They know; they just don't care.

[Amadou]

Also if they gave a shit, they'd have staff on all checkouts and not use self-service checkouts. Staff are more expensive.

They know; they just don't care.

While I agree that the stores "deserve" the amount of the theft through fraud that comes with replacing human checkers with automated checkout systems, that doesn't make your behavior in explicitly taking committing that fraud any more ethical.

Scan something wrong by accident, that's the store's fault for setting up the system to allow such accidents. But to intentionally exploit their system, that's on you.

I personally make it a rule to never go through automated check-outs because I think the stores that use them are not holding up their end of the social contract. I've even abandoned a few carts when I got to the check-out and found they had no human checkers (I found out the hard way that some grocery stores around here go 100% automated after 10pm).

[benmmurphy]

you are effectively stealing from everyone else who is being honest. unless the store is incompetent compared to their competitors at controlling loss the cost is passed on to the other consumers who shop there.

[Kim_Bruning]

Self service checkouts are there because they trust you. :-)