Calm Man Successfully Buys TV And Denies Walmart Receipt Checkers

Rick is the Gandhi of receipt-check deniers. He writes in with a story of how he bought a 37 inch TV from Walmart and was able to successfully say no to the receipt checker blocking his way with his body. Rick did this by calmly and reasonably explaining his position to the assistant manager who showed up and by ignoring everyone around him who was trying to provoke him. Sometimes the quietest voice speaks the loudest.

“ After work I stopped by the Walmart to pick up a TV for my girlfriend. After circling the whole store in search of the bathroom before realizing it was right next to the entrance, I made my way back to the Electronics section and picked out a TV quickly. I wanted a midsize Vizio, so I chose the 37" 1080p Eco model. I purchased the TV with my debit card at one of the rear registers about 20 feet away, and walked to the front of the store carrying the box in both hands.

I made it through the first set of doors into the front atrium of the store, but before reaching the outer doors I heard a man say "Sir?" I turned and faced Tony, the receipt checker.

I turned and continued walking towards to automatic doors. Tony called again, so I turned back.

Tony: No, I need to see your receipt. Me: No thank you! Tony: What do you mean? Me: I mean no thanks; I'm walking to my car with my purchase. Tony: Well, I need to see your receipt. Me: I just purchased this TV in the back of the store. I don't need to show you a receipt. Tony: Yes, you need to show me your receipt. Me: Actually, state law dictates that once I pay for something, I don't need to show ownership of it. I just paid for this TV, the receipt is in my pocket, but my hands are full, and I don't feel like getting it out. I'm going to leave now, thank you.

At this point Tony has positioned himself between me and the door. As I step towards the door he places his hand on the box in my hands and lightly pushes back, preventing me from moving.

Me: You cannot prevent me from leaving the store with my purchase. Please move out of the way. Tony: I can't just let you leave the store with a TV without checking your receipt.

At this point a woman, who has been standing with her family near some vending machine starts throwing snide comments at me such as "Just show him the receipt; it's not that hard" and "god, you don't have to be such a prick about it." This continues on for the rest of my "stay" here, but I choose to ignore her.

Me: Are you unlawfully detaining me? Tony: I just want to need to see your receipt before you leave. Me: I have paid for this, I have the receipt, but as I have said, state law protects my right to not need to prove ownership of something I have purchased. You cannot physically prevent me from leaving the store. I am now going to leave the store.

I try and step around Tony, but he again pushes on the box in my hands to prevent me from moving anywhere.

Me: Are you illegally detaining me? Tony: Yeah, if that's what you want to call it. (Realizing he just said something bad) Listen, Walmart policy says that I need to check your receipt. Me: Then Walmart's policy is in violation of Virginia state law. They should have informed you that you don'tneed to see a receipt. Tony: (Misunderstanding me) How could they have told me already that you'd bought this? Me: No, when Walmart trained you, they should have informed you that you can't force people to show their receipts. You can only ask. Tony: I'm just a first-class worker, I don't know about any of that.

Now I am starting to fill like the prick the woman near us keeps calling me. This atrium has two exterior doors on opposite sides, so I turn around ready to walk towards the other door to leave, but another receipt checker has walked up at this time. I can't remember her name, so I'll refer to her as S, since I believe that's what her name started with.

S asks me what's going on, and I explain that I'd like to take my purchase to my car, but Tony is demanding me to show a receipt. S agrees with Tony that I need to show my receipt for "purchases like this". I give her the same explanation I gave Tony, that by state law, I don't need to prove ownership of something I just purchased.

Me: You are welcome to check the security tapes to verify that I just purchased this TV at one of the registers in the back, but I don't need to prove ownership. S: You need to show your receipt before you leave the store. Me: According to state law, I don't. S: Well I'm sorry, sir, but that's Walmart policy. Me: Then Walmart's policy is in violation of state law. S: It's not that hard to show a receipt. Me: No, it's not hard at all, but state law says I don't have to. I'm going to leave the store now. S: No, the store manager is coming. Me: When is the store manager coming? S: The assistant store manager... Me: When is the assistant store manager coming? S: Yeah, she'll be right here. Me: Ok.

I finally put the box on the floor. (Woman: "Now just take four fingers, put them in your pocket, take out the receipt..." I'm mentally yelling at her, but completely ignore her externally.) After waiting (what felt like) 2 minutes the assistant store manager appeared around the corner. S walked towards her, and I waved at the store manager to show I wasn't threatening nor uncomfortable with her arrival (in fact I welcomed it.) S pointed towards me and walked somewhere else, but Tony stayed behind me the whole time. I can't remember the assistant store manager's name, either, so I'll refer to her as M.

M: Hello, sir, how are you today? Me: I'm doing fine, but I'd like to leave the store with my purchase. M: Well, what's the problem? Me: Tony, here, says I can't leave unless I show my receipt. M: Do you have your receipt? Me: Yes, but I just purchased the TV in the back of the store and had my hands full with the box, so I didn't want to take it out. Tony physically prevented me from leaving the store. Now I'm refusing to show me receipt for the principle of the matter. State law dictates that I do not need to prove ownership of something I have purchased, meaning I do not need to show a receipt. M: Hmm. (She thinks for a bit.) Where did you buy the TV? Me: In the back of the store. M: (Thinks a bit more.) There are two registers in the back. Me: *sigh* I purchased the TV at the register closest to the front of the store. There was a man checking out with his family at the register nearest the rear of the store. I paid for the TV with my debit card, and then picked up the TV myself. The cashier asked if I was going to carry it, and I said "yes, it's light." I then walked to the front of the store. M: (Thinks a bit more, taken aback at the detailed report.) Ok, sir, it is your choice to leave the store with your purchase. Me: Thank you.

I pick up the box, turn around, and tell Tony to "have a good night" as I exit the store.

The thing is, I bear no ill will towards the Walmart employees. They were simply not educated as to their role and lawful restrictions. I thought Walmart would have fixed this issue after all of the heat they've gotten about it over the years, but clearly this store didn't get an internal memo. The situation could have definitely gotten worse. I'm almost glad the second checker arrived, as I don't know what Tony would have done had I tried to exit the store through the other door. (He is an older gentleman, so I don't think he would have tried to tackle me, but if he had actually placed a hand on me or otherwise gotten more physical, I would have been placed in a very awkward position.)

I don't think an email to a Walmart executive will do anything. I'm open to any advice on how to inform this store's management about the situation, so that they can properly train their employees. I feel badly about my interaction with Tony and M, since the honestly believed they were doing their jobs. I feel like I should stop by and give them gift cards for performing admirably in the tough situation Walmart has put them in, but that might be received poorly. ”

Stop That Paying Customer! The Legality of Compulsory Receipt-Checking

When Michael Righi heard someone running up behind him, he thought he knew what would come next. He expected a difficult conversation, maybe even some shouting or threats. He certainly didn’t expect to get handcuffed — but that’s exactly what happened after Righi walked out of a Circuit City in Cleveland, Ohio without Handcuffed Consumer showing his receipt to the security guard at the exit. He’s not the only shopper in recent months who has experienced frustration or met with open hostility after refusing to show a receipt on the way out of a store. Customers like Righi claim that the Fourth Amendment protects them from unreasonable searches, that it’s wrong for stores to treat all customers as suspected criminals, and that stores have no right to demand a receipt or anything else from every customer. Since so many stores are checking receipts, it can’t be illegal…can it?

The American system of law values few things more highly than the freedom for people to come and go as they please. The idea that retailers may deny that freedom to paying customers over a simple matter such as refusing to show a receipt offends privacy advocates in a fundamental way. One of the beautiful things about the law is that it seldom identifies an offense without creating a corresponding legal remedy. When a person is wrongly held prisoner, the victim can seek redress against his captor in a civil suit for false imprisonment.

Why check receipts?

Before considering whether detained customers like Michael Righi have grounds to sue, it helps to understand what motivates retailers to risk such liability. Today, nearly every retail outlet from Wal*Mart to Neiman Marcus offers at least one pocket-sized digital toy worth several hundred dollars. The 32 GB iPod Touch for instance, which Apple has priced at $499, is smaller than a pack of cigarettes. Without loss-prevention measures, a store like Costco could not afford to display an open rack of iPods without exposing itself to daily risk of substantial theft.

One approach retailers take to combat shoplifting is to keep small but valuable products in a locked display case. This method has the disadvantage that it may reduce sales, as customers are forced to obtain assistance before they can purchase the product. Another common approach is to wrap small and valuable items in large, difficult-to-open packaging. Unfortunately, packages designed to prevent theft can also frustrate legitimate buyers. The tough plastic used has proven dangerous enough that inventors have created specialized tools to help people open their new possessions without injuring themselves.

Receipt-checking is an increasingly popular loss-prevention method which retailers use to stymie would-be thieves. The brief stop discourages shoplifting by forcing each person to face down a guard before exiting the store. Unlike the locked display case, it doesn’t interfere with the customer experience until after the purchase is complete. The drawback to aggressive receipt-checking programs is that unless they train their employees carefully, retailers can quickly find themselves on the receiving end of a civil complaint.

Just Keep Walking

The customer who objects to showing a receipt wonders, “I haven’t done anything wrong, so why is this store treating me (and everyone else who shops here) like a suspected thief?” Many shoppers have a vague sense that mandatory receipt checks intrude upon some kind of Constitutional right. While a general right to privacy may emerge from the “penumbras, formed by emanations” of the Bill of Rights, one Amendment is frequently cited as protecting citizens from compulsory searches. Many people believe that the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution always requires agents of the U.S. Federal and State governments to obtain a warrant before making an arrest or searching personal property. However, the Supreme Court has found leeway for law enforcement officers to act without a warrant in some common-sense situations. For example, an officer can arrest and search a suspect without a warrant when there is “probable cause” for the officer to believe that the suspect is in the process of, or has just finished, committing a crime.

Since the Supreme Court’s 1967 Terry v. Ohio decision, police officers must merely identify “specific and articulable facts” which motivate them to apprehend a suspect. After an officer has made such a “Terry stop,” he may conduct a cursory search of the suspect, generally including a pat-down for weapons and an examination of any personal property not concealed in the suspect’s clothing. Searches incidental to Terry stops are justified on the grounds that police officers have a compelling interest in their own personal safety, and the failure to discover a weapon could present an unacceptable risk.

If the receipt-checker were a government officer the Fourth Amendment would generally allow customers to refuse to show a receipt, because presumably at least some customers visit Circuit City but don’t try to steal anything. If the officer detained every customer and conducted a search, a court would bar the use of any evidence obtained, unless the officer had probable cause to believe either that he was personally in danger or that a particular customer had taken a five-finger discount. In reality, the responsibility for checking receipts usually belongs to a store employee rather than a police officer. Consequently, the Fourth Amendment does not restrain those private citizens as it would agents of the government.

Some members-only discount stores require their customers to give consent to be searched by an employee as a condition of membership. For example, the Costco membership agreement contains an unconditional consent to search on page 29. Customers who sign such an agreement (as all Costco customers must) would seem to have no grounds to complain if they are later required to submit to a receipt-check.

You’re not going anywhere!

As all first-year torts scholars know, “false imprisonment” is a legal term that describes the act of unlawfully confining a person against their will. Unfortunately for retailers with a nationwide presence, the actual details of the law vary by state. In most states a plaintiff must prove the following elements in order to make out his case. The offender first must have the intent to confine the victim, and second, must take action to actually confine them. Third, the offender must act without a legal justification for doing so. Fourth, the victim must be aware of the confinement while it’s happening, or be harmed by it. Finally, there must be no reasonable means for the victim to escape (or at least no means that the victim is aware of). If the offender physically blocks the exit with his body and refuses to move, that may be enough of a confinement to satisfy a jury.

Even if an accused shoplifter can prove all the elements of a false imprisonment claim, the retailer might have an out: most American jurisdictions recognize a limited “shopkeeper’s privilege” exception to the false imprisonment tort. Many states have enacted the common-law privilege as positive law (for example, Oregon’s law is ORS 131.655). In either form, the shopkeeper’s privilege allows a retailer to detain suspected shoplifters and inspect their personal property for stolen items. Such a detention will not be punished as false imprisonment as long as it is limited to a reasonable (short) time, takes place in the store, if the force used to detain the suspect is reasonable, and if the retailer had the reasonable belief (often defined in this context as equivalent to probable cause) that the suspect was attempting to steal or had already stolen something from the store. In practice, this last condition generally means retailers must actually see someone take an item and exit the store without paying for it before they attempt to confront the suspected thief.

So where does this leave Mr. Righi and other potential plaintiffs? In Mr. Righi’s case, he actually made it into his car before the security guard accosted him. Once he was in the car, the guard told him he couldn’t leave the premises, which is evidence of the guard’s intent to restrain him. The guard prevented him from leaving the parking lot, which satisfies the second element. Mr. Righi was also aware that the Circuit City employees were physically preventing him from leaving (element three). Before the police handcuffed him, he might have been able to escape from the Circuit City parking lot without injury to himself or to the security guard, but if he believed that he was effectively restrained, that may be enough to prove the fourth element (no reasonable means of escape). Assuming Mr. Righi gave a true account of all of the facts, it would seem his situation meets all the necessary elements for a false imprisonment claim against Circuit City.

What of the shopkeeper’s privilege? Most of the circumstances satisfy the conditions necessary for Circuit City to claim the detention was privileged. The defense would turn on whether the guard had probable cause to detain and search Mr. Righi for stolen goods. However, Circuit City does not have the power to forcibly search all of its customers, and the only specific and articulable fact that brought Mr. Righi to the guard’s attention was that when offered the opportunity to submit to a search, Mr. Righi politely declined. It is circular reasoning to suggest that the refusal to submit to a voluntary search is itself justification for subjecting a customer to one that is compulsory.

Should you show? Or should you sue?

Even though typical customers who refuse receipt checks might have the law on their side, it seems odd that a consumer electronics store was the place where Michael Righi chose to draw a line in the sand. Picking a fight with a retail security guard over a $20 receipt seems quixotic at best. Righi’s resistance stands out because, for most customers, the injury suffered from such a minor intrusion just isn’t significant enough to incur the cost of failing to comply with the guard’s request. But how should a customer who refuses to show their receipt expect to be treated by the law?

Litigious customers facing off against the police or Costco might not have much luck. Police need probable cause to conduct a search, and Costco members have voluntarily agreed to submit to searches. The question of law is more interesting when a retailer like Circuit City attempts to implement a receipt-check policy without the benefit of a member agreement. In states where the shopkeeper’s privilege exists, stores like Circuit City may only claim the privilege to search customers when the store agent has a reasonable belief that a customer has engaged in unlawful activity. It seems implausible that store agents could honestly claim they need to check every receipt on the grounds that they have a reasonable belief that every one of their customers is a thief.

MSN Money's Liz Pulliam Weston.
Liz Pulliam Weston on MSN MoneyReceipt checks -- where store employees review your receipt at the exit to make sure you've paid for everything in your cart or bags -- are typically voluntary.
Somebody needs to let the store employees know that.
For a few years now, The Consumerist has been documenting skirmishes between customers and employees who refuse to take "no thank you" for an answer. Shoppers reported being physically detained, having their paid-for items taken away, and being threatened with arrest (although sometimes it was the shopper who called the cops, as one guy did after a manager took his merchandise).
The Consumerist makes the argument that this is a civil liberties issue. Indeed, while the law varies from place to place, U.S. retailers generally aren't allowed to detain you unless they have good reason to believe you've stolen something -- and refusing to present your receipt doesn’t constitute probable cause.
"In general, the store can't force someone to show their receipt," says Joseph LaRocca, senior asset protection advisor for the National Retail Foundation, which calls itself the world's largest retail trade association. "The checks at the door are really designed to be a preventative measure and a customer service measure."
Say what? La Rocca says receipt checkers may spot overcharges and help customers save money that way. But stores mainly use the checks to combat the $12.5 billion they lose to shoplifting annually, as well as miscellaneous losses from clueless customers who wander out without paying for, say, that case of beer in the bottom of their cart.
Less theft and loss can translate into lower prices for consumers, LaRocca says. There's also the matter of sales taxes. Thieves, you see, are taking merchandise that could otherwise generate revenues for state and local governments
. Which is all well and good, but if you want to say no to a receipt check, you're not supposed to be accosted, detained, harassed or -- in one extreme case in China -- beaten to death.
The exception -- to being detained, not killed -- is if you've signed an agreement that makes receipt checks part of the package, as is the case at membership warehouses like Costco. (Costco's policy on receipt checks and other searches is outlined here, on page 29. Oh, and you're also supposed to mind your kids and not leave them unattended. I’m talking to you, clueless mom on the cell phone.)
Costco Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti says he gets only one or two complaints a year about receipt checks. Members understand that the reviews help prevent shoplifting, which in turn helps Costco keep prices down, he says. For its part, Costco tries to make the process fast, adding a second receipt-checker at peak times to reduce the wait.
"It's our job to make sure it's expeditious," Galanti said. "Nobody wants to be kept waiting."
True enough. And some people have no problem waiving their rights for a big corporation's benefit. The receipt-checking horror stories on Consumerist usually feature comments from readers annoyed that a shopper might slow down the line by asserting his or her right to say no.
But personally, I don't like being treated like a criminal. So I generally shop at places that don't treat me that way.

And I think the stores that keep showing up in the Consumerist -- especially Wal-Mart -- need to do a better job of familiarizing their receipt-checking employees with the reality that receipt checks are voluntary. The chain should probably work on its media relations, as well -- Wal-Mart didn't return a call or e-mail requesting comment for this column.

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