My bet is that at a membership club (ie. Costco, Sams, etc.) it could be part of the membership terms so failure to allow the check could violate the terms of membership or conduct, however at a publicly available retail store you could walk out without any recourse. They could not detain you without showing some cause to believe that you had taken something without paying.
this check is spreading to a lot of stores.
I do not feel comfortable with this practice. Everyone complies very pleasantly, and conforms. You may be right with Costco, however I will have to check for terms of membership and read to see if that is in there.
Beat me to it. If you aren't at a 'club member' store then you have the right to tell them to give you a refund as soon as they ask to search. They can let you go sans search, give you a refund and keep their merchandise, or call authorities while you loudly explain to all passersby how they should shop someplace else. At the membership clubs you grant them the right to search when you sign the paperwork.
Wal-Mart is the worse. If they don't cut the tag off something and you walk out, the alarm goes off and the "gray tigers" are right there telling you to step back in the store, please.
They check your receipt against your purchases and then aplogize and tell you the cashier is new.
I ask to see the manager and explain what happened and then ask him to escort me to the customer service counter and give me a refund for everything I bought and then i walk out.
The point is, due to their improperly trained employess, I am made to look like a shoplifter and even though it is a common occurence at (from what i understand) most wallyworlds, people still look at you when the grannies chase you down.
“it could be part of the membership terms so failure to allow the check could violate the terms of membership or conduct, “
Costco could make it part of their membership terms that you could be forced to provide 8 hours of unpaid labor per month to them (so they could keep their costs down for you and its other customers). You might sign the agreement. How would Costco peanalize you if you did not provide your allotment of forced labor each month?
The point would be can you voluntarily become a slave, despite the 13th Amendment, just because of a term in a Costco agreement. In that vignette, I’d like to see Costco defend its need for enslavement of its customers in a court, too. Just as in the 4th Amendment, it seems the law follows The Constitution and you cannot be positioned to give up a fundamental right.