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SHOPPERS required to show their receipt at the door of certain retailers are not having it.
The anti-theft policy increasingly popping up across stores is receiving heavy blowback, especially from Walmart shoppers.
Customers continue to speak out against receipt-checking practices requiring shoppers to show the paper as proof of purchase before they can exit the store.
Some have refused to turn over their receipts and situations have gotten heated as a result, with one employee recently blocking a shopper from leaving a Walmart store.
Meanwhile, others are airing out their frustrations on social media and advising fellow shoppers on how to evade the checks.
In a post on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, one user wrote, “Given the reaction of the Walmart receipt checker lady, too many of [ya’ll] are showing them your receipt.”
“Why?” they continued. “You paid for the s**t at this point, [it’s] yours.”
Another user responded in a post, “They do get kinda temperamental when you tell them no. I just keep walking.”
I’ll never understand the compliance,” wrote the original poster.
“That’s mine by that point, you ain’t digging through it. They don’t trust me to ring up all the things, that’s a them problem.”
But at certain stores, receipt checks are part of standard protocol and customers are warned they might be subject to inspections before shopping.
One of those retailers is Costco, where receipt checking does not concern theft.
“We do this to double-check that the items purchased have been correctly processed by our cashiers,” said the retailer on its website.
“It’s our most effective method of maintaining accuracy in inventory control, and it’s also a good way to ensure that our members have been charged properly for their purchases.”
Receipt checks at Sam’s Club also reportedly have nothing to do with stealing, according to one TikToker.
Despite frustrations coming out of these stores, shoppers at both wholesale retailers have opted into paid memberships, a caveat that makes some customers less likely to protest the policy.
“I didn’t sign a contract with Walmart like I did my Sam’s Club membership,” posted on X user.
Legality of receipt checks and detention
In an effort to curtail retail crime, stores are increasingly turning to receipt checks as shoppers exit.
Legally, stores can ask to see a customer’s receipts, and membership-only stores have the right to demand such checks if shoppers agreed to terms and conditions that authorize it.
Many legal professionals have weighed in and come to similar conclusions, caveating that all states do have specific laws.
Generally speaking, stores have Shopkeeper’s Privilege laws that allow them to detain a person until authorities arrive when they have reasonable suspicion that a crime, like theft, has been committed.
Declining to provide a receipt is not a reason in itself for a store to detain a customer, they must have further reason to suspect a shopper of criminal activity.
Due to the recent nature of the receipt checks, there is little concrete law on the legality of the practice, as it takes time for law to catch up with technology.
Setliff Law, P.C. claims that “there is no definitive case law specifically relating to refusal to produce a receipt for purchases.”
For stores that improperly use their Shopkeeper’s Privilege, they could face claims of false imprisonment.
“The primary law that applies to these types of wrongful detention cases is called ‘False Imprisonment’,” explained Hudson Valley local attorney Alex Mainetti.
“Of course, you’re not literally imprisoned, but you’re detained by a person who has no lawful authority to detain you and/or wrongfully detains a customer.”
It is likely that as altercations in stores over receipt checks continue, more court cases will occur giving clearer definitions and boundaries to the legality of receipt checks.
EMPLOYEE ADVICE
As the conflict over receipt checking spirals, Walmart employees have weighed in on the store’s unpopular policy.
Despite being vocal about the retailer’s anti-theft practices, including receipt checking, Walmart is not just checking receipts because it’s worried about customers stealing, according to one employee.
The big box retailer, with approximately 2.1 million workers, is also trying to keep tabs on employee mistakes, claimed one employee in a Reddit post.
“No one cares if you’re white, brown, black, pink, polka dotted, or a one eyed one horned flying purple people eater, we have to see your receipt to verify neither you or the cashier missed something in your cart,” they said.
Meanwhile, another Walmart employee revealed in a TikTok video from 2023 that “the person checking receipts is only allowed to ask you for your receipt if you have anything in your cart that is not in a shopping bag,”
He advised customers to just say “no” and keep walking if they don’t want to show their receipt.
