The Consumerist has a story about a couple getting the police called on them when they refused to show their receipt at Wal-Mart as they were walking out the door; fortunately the police didn't take Wal-Mart seriously. There are plenty of other stories about this sort of thing happening with Best Buy. In fact, they of all places are notorious for doing that to their customers, though I've never had a problem with the ones in Northern Virginia so far. At Costco you expect this because they make it clear that you can't get in without an ID, and you can't get out without showing their staff your receipt, so it's always obvious there and they're always quick to give you the benefit of the doubt that if you have a receipt you're a good customer.
What I do at these stores where I know that they may try to pull this on me, and pretty much everywhere else is I swing my bags through the detectors in front of the door. That way, if they go off, security has no excuse to ever search my person. I can cheerfully tell them to piss off because clearly whatever set off the alarm is in my bag, not on my person. The reason I do this is because I tend to trust store security even less than I do the average cop. Actually, a lot less because there is a more serious hiring process in place for the police.
I agree with the sentiment here in the article. If they don't make it painfully obvious in advance a la Costco, then if they want to search my bags for no good reason, the next place I'm going is to customer service to return everything I bought unless it's too good of a deal or I'm in a rush.
You see me walking out of a line, with bags and a receipt, and just decide to do a random check? I don't think so. Go ahead. Tell me to take my business elsewhere if I don't like it. I'll be more than happy to, and so will the plethora of other struggling retailers who will be practically rolling out the red carpet in mockery of your store if you make me go to them.
Besides, there is always Amazon.com...
What I do at these stores where I know that they may try to pull this on me, and pretty much everywhere else is I swing my bags through the detectors in front of the door. That way, if they go off, security has no excuse to ever search my person. I can cheerfully tell them to piss off because clearly whatever set off the alarm is in my bag, not on my person. The reason I do this is because I tend to trust store security even less than I do the average cop. Actually, a lot less because there is a more serious hiring process in place for the police.
I agree with the sentiment here in the article. If they don't make it painfully obvious in advance a la Costco, then if they want to search my bags for no good reason, the next place I'm going is to customer service to return everything I bought unless it's too good of a deal or I'm in a rush.
You see me walking out of a line, with bags and a receipt, and just decide to do a random check? I don't think so. Go ahead. Tell me to take my business elsewhere if I don't like it. I'll be more than happy to, and so will the plethora of other struggling retailers who will be practically rolling out the red carpet in mockery of your store if you make me go to them.
Besides, there is always Amazon.com...
I shop at Fry's Electronics frequently and they have the receipt checker waiting at the door. I just walk right past them. So far I haven't been chased or threatened. I've done it at Best Buy too but the Walmart stores here don't do that.
From my understanding of the law they can't detain you unless they actually witnessed you stealing anything so any threats they make are toothless. I certainly wouldn't wait around for the police to show up to explain. If they improperly detained me though, you can bet I'd sue them for false imprisonment.
Also, they don't really have the right to search your bag because as soon as the transaction is complete, what is in those bags is your personal property and they have no right to it.
Costco is the only place I allow them to check my receipt because it is a club store and it's paid membership.
Even so, the whole process is annoying, it's not like they actually match receipts with items anyway. There's got to be better ways of doing loss prevention than treating people like criminals AFTER they make a purchase.