Some Walmart employees say customers are getting hostile at self-checkout — and they blame anti-theft tech::When Walmart’s anti-theft self-checkout tech alerts an employee of a missed scan, it can cause some uncomfortable situations.

    • tocopherol@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 years ago

      The grocery store in my city became straight dystopian. It was always a sort of sketchy area but nothing that bad. After the pandemic, they added a second armed, vested private security in black, one-way turnstiles going in and out, increased cameras with screens on every aisle that showed you with the words “RECORDING IN PROGRESS”. They even added locks to the frozen section, so you had to get an employee to help you buy ice cream. The police and security would tackle clearly unwell people who were shoplifting food, face pushed into the concrete type of thing.

      • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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        2 years ago

        The “bad” grocery store near me has taken to posting security cam pictures of people they catch stealing which is a terrible, awful, extrajudicial thing to do, but I would be lying if I said it does not make for some hilarious pictures. It’s a big wall of shame right as you enter the store.

      • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
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        2 years ago

        Jesus Christ that all sounded (unfortunately) normal until the locked freezers. That’s a step too far. I mean, all of it is, but that’s actually a ridiculous concept lmao

    • RunawayFixer@lemmy.world
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      2 years ago

      I’m surprised it locked up like that. About 15 years ago I was a frequent customer in a store that had these and I never encountered any problem with it, nor did I hear of anyone else encountering a malfunction while using them.

      That store implemented those locks because they were the closest supermarket to a college campus. Some students were taking the carts back to their dorms and chaining them up to a tree with bicycle chains. They would also use those carts to go shopping in a nearby supermarket of another store chain.

      Different continent though, so it’s probably not entirely the same technology. People like reinventing the wheel.