A MAN has been accused of stealing over $400 worth of merchandise from a Walmart store.
The man from Arnold, Missouri, was stopped by police before leaving a Walmart location in February after allegedly failing to pay for $19.70 worth of items while using the self-checkout checkout.
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Police discovered that the 69-year-old man allegedly plotted to pay less for goods he purchased from the store at 2201 Michigan Avenue.
Store employees told police the man used his scam 16 times at the self-checkout before the February incident, Arnold Police Chief Brian Carroll told The US Sun.
The man had been stealing from the location since the first day of the year, Carroll stated in an email.
By the time he was detained for the alleged crime, the man reportedly stole $426.13 worth of items.
The US Sun has contacted Walmart for comment.
SAFETY PRECAUTIONS
Some of the additional measures that retailers like Walmart have taken amid the surge in shoplifting in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic include weight sensors at self-checkout stations.
The weight sensors help tighten security around the kiosks, but also increase customer frustration.
The sensors often result in an error, assuming there is an “unexpected item in the luggage compartment”.
This error requires assistance from employees, resulting in a delayed checkout experience.
While you won’t be able to detect all attempted theft, some customers make genuine mistakes at the self-checkouts, resulting in accidental theft.
According to TikTok user Ash (@ashthetruth21), Walmart has gotten pretty high-tech to stop theft.
“I’ve been called out,” the content creator, who regularly lashes out at Walmart, said in her video.
At the beginning of the clip, someone else can be seen taking footage in a store that says “Walmart new self-checkout machine”.
The video then cuts to Ash, who says, “So you see those little machines over there?
“Every time you scan something, pictures are taken of you, my dude.
And let me tell you, every time you run your card through a Walmart scanner, they have a note of it.
“They can find you with your credit card,” she claims.
She further claimed that the cameras not only take pictures of your face, but also the card you pay with.
“Then they hold it and save it as a file,” she claimed.
“Any purchase you make that is associated with a card can retrieve date and time information and camera images.
“And look what you bought, if you bought it, and blah, blah, blah.
“Those cameras can read your wallet — and they do.”
In a TikTok video shared by @sparkslawfirm, a lawyer walked users of the app through the various avenues police can use to obtain identification of a person who has stolen.
“The most popular is that a credit card is used, they have the name, they have the face on camera, they go back into their records and they find that name,” he explained in the video.
The expert explains that there is also no good news for people trying to keep their identities sealed with cash.
“Say someone is using cash, so there’s no name attached to it, but they have a camera or video footage.”
In that case, officers watch with camera footage how the person leaves the store and drives into the parking lot.
“They go to the outside cameras and figure out what car they’re getting into and get a license plate off that camera and run it through the DMV, get a name, get that driver’s license photo and match it with the footage on the camera,” he explained .
The attorney advised Walmart customers to “be careful and focused and pay attention” when using the self-checkout.
In the comments of his informational video, some people joked about the “accidents” that could happen at self-checkout.
“I’m not trained in scanning so if I miss something it’s not my fault,” one person commented.