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Comment by Stratoscope | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of an imaginary situation I made up one time. Naturally I never leave my backpack with my laptops (yes, plural) in the car. So when I've shopped at a tech store like Fry's (remember them?!) I kept my pack on my back.

I wondered what I would do if they asked to search my backpack on the way out. My imaginary response was, "No problem. I charge a ten dollar search fee, which of course if fully refundable if you find I've stolen something. If you question my fee, it goes up to twenty bucks, non-refundable."

Alas, I never got a chance to follow through on this, but it was a fun thought experiment!

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You could do that at places that check receipts such as Walmart, but not Costco as they can just terminate your membership.

I just walk by and usually they don't say anything, or if they do, I just reply "No thank you," as I am walking. Only one time a receipt checker actually (literally) yelled out, "That's not fair!" Everyone else just turns their attention to the next customer.

Yep, at Fry's I used to let the exit checker wipe the pink pen on my receipt if no one else was in line, or maybe one person in front of me. It let them feel like they were doing their job, and it didn't cost me much time.

But if a few people were in line, I would just nod and smile and walk on by.

I never had an exit checker question this (they were trained not to!) but I did get a few dirty looks from other customers.

Sorry friends, it's not my fault if you don't know the rules. ;-)

Even Costco couldn't detain me if I didn't let them inspect my cart. But as you noted, they could refuse to let me shop there again.

Of course it would be my loss. Even if nothing else, the membership is worth it for the olive oil!

Did you happen to score any of the 2020 organic Val di Mazara? I've been a huge fan of their Toscana year after year, but the Val di Mazara is something else. Such a delightful peppery oil. I hope they get it again in the next harvest.

There are a number of cases of people being arrested or assaulted for not showing receipts.

https://kfor.com/news/man-suing-costco-for-670000-after-refu...

The fact that you think they don't have the right, even if you are correct, does not mean it won't happen.

You raise a good point.

If an exit checker ever did say "Wait! Stop!" of course I would be friendly and let them check my receipt.

This would be the simplest solution, as my goal was not to prove a point about my rights, but simply to exit the store in an expeditious way with the merchandise I paid for.

But they never did question me, so it was never a situation I had to worry about.

Every now and then I'll be shopping and the security device by the door will beep as I'm walking out, even though I haven't stolen anything. I always just assume there's been a mistake, e.g. the cashier forgot to deactivate my security tag, and walk straight on out; I'm not going to waste my time being searched when I know I haven't done anything wrong.

This doesn't happen very often but as far as I can remember I've never been challenged when I do it.

But what I find really interesting is: based on what I've written above, isn't it trivially easy to guess my skin color?

Most stores have explicit policies not to chase people even when they visually observed shoplifting. It creates too many problems — it’s easier and safer to just turn the video over to the police.

Those security devices are generally there to scare potential thieves not actually detain or prevent them from leaving, so your anecdote doesn’t actually show anything interesting.

> But what I find really interesting is: based on what I've written above, isn't it trivially easy to guess my skin color?

Nope. Maybe it would be if I the reader were in a country where people are stopped exiting a store based on race, but thankfully the vast majority of the world isn't like that.

Interesting, I've never heard of exit receipt checking before. Where I live (in Europe) it doesn't seem to be a thing.

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