I did the cheaper apples things one on accident (didn't realize until I got home). At Safeway the are on one large square table and I grabbed a mix. At checkout I just looked at one for the code.

The people watching over self checkout are not that smart though, I had one attempt to ring up 2 clearance items (I had already scanned 4 other items) and my total ended up being $.11. I didn't saw anything.

I would never steal from self-checkout if only to avoid what happened here:

http://nypost.com/2011/08/08/ues-mom-banned-from-supermarket-after-leaving-unpaid-groceries-in-stroller/

Anonymous wrote:No, but I was wrongly accused of it at Giant. I showed them everything was accounted for and then just left I was so angry! I am a white woman in her 50s. welldressed, etc. I guess if I were poor and/or nonwhite, such things would happen to me more often.

I was once accused by the safeway self-checkout monitor at the Capitol Hill Safeway of theft because I bought a few sunblocks on clearance midwinter. The self-checkout couldn't process the discount stickers, so I was overcharged $40! She tried to ring me up using creative math but then loudly accused me of being "shady" and "somethin' ain't right" I was held up over 40 minutes for the managers to try to figure out how much to charge me. Eventually they just started over and re-rang up all my items. When it came out that they overcharged me $40 (as I was saying all along), the gem manning the self-checkout line said that "something is still shady". That was the last time I used the self-checkout line.

Hate the Capitol Hill Safeway.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been audited about half a dozen times at Giant after using the scanner you take around the store.

No idea why. One employee told me it's because my purchases vary so much from $20 one trip to $200 the next.

Either way, I'm pretty careful b/c it would be so embarrassing to get busted, even if it was an accident.

I hate when they audit you at Giant - basically some guy comes up and man handled your stuff . It's typically like a bear is pawing through your food tossing it here and there. It's like yeah - now I don't want any of it now.

I thought the audits were random. I've always 'passed ' the audits but don't really want the stuff anymore after it.

The whole system at Giant is awful you basically need an employee right there with you anyway.

And no - no stealing food at self checkout here.

Ah....no. I've been auditing too many times and it's annoying but they just come up and pick out 5 or 7 things that are easily accessible and put them right back. Why wouldn't I want it anymore? People have touched/manhandled all along the way from wherever it came from to land in my cart.

So many items do not ring up at the sale price. I hate self checkout. You should get a discount for having to ring up your own items.

The self-checkout system rarely works as intended. I'd hate if they insisted on inspecting all my items, as in Giant, since I perfectly pack my bags to maximum efficiency. The self-checkout at Harris Teeter works well, so long as you don't have a machine meltdown on your (25% chance).

For the store, it's figuring out the difference between cost of wages + benefits for additional workers vs. loss from theft + installation/maintenance of the system. I'd love to see the comparison.

self checkout.... for me its a crap shoot when I go through the line that everything will checkout properly. It just seems that 50% of the time. several items wont scan. or after i scan it i'll put something on the belt or in the bag and then the message will sound "extra item added to bagging area, please re scan" its already been f-ing scanned,

I walked out of giant one day with about 40 items in the cart. the machine started bitching at me for some small items. And then it finally locked me out from doing anything until the teller came over. She was tied up with some of the regular lines so I just walked around the cart and out of the store and drove to safeway.... the folks behind me in the line were pissed off. But I didn't care. I was having one of those days and I didn't care...

NO!

I don't believe all of these responses. I'm sure someone cheats. Just based on percentages, someone here must be cheating.

I'm like others -- I'd be the one caught for stealing a piece of gum or something. And anyway, my DH does the shopping! Yay!

Anonymous wrote:I have been audited about half a dozen times at Giant after using the scanner you take around the store.

No idea why. One employee told me it's because my purchases vary so much from $20 one trip to $200 the next.

Either way, I'm pretty careful b/c it would be so embarrassing to get busted, even if it was an accident.

It is just random.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been audited about half a dozen times at Giant after using the scanner you take around the store.

No idea why. One employee told me it's because my purchases vary so much from $20 one trip to $200 the next.

Either way, I'm pretty careful b/c it would be so embarrassing to get busted, even if it was an accident.

I hate when they audit you at Giant - basically some guy comes up and man handled your stuff . It's typically like a bear is pawing through your food tossing it here and there. It's like yeah - now I don't want any of it now.

I thought the audits were random. I've always 'passed ' the audits but don't really want the stuff anymore after it.

The whole system at Giant is awful you basically need an employee right there with you anyway.

And no - no stealing food at self checkout here.

I have never seen this or had this happen to me.

No way.

Also, large chain grocery stores make TINY margins on items (they make it up on sheer volume) and this is a big problem for them.

This is disgusting. I've never stolen anything in my life.

Nope, and I've even gone back in twice when items were on the bottom of the cart and not rung up. Once I forgot to ring up water during self checkout and the other time the cashier forgot to ring up a bag of charcoal that was underneath.

I feel lucky to be able to afford to purchase the items I need and want and can't image being in a position to not be able to do that.

At my job, I work with people who have to scam the system to survive and unapologetically share their strategies and tips with each other. I've heard entering a cheaper produce code to afford a bigger variety of fruits and veggies, holding a candy bar on the bottom of a box of crackers/cereal to scan the cheap candy instead of the expensive item, taping the bar code for an inexpensive item over the bar code of an expensive item like diapers. And I think most elaborate I heard was a lady who would bring the name brand products to the self checkout, scan them, use coupons for the name brand, and then actually bag twice the amount of the store brand. For example, Del Monte green beans cost $1.49 and she had a 0.50 coupon for them. It would ring up as 0.99. She'd then bag two of the store brand green beans that only cost $0.50 a can to being with, therefore essentially stealing 0.01 from the store. I think that method takes far too much time and effort and seems too risky.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have been audited about half a dozen times at Giant after using the scanner you take around the store.

No idea why. One employee told me it's because my purchases vary so much from $20 one trip to $200 the next.

Either way, I'm pretty careful b/c it would be so embarrassing to get busted, even if it was an accident.

Same! And I'm always paranoid something was accidentally not scanned.

Same, down to the paranoia! I really wish that if you cleared the audit x number of times, it won't bother you again for a period.