Hi, Harold.
I'm hoping that you at least brought this to the clerk's attention.
It's just that it's the right thing to have done...
Still, granted that when we find ourselves having un-intentionally been put into some position, hindsight might prove to have been 20 /20.
Question ( as always ) being the same....just what would Scooby Doo ???
I would have likely left my mouth shut. After said customer left, I might or might not point out to cashier what he/she had just missed.
Just that cashier and me to give a heads up for the next time.
I would not get in to a confrontational situation with preceding customer since I often carry. (shall issue ccw state)
Wes
I, being the shy retiring type, would have loudly said something about a Ripoff, to the cashier. I cant stand a thief.
Gunner
"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.
Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing? Edmond Burke "Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.
Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing? Edmond Burke
"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire. Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us) off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give them self determination under "play nice" rules.
Think of it as having your older brother knock the shit out of you for torturing the cat." Gunner
Very well said, Grant. What I woulda added to my own rant had I not still had the Charlie Rose/Bob Nardelli image so vivid in my brain.
I think it's less of a moral dilemma than a question of what response (and by whom) is appropriate.
My approach would have been to quietly tell the cashier what had happened. How she and the store respond to that re the offender is then their call -- not mine.
Oh yeah, and one more thing that fuels my rage, sorta proves my point: THE FUKN LINES AT HD!!!! And the concommitant REFUSAL of HD management to DO anything about it!!!! ito of adequate checkout peeple. I myself have, and have seen others, leave their shit right on the floor, and walk out.
A fuckn gigantic, explicit, plain-as-fukn-day INSULT to us fish-in-the-barrel.
I do think management and Bob Nardelli actually get a KICK out of seeing us barrel fish on lines. Makes them feel good. Fuck them, f*ck HD. And you all are going to turn this schmo IN???? Or confront him???????? Oh please........................ You should applaud. Or at least laugh.
Actually, up here they have had self-checkout for years, you whip right through, it's one of the few good things about that store.
You know, there is a certain danger to society to allow petty theft by someone else to persist. To me, however, the greater danger is to indulge in self-righteous anger. Anger is a terribly caustic mental state, it's like emotional drunkenness. I don't always succeed, but today it's probably more important to me to stay peaceful and serene than to get all hot and bothered about something.
GWE
Hey Grant,
Don't know where "up here" is, but we have the self-checkout's at a couple of the local big hardware places too. It begs the question in my mind.... If the un-scrupulous person in Harold's original post had used one of these self-serve lanes, and scanned only what the clerk did, would that have been shop-lifting? And if so, what if he had instead handed the "pre-assembled" items to his wife or son or brother or friend, and had them scan-out, while he "went-to-get-the-car"? They might have done the same as the clerk, and would it be shop-lifting then? Oh Harold, the moral dillema dilemma you've put us in!
Brian Lawson, Bothwell, Ontario.
So do we. Last week I went there to get two electrical items.
When I got to the front of the store, *all* the lines, including each self-checkout one, had about 20 people on them. I took one look and placed the items on a nearby display and walked out.
Later that night I went back to pay for them - but somebody needed the cover plate! They left the box though.
That place is a zoo on the weekends.
Jim
Harold, I'm sure if you would have changed your story scenario slightly and instead of Home Depot, made it a corner hardware-family business where the owners actually know about their products and really try to help customers, and make a modest living, the responses would have been different. We all have about as much sympathy for the giant chain stores as we would have if we came home and caught our wife in bed with a guy with a 12" member, and he hurt himself jumping out the bedroom window.
Dixon
There have been many posts about what should be done to the thief in this sad tale of woe. However, I would submit that this customer didn't steal anything...Home Depot *GAVE AWAY* that merchandise.
The customer may or may not have been purposely trying to confuse the cashier. He may or may not have noticed he was undercharged. What he *did* do is place *all* items he was purchasing on the checkout counter for the cashier to ring up.
The other thing that is for sure is that the cashier either wasn't trained well enough to spot an honest or dishonest mistake by the customer and/or didn't care enough to ask a question to the customer or one of the other employees if she wasn't positive on what the merchandise should have looked like or how it should have been sold.
I believe the best course of action would have been to inform the store manager of what happened and recommend that the cashiers get a bit more training.
As for the other suggestions about adding an additional charge to the customer's credit card - can't do it. Not only is it illegal but the customer could easily dispute the charge since his signature wouldn't be on the second charge slip.
Robert
Maybe the guy assembled the parts to carry them easier? Maybe he han't "added up" what the total cost should be and didn't realize what happened? Or maybe he *was* a crook after all. Randy
My wife is from Newfoundland and I can't believe the difference between the US and Canada. We had her family down visiting for a week awhile back. I took them to a novelty type store and while we were in the back of the store I noticed her uncle putting many items in his winter jacket pockets. I was kinda bug-eyed at his blatant "shoplifting". When we got to the checkout, he calmly took each item out of his pockets and placed them on the counter and paid for them. It never ever occured to him that putting things deep in your pockets in a store just doesn't send the right message here.
Dixon
Can't speak for home Depot, but my daughter spent many years as a Lowes cashier. At Lowes, they periodically have cashier tests to help train cashiers to catch such things. Basically, they bring a shopping cart to them full of goods with a couple of "tricks" that need to be caught. Although the cashier has a "heads up" as to their being stuff to watch for, the kinds of things are pretty sneaky. You get a score at the end of the test based on what you find or miss.
That being said, the real problem at the box stores is low wages (danged low). The result is high turnover, employees who don't really give a crap, and hiring bottom of the barrel people to do what should be one of the most important jobs in the store. If the store puts so little importance on their staff that they hire bottom of the barrel scrapings, feel that these employees are disposable, and treat em generally as liabilities rather than assets, it's the store's problem when a crook gets away with something like this.
Yea, the buyer made an effort to conceal that the parts were supposed to be priced seperately in hopes of cheating the system but it was the CLERK that didn't give a rat or wasn't trained enough or was simply too lousy a worker to do a proper job. The buyer didn't actually (by the description) steal or conceal the parts, he just tried to fool the clerk witha simple and (VERY!) common trick. The fooling happened due to the store's negligence.
Koz
Yep...
Of course, there are the REALLY weird situations...
Was in a farm-supply outfit (name forgotten now - I think it might've been Fisko's) after these aluminum gizmos used to stiffen up T-post fences. To be useful, you needed a "collar", a "wedge", and one or more "brackets", in various angles. The collars were like 85 cents each, the wedges were something like 40 cents each, and the various brackets ranged from a quarter to 60 cents each. One "assembly" (and for most purposes, you needed two "equal but opposite" assemblies to make it work) could easily hit 3-6 dollars or more, depending on exactly what you needed to make it work for what you were doing.
So I'm "building" the fence,I'm going to put up with these things in tie aisle, grabbing pieces as needed to make my corners and such, putting them together so that I know I've got exactly what I need to get the job done. I get it fully "constructed", and gather up the 20 or 30 assemblies of multiple pieces to head for the counter. Clerk looks at one of the assemblies, counts the rest, scans the one, and comes up with this ridiculously low number for a total. "Uh..." sez I, "I thought those sold by the part?" She replies "They do. That'll be " "But each part is a different price?" "Nah, all this fence junk is the same price" "So why do they have individual price stickers on each part?" "Those are just the inventory numbers, not prices."
I shrugged, paid what she asked, and left. What the heck - You try three times to point out the fact that they're undercharging you, and get told you're wrong all three times, wuddaya gonna do? Stand there and argue about it? Not unless you're nuts - you take it at the price they obviously want to sell it to you for.
Totalled it up when I got home - She'd rung me out with about $85 worth of these widgets (going with the prices on individual stickers on each piece, which had matched nicely with the prices on the tags below each different box) for under 20 bucks. Oh well...
Despite having a sign on my office wall reading, "There is no right way to do the wrong thing," that would be my approach too. And, I wouldn't be suprised If I got a look and a shrug from the cashier who probably wouldn't want to have to explain her error to someone higher up.
Which reminds me......
Just last month I was pushing a cart with 440 pounds of lawn limestone to the garden center checkout of a local Home Depot, and because it was a pain to get it moving from a stop I let about a five foot gap accumulate between me and the person ahead of me, who was being checked out. When that fellow got through I urged my cart into motion and just as it began rolling some big lunk swooped in in front of me with a shopping cart full of merchandise.
I said, "Excuse me, I've been waiting in this line." He gave me a foul look and said, "Too bad, you gotta keep moving", and the cashier began scanning his stuff. He was about the size of a Sumo wrestler and speaking with an slurred eastern european accent like he was half in the bag already.
I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and figured a couple of minutes wait was an acceptable alternative to getting into God's knows what with that guy. But, the woman behind me couldn't keep her mouth shut and said something like, "I guess they don't teach children courtesy where he comes from", loudly enough for the swine to hear. That set him off and he started shouting, "F**K you!" at the woman and me over and over and over again all the while the cashier was ringing up his stuff.
People started looking and wondering what was going on, and I was hoping the cashier would hit his panic button (assuming they have them) and get a security guy to come over, but that didn't happen. The guy finished up, paid and left. I did the same, but I kept my eyes open while I went to my car and loaded it just in case he decided it was me who needed a lesson.
Now, Harold et all, what would you guys do in *that* HD situation?
Jeff
I had a somewhat similar encounter at Home Depot. Same accent, same size, long line. He was arguing about being overcharged $.12, wouldn't stop, wouldn't leave, I pulled a quarter out of my pocket and gave it to him and he got all upset at me...
What you did. You can't count on the store sheep for support if the shit hits the fan, and rudeness is no excuse for inciting or encouraging further disruption in a store full of people. Upon arrival at my truck, I'd have unlocked the cab and grabbed the nevermindwhat in the cab just to have at hand while loading my stuff.
But the guys who shout obscenities in a broad-daylight public sit like that are usually all blow. Mary 'n I were at Bob's Produce getting vittles when Mary saw a slimebag scrot tasting the soup with the dipper -- and then put the dipper back in the soup. Mar immediately (quietly) told the clerk behind the deli counter about it. The punk overheard the exchange, started shouting obscenities and moving threateningly (he thought) into Mary's space. (He obvously doesn't know Mary!) As she stood her ground looking about as intimidated as she might by spying a sowbug in the soup (while store personnel stood frozen in their tracks), I came over and simply barked "THAT'S ENOUGH!!!" in my best "command voice". He, half again my size (which ain't sayin' much), jumped and about shit his pants. I'd surprised him, and he became unsure about how many other surprises might have been in store for him, possibly because my bark had obviously gotten the attention of the guys behind the butcher counter. End of confrontation, he was out the door in a flash. The store manager than appeared and was apologetic as hell while the guys behind the butcher counter were strangling trying not to laugh. Mary said something timorous like "is the soup on sale now?" which broke the tension -- and resulted in the abrupt disappearance of a couple of the butchers for some reason.
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