In a video posted to Reddit on Nov. 9 by u/YouHateMeIKnow, a Walmart manager tells a man that he is not allowed to leave the store with the items that he says he already paid for. She thought he was stealing because the store’s self-checkout printed a blank receipt, rather than listing his items, after he paid for them.
“Call the police, you have my items,” he tells the manager. “I already paid for it, sweetheart!”
The manager also continually asks u/YouHateMeIKnow to stop recording him. He says he can record because the store is “public.” Walmart has a policy prohibiting unauthorized recording in its stores.
u/YouHateMeIKnow identified himself as the man who took the video in the comments of the post.
“So I go to Walmart and pay for everything,” u/YouHateMeIKnow wrote. “The receipt comes out blank.” He told a greeter that the receipt came out blank, and the greeter then accused him of stealing.
Then, a different employee who saw u/YouHateMeIKnow purchase his items confirmed that he had paid, and that the machine had been printing blank receipts “for a while.” But the greeter didn’t believe either the employee or u/YouHateMeIKnow. That’s when the floor manager (in the yellow vest) got involved.
“[She] starts yelling about how I need to leave cause she won’t give me my stuff,” u/YouHateMeIKnow wrote. “I tell her again I’m not leaving without my shit and do what she has to do.”
The floor manager then proceeds to call the police.
The redditor says when the police arrived, the store manager verified that u/YouHateMeIKnow had paid for his items.
“They offered me $50 and I said no,” u/YouHateMeIKnow wrote. “I wanted an apology from her the same way she berated me or else the video goes up. I got no apology so the video went up.”
Redditors in the comments discussed the role of greeters and receipt checkers in Walmart stores.
“I literally just walk by them and do not even acknowledge them every time I am asked for a receipt,” commented u/islphrs. “If they want to make sure people aren’t stealing, they should hire more cashiers instead of having two (of like 20) open lanes and the rest self check out.”
u/flipdrew1 agreed. “I don’t stop for the receipt checkers,” they wrote. “The receipt and the merchandise belong to me as soon as I pay for them and I don’t need anyone inspecting them like I’m a thief.”
“Never stop at the door,” u/masschronic123 warned. “They have no right to check the receipt. If they think you stole they have all the information they need.”
This isn’t the first time the internet has been talking about how Walmart attempts to avoid theft from its stores. TikToks about high tech self-checkout surveillance systems have gone viral.
“This is why I just go about my business and only say the bare minimum,” u/snookert commented on u/YouHateMeIKnow’s video. “A little helpful comment about a till being out of ink just turns into chaos.”
The Daily Dot has reached out to u/YouHateMeIKnow and Walmart.
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