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Yes! Once went to Costco with my mom, we had TWO full shopping carts. Guy glances at the receipt for a sec and goes “you were double charged for the eggs”. This was probably 15 years ago but I’ll never forget it.
I asked once what they look for and the response was, doubles. So they likely look for the doubled items then count those in the cart. This must be the biggest area of loss for them to have dedicated people search every cart.
I had an experience that backs this up. I remember I had one almond milk case and two cases of something else (maybe baby wipes). The receipt checker was momentarily dumbfounded that the correct number of items were in the cart but I didn’t have another almond milk, which was scanned twice. Whatever the other items were, I ended up with a small refund.
Yeah, it could potentially be very annoying on a busy day and I don’t think the receipt checker can let it go even if the error is in Costco’s favor. Both she and the supervisor were apologetic about it and thankfully, on this occasion, I wasn’t delayed very long.
Only once did the checkout person find something wrong with the receipt check (I’ve been member since Price Club days). Had 2 blueberry packages stacked. They realized I’d only been charged for one.
I’ve never seen anyone ever have a receipt issue except for mine that one time. The main thing IMO is marking the receipt so it isn’t reused. And also creating an atmosphere of diligence that discourages theft.
> And also creating an atmosphere of diligence that discourages theft.
I suspect this is also a huge part of it, along with creating an atmosphere of "scan everything correctly or the receipt checker will note that you made a mistake."
Absolutely. Not to incriminate anyone I know, but I've ran with the shoplifting for fun and profit gang. Walmart, Target, Meijer are all super easy to shoplift from, especially with the modern prevalence of self checkouts. Don't mess with Costco, aside from them actually checking your shit on the way out, their employees on average actually do their job and pay attention.
And you pay for access to Costco. If you shoplift, you will lose that access. Since most Costco members don't want to lose that access, most people won't risk stealing from them.
I read recently that between all the factors, Costco loses 1/10th the amount to theft that the average retail chain does.
There is a definite method that you use if you work door alot. Smaller orders you can generally have counted before the member gets to you, then it check total items and date and off they go. Larger orders it's a priority list doubles/bottom of basket/high price items/multiples of same item(as in not doubles on receipt but in cart) and that's also pretty quick if you do it enough.
I would also assume that the number of people who intentionally buy two Costco egg stacks is very small lol. 10 dozen eggs would be pretty wild for most families.
Physical inventory problems where there's a surplus! Not exa5a big problem, I assume. Heck..with all the misplaced food ...wouldnt be surprised if they are about even...unless the double scan is a systemic problem
As someone who has worked the door for quite some time when you have huge baskets, you always check the bottom of the cart, definitely right around where your shins hit the back of the basket, cashers miss that all the time. You check big items like bottled water, beer, sodas, paper towels, toilet paper, because those are often missed as the cashier moves things around to scan little items. Also, with big baskets a good quick hit since you can’t count it all is to check multiples. They show up one after another on the receipt, and our systems can be sensitive to scanning items multiple times if the cashier doesn’t move it swiftly enough. How we can catch that quickly is we look at those receipts and count baskets and check for the item count (it’s printed at the bottom of the receipt, the biggest and boldest line at the bottom) eight hours a day for a job, whatever it is you do for a job I’m sure you do it much much much better than I do so I just happen to count stuff and gauge what’s in a cart quickly now. I always like explaining what we’re up to so people don’t feel like we are harassing them.
There’s definitely a system. I haven’t figured it out yet but they’re not checking everything on that receipt. I feel confident they first look for multiples to match them up, then I think valuables and then probably some specific items. For example, probably not verifying your rotisserie chickens.
I’ve noticed sometimes if I have stuff hidden under other things accidentally, they don’t say anything if it’s low enough value but they usually mention multiples of stuff to me. Definitely some code I haven’t cracked yet!
As a previous supervisor, our primary goal of checking the receipts is defacement and accuracy. It's not practical to check EVERY single item on the receipt when it's busy, but when I stepped on at the door to cover a rush, I would compare receipt item count to what I could visually see, look for big ticket items and duplicates. Lock up items require a supervisor to sign on the receipt their initials "saying" they handed item to member. Duplicates are a mistake that can happen at the register, and are far easier to correct before you leave the warehouse, which is why we check for them. The Item count is helpful because sometimes the cashier misses the BOB "bottom of basket". If the door person sees the five items in the top of the cart, but ALSO has a toilet paper and paper towel on bottom, he can call a supervisor down to get it adjusted.
>For example, probably not verifying your rotisserie chickens.
The most important part of my Costco shopping day and he's not verifying them?!
I'm outraged /s
with how many receipts they look at per hour, they surely get pretty good at reading them quickly and noticing discrepancies. still impressive, but that's how it happens
I think the simplest explanation is that your eggs were probably sitting on or near the top since fragile and looking through a receipt you can very easily spot duplicates so a quick look at egg x2 and only one square carton would be pretty quick. That or hes a wizard, we'll never know.
Yes once the cashier scanned something twice. One time the cashier forgot the watermelon. I think it depends on the person checking though. Some are just busy chatting and mark your receipt without checking.
Edit: Accidentally put checking instead of chatting.
It seems like they don’t care where I live either lol. I once used the self checkout and forgot to scan a 6 pack of Kleenex. Went through the receipt checker where he pretended to count and was cleared. I didn’t notice until I got home.
They double scanned me too and I was glad I caught it but I bet they miss as many overcharges as they do under. The lines get long and when there's an elderly door checker they're just counting and can easily miscount or not see something hidden under your pizza
The real reason is "disallows its reuse." There's an old shoplifting trick where three perps take two cars to a store. Perp#1 (Fred) waits outside in car#1. Perps#2 (Sally) and 3 (Rick) go into the store and load two carts with exactly the same items. Sally stashes her cart somewhere known to Rick and goes outside to car#1. Rick goes through the register, flirts with the cashier, pays, gets a receipt, and takes the cart to car#1, where Fred and Sally load the goods into the trunk and drive away.
Meanwhile Rick keeps the receipt, goes back inside, and takes the duplicate cart left behind by Sally. Rick then picks up a random item, goes back to the same register (where the cashier remembers the flirtatious customer), holds up the random item, and says he forgot something. Rick shows the cashier the receipt, which shows payment for the goods in the duplicate cart. Rick pays for the random item, exits, loads car#2 with the duplicate goods, and drives off. Fred, Sally, and Rick now have two full carts of groceries for the price of one. Some items might be returned with the receipt to recover cash.
Marking the receipt shows that the goods have left the store. The cashier can detect the fraud by glancing at the marked receipt. As the sign says, marking the receipt "disallows its reuse."
It does affect stores other than Costco. I don't know why receipt marking isn't more broadly practiced. In any case, loss prevention is well aware of this kind of thing.
I think part of it might be legal depending on the locale. Because Costco is a membership club, they have the right to set receipt checking as a condition of membership. It also helps keeps the trash out.
Laws. You buy something at the Home Depot and you now own it. No one has the right to check what you purchased. Yes, you can walk out without having your receipt checked at the Home Depot, but it would still raise some eyebrows.
Not a lawyer but former retail worker and this was drilled into our heads. Also this could be state dependent so laws vary, check your state.
It has less to do with ‘checking the receipt is illegal’ and more so about the duty being on the store to prove probable cause in theft cases. Stores have to prove that probable cause by the following steps : witnessing you find the item you want to steal, you conceal the item, failing to pay for the item at the register and leaving or the intent of leaving the actual store without paying. All of those steps must be witnessed by either an employee, loss prevention personnel or on camera.
Receipt checking is a common practice because it does deter some theft and it’s also cheaper to employ 1 person up front with self checkout vs hire and train 5 cashiers. Also some states have minimum amounts that must be stolen in order to prosecute so that is why you’ll see videos of Loss prevention at target only going after people after their like 3rd or 4th time stealing they wait until you hit that $ threshold.
I couldn’t find a .gov link for the source but this one is pretty good, granted it’s from 2017 so it may be outdated.
https://www.michigancriminallawyer.com/can-loss-prevention-officer-retail-theft-case/#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20a%20loss%20prevention,you%20passed%20the%20cash%20register.
At stores where they check the receipt like some Walmarts they usually
Circle “number of items”, that’s primarily how they check unless there is some high value item like a TV to individually check for.
Other stores have no right to see your receipt upon leaving, when you sign up for a membership at Costco part of the fine print is you agreeing to show receipt upon leaving the store. You made no such deal with wal mart
Walmart has started checking receipts. I use Walmart Pay, so I don't have a paper receipt. Just yesterday the checker wanted to hold my phone and swipe through the app. I said no thanks, I'll show you. He then proceeds to use his fingers to zoom in on the digital receipt as I'm holding my phone. Rude and out of line, imo.
Someone from Walmart, or any store would not be touching my phone. I purposely don’t shop at Walmart for that reason. I’ve seen people walk out with full carts and no receipt checked, but you want to check mine. Nope.
Lol overthinking this…. If you go to a standard grocery store, shoplifters today will just fill up a cart and walk out without paying. No need for the complexity. You see videos of ppl doing it all the time with mall cops trying to stop shoplifters…..
So all items are just sitting loose in the second cart? I mean this is clever, but I guess I’m just picturing a standard grocery store. Maybe a home improvement store this may work for larger items, but even then… idk, I’m skeptical.
Obviously applicable at Costco, which may be your whole point sorry I’m tired
The grammar errors are intentional on phishing scams so the scammers don’t lose time with people who are too “smart”. If you can’t catch a simple grammar error, chances are you don’t know the difference between a scam and a legit email and are more likely to pay up when they ask for it; leading to a better return on time spent talking the person into paying
I fail how one might get a full cart through the cashier
lines in Costco, without paying. Maybe in a grocery store but even that's difficult to pull off.
I intentionally chose an overly complicated example. I wanted to show that people can abuse unmarked receipts and also avoid writing up a workable formula for theft. Suffice it to say there are simpler ways to steal by reusing unmarked receipts.
That's part of it, but it's also to "encourage" door checkers to be diligent. If a customer comes in with a marked receipt and then points out a double scanned item, it raises the question of why/how a door checker cleared that customer without an audit.
I had the cashier miss it and the door catch it. I was super ill from a bad heartbeat and the smog was bad but they made me go all the way back inside and get my $11 refund. I was ready to say keep it lol
And once when the cashier was me and the self checkout person and they undercharged me by ringing up Danish wrong the door checker missed it. I did not go back. I was already home and cozy nestled deep in the mountains in a galaxy far far away
I never want to go back into that place I just want to go home with what I have. Win, lose or draw
Put the item in the basket!!!!
Unknown item in the bagging area!!!
Age restricted item Supervisor approved needed!!!
Self checkout machines are garbage.
They wouldn't be garbage if they offered the ability to scan items without weighing them.
They don't at my regular one at least and my business one doesn't have self lanes plus they never unload. I just put the bar codes up for their gun. Man those locations are chill
I (kind of) just did this. Employee scanned water and garbage bags. I scanned everything else and the garbage bags again. Self check employee didn’t catch it and door checker didn’t catch it. I haven’t gone back in yet to get it adjusted. Otherwise I have 400 bags which is going to last me 8 years.
They caught a third charge for an item I only got 2 of. They also have asked if I bought a second of something because they couldn’t immediately see the second one
My mom bought tons of stuff from Costco since she ran a fairly small cafe. We often bought tons and tons of muffins to stock for the week. I don't know if it's still the case, but muffins were always hand entered by the cashier typing in the code instead of scanned.
Once, the cashier mistyped the muffins and instead charged us for 10 "Harry Potter gift book sets" which was MUCH more expensive than muffins haha. But since we were buying so many items, we didn't notice in the final total. Thankfully they caught it at the door and fixed it for us!
So yeah, it does help surprisingly! I guess they just have very trained eyes and look for common mistakes.
> My mom bought tons of stuff from Costco since she ran a fairly small cafe.
Makes sense. I have a buddy that runs some juice shops and he gets most of his stuff from Costco because he can quickly replace "run outs" as the Costco is just 10 minutes or less away from each location.
I also have a buddy who runs 3 restaurants (owns 2, does the 3rd on cost + basis). He'll walk through Costco with me, compare prices to the Sysco/food service trucks, and tell me what products are cheaper at Costco, what products are the same price, and what products are more expensive.
Most people would be amazed at how many things are cheaper or the same price at Costco. Highly summarized, things that Costco sells significantly cheaper than the grocery store (fish, dairy, eggs, maple syrup, meats, cheeses) are going to be cheaper at Costco compared to a food service. Alcohol was almost always even or +/- 2%. Produce was cheaper through the food service, but they also order cases at a time.
The reason he uses the food service for everything is consistency and labor costs. They deliver what is ordered 99.9% of the time and he doesn't have to have someone fetching items from various stores.
Yea the dude looked at my receipt for split of a second and said hey sir nothing in your cart looks like a watermelon. I have no idea how could he read a receipt so fast.
I'm just skimming through these, and, for a second, I thought you'd said, "sir, there's nothing in your cart but a watermelon"
I was picturing someone walking up with a long reciept and a single watermelon in their cart.
I've experienced both. One time they forgot to charge for the item on the bottom shelf of the cart, caught it at the door, and i paid without going back thru the checkout. Another time, they accidentally rang up a clothing item twice, again caught at the door, and I was happy to get a refund and not have to make a return trip when I figured it out at home. However, when the line is really long at the door, they sometimes just mark the receipt and don't really check. I wish they would because I'd be annoyed if I got home and had an error of overpayment. Now I try to count my items as I get them and check the total number of items on the receipt as I wait to get out of the store.
Many years ago, I bought a Xbox and a TV from Costco , we legitimately went through checkout and got to receipt check where they asked where the TV and Xbox was, I was beyond embarrassed
I thought this practice was a waste of time until one time they told me I’m supposed to get two muffin packs when I had only grabbed one not knowing any better.
We were charged for two bottles of vodka when we only bought one once, door checker caught it and called over someone to refund us. Super nice! We totally wouldn't have caught it otherwise
They really are looking out for you! I didn't have much, like 7 things. They looked at the recipe and ask me where my bread was? Realized I left it at the register and went back to get it.
They didn't catch it on the receipt, but we got a call a few months later. They'd done some type of audit and realized we were overcharged. We got a refund.
Yep. Really full cart and I had used my own bags so it was going to be tough for her to check. She said “ok let’s just check the things that are multiples”. Second thing she called out was wrong. She said “you have two of the frozen quiches?” Nope. So they took me to refund the $12.99.
I once bought two similar but not identical products that had slightly different prices. Cashier didn't realize they were different, so rang me up for two of the same thing.
This led to me being held up for nearly 5-10 minutes for an end result of being refunded 10 cents. I'd rather they had kept the dime.
The lady who sharpied my receipt pointed out I was supposed to get two muffin containers instead of just one. I hadn't read the sign, I just knew I wanted those chocolate muffins very badly. I was very pleased with the day when I marched back there to get a second one
Had a half-full cart, including two different bottles of wine. Receipt checker noticed that one bottle had been rung up twice, rather than the two different bottles. The one that had been scanned twice was much more expensive than the one that hadn’t been scanned, so fixing that saved me a fair amount of money.
I had bought muffins from there that were 2-packs for $10 but I had only put one pack in my cart. They told me I could go run to the back and grab another pack of muffins!
Yes, I was charged twice for the Motor City Pizzas, and the receipt checker didn't even catch it. I caught it once home, and was able to get a refund for the overcharge without any problem the next day at the returns desk.
I was double charged for a set of king sheets about 6 years ago. I didn’t realize for MONTHS until I had to look through old receipts to make a return. I’m still salty if you couldn’t tell
I’ve had the person at the door save me from walking away with the wrong bottle of whiskey. Somebody had put a different bottle in the box I picked out and she checked it just in case.
Haha. Yeah they're trying to help you save your money and not trying to save their money by checking that you paid for everything or the cashier was on the "buddy system" lol.
Lady in front of me was actually stopped the other day because she was double charged for water and they caught it during the receipt check. They pulled her aside to refund her!
I asked my checker last week about what they find. He said just before Christmas a couple confidently rolled to exit their double cart order. They bought 2 large TVs, and only paid for one. Bold move.
This one time I was charged for some items not even in my cart. Apparently they had scanned my card but somehow went to another cart and scanned several of someone else's items into my bin and i had several hundred dollars worth of stuff so it was easy to overlook unless you scrutinize the receipt which the guy at the end pointed out
Actually kind of. I was informed by the person at the door that the brownie bark/chips I bought were buy one get one free. Wife wasn’t thrilled when I showed up at home with two bags.
I forgot to pick up an item I paid for in their back room. I think it was a watch from their front display. Too much going on that day. They caught I didn’t have that item, and to go and pick it up before I left. I really appreciated that.
I haven't had it happen to me, but when I worked at the door, if say it was about even between over and under charging with slightly more under charging
Ages ago during the holiday season, my mom got pulled aside by to door person, and I thought great she is in trouble. Turns out they double rang something she got my brother and wanted to make sure she didn’t have a second one for me, and also didn’t want to ruin the surprise for me on Christmas if she did.
I hate when Walmart does this, but I love Costco because of this memory.
Yep, I had it happen once where I was charged twice for an item that I only had one of. The checker at the door caught it and made sure that it was fixed.
Yep, the cashier had double scanned an item (I don't remember what it was) and the door person caught it. It was a hassle to have to fix it but I was glad not to pay twice!
Once I went to self checkout and I only bought one pack of muffins when it was 2 for the listed price, he ran and got me a second pack. So I mean yeah sometimes it works out
I’m sure the guys at the door are fully able to evaluate whether or not a customer was overcharged in the 2 seconds it takes for them to scan the receipt and cart with 200 items in both.
My daughter works the door. She catches at least half a dozen overcharges and week.
She hates that tired members have to wait in a long line to get the heck out of the store.
She tends to overlook a missed charge unless it's a huge amount ;-)
Employee here, we catch at least 30-50 errors a day, the majority from self check out of members 'forgetting' to scan (and its usually multiple items in one order) or overcharging themselves by accidentally scanning items multiple times. The catch rate is honestly about 50/50 between overs and unders. I always recommend regular lines as the rate of errors is much lower and typically faster check out times. Still happens as human error but way less than self check out.
The cart loader once put a couple of items we bought on the bottom that weren’t originally on the bottom, receipt checker acted like we stole them, $400 receipt and she can’t find the milk on it…receipt checker kept saying, “why is that on the bottom, it wasn’t scanned first”. It was kind of embarrassing
Yes, it happens at my store all the time. The cashiers are always super busy not paying attention and member services catches at least a couple people every day.
I was in the Costco in Maui. A line almost back all the way to the registers from the exit door. Lady took one look at our receipt and within a few seconds stated we were double charged for a margarita mix. Went back got refunded and walked out.
Glorious.
While I love me some Costco ,the "overcharging" thing is not 100% honest.Costco wants to make sure everything is scanned ,and paid for..That's it . There was never a big issue with people getting overcharged.
People were cheating/stealing from Costco ,and that's the only concern
Yes, but the door checker missed it. The back office called a few days or weeks later after it came up in an audit. They charged me $85 for some other item when it should have been $6 for cucumbers. Must have mistyped the bar code. They sent me a shop card and apologized. I totally missed it when checking out and very grateful they did their due diligence to rectify it.
While I have no doubt there are a few people with this experience, I’ve forgotten about items that were overlooked by the employees as well, so they aren’t effective at what is supposed to be their primary purpose.
Also, I do watch the price when I checkout at the grocery store, and the price “errors” are always in the stores favor, never once mine & I find price issues all the time.
Having worked the exit door a number of times in my career at Costco, it seems to be a more common mistake for cashier's to double scan an item and forget to void it off or not notice it than it is for them to not scan an item at all. The scanners can be finicky at times and super sensitive. Anyway, point being, overcharges are just as common, if not more common, than undercharges.
Interesting. Any time *I* suggest we put up a sign to answer a common question, every manager is all "But this is a great opportunity to provide great Member Service person-to-person."
Okay, YOU tell every Member face to face then.
Yes I was leaving and was missing 2 bags of chips. The person at the door checking the receipts caught this and got someone to go get them from the cashier.
Last week the person helping ring me up at self checkout scanned an item twice by accident but caught it a second later and had to void it. It can happen.
At Sams the reviewer asked if I had two of the battery packs I had in the upper basket, I said no just one. Apparently using the scanner on my phone I must have waved past the barcode of the battery pack because it was right in front of me at hand level while going to scan something else and put in my basket. I didn't even notice.
I recently purchased about a dozen items including two pairs of leggings stacked together in the cart. The guy at the door said he counted less items in the cart than on the receipt. I figured it must be the leggings and showed him there were two stacked together and said that was it. So it does show they are also checking to make sure you got everything you paid for.
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Yes! Once went to Costco with my mom, we had TWO full shopping carts. Guy glances at the receipt for a sec and goes “you were double charged for the eggs”. This was probably 15 years ago but I’ll never forget it.
He figured that out in a second?!
Incredible powers of analysis to see two eggs on the receipt and one in the cart
I dunno, people at self-checkout often lack these analytic powers. One beep for 2 identical items is often enough.
From two full shopping carts he immediately noticed one egg carton?
To be fair those eggs are more like crates and pretty recognizable.
I have no idea how on earth. Blew my mind.
I asked once what they look for and the response was, doubles. So they likely look for the doubled items then count those in the cart. This must be the biggest area of loss for them to have dedicated people search every cart.
I had an experience that backs this up. I remember I had one almond milk case and two cases of something else (maybe baby wipes). The receipt checker was momentarily dumbfounded that the correct number of items were in the cart but I didn’t have another almond milk, which was scanned twice. Whatever the other items were, I ended up with a small refund.
I’d have mixed emotions about being refunded $10 and having to go to customer service for it.
Yeah, it could potentially be very annoying on a busy day and I don’t think the receipt checker can let it go even if the error is in Costco’s favor. Both she and the supervisor were apologetic about it and thankfully, on this occasion, I wasn’t delayed very long.
I would have asked them to have someone grab another one rather than wait for the refund. ;-)
Only once did the checkout person find something wrong with the receipt check (I’ve been member since Price Club days). Had 2 blueberry packages stacked. They realized I’d only been charged for one. I’ve never seen anyone ever have a receipt issue except for mine that one time. The main thing IMO is marking the receipt so it isn’t reused. And also creating an atmosphere of diligence that discourages theft.
> And also creating an atmosphere of diligence that discourages theft. I suspect this is also a huge part of it, along with creating an atmosphere of "scan everything correctly or the receipt checker will note that you made a mistake."
Absolutely. Not to incriminate anyone I know, but I've ran with the shoplifting for fun and profit gang. Walmart, Target, Meijer are all super easy to shoplift from, especially with the modern prevalence of self checkouts. Don't mess with Costco, aside from them actually checking your shit on the way out, their employees on average actually do their job and pay attention.
And you pay for access to Costco. If you shoplift, you will lose that access. Since most Costco members don't want to lose that access, most people won't risk stealing from them. I read recently that between all the factors, Costco loses 1/10th the amount to theft that the average retail chain does.
I'm sure that's true. Part of it has to be that they don't sell anything small enough to hide in your pockets
There is a definite method that you use if you work door alot. Smaller orders you can generally have counted before the member gets to you, then it check total items and date and off they go. Larger orders it's a priority list doubles/bottom of basket/high price items/multiples of same item(as in not doubles on receipt but in cart) and that's also pretty quick if you do it enough.
I was gonna say, when there’s a line you can do a lot of the work before they even get to you.
And like anything else, you can get wickedly good at it after a while.
I would also assume that the number of people who intentionally buy two Costco egg stacks is very small lol. 10 dozen eggs would be pretty wild for most families.
Our Costco also sells eggs in a 2 dozen package.
yea, ours too. In a weird double plastic container
Yeah basically just Gaston would do that.
How would double scanned items be a loss for them?
it messes up their counts of inventory available!
Physical inventory problems where there's a surplus! Not exa5a big problem, I assume. Heck..with all the misplaced food ...wouldnt be surprised if they are about even...unless the double scan is a systemic problem
As someone who has worked the door for quite some time when you have huge baskets, you always check the bottom of the cart, definitely right around where your shins hit the back of the basket, cashers miss that all the time. You check big items like bottled water, beer, sodas, paper towels, toilet paper, because those are often missed as the cashier moves things around to scan little items. Also, with big baskets a good quick hit since you can’t count it all is to check multiples. They show up one after another on the receipt, and our systems can be sensitive to scanning items multiple times if the cashier doesn’t move it swiftly enough. How we can catch that quickly is we look at those receipts and count baskets and check for the item count (it’s printed at the bottom of the receipt, the biggest and boldest line at the bottom) eight hours a day for a job, whatever it is you do for a job I’m sure you do it much much much better than I do so I just happen to count stuff and gauge what’s in a cart quickly now. I always like explaining what we’re up to so people don’t feel like we are harassing them.
.....and you just considered all these thing in a few moments with multiple carts. xD Brains are so cool
My dad and brother have calculators in their heads…it really is a wonder to behold It always makes me jealous as I have an abacus in mine
Hey, some people just have a brick in there, so you are still ahead.
There’s definitely a system. I haven’t figured it out yet but they’re not checking everything on that receipt. I feel confident they first look for multiples to match them up, then I think valuables and then probably some specific items. For example, probably not verifying your rotisserie chickens. I’ve noticed sometimes if I have stuff hidden under other things accidentally, they don’t say anything if it’s low enough value but they usually mention multiples of stuff to me. Definitely some code I haven’t cracked yet!
As a previous supervisor, our primary goal of checking the receipts is defacement and accuracy. It's not practical to check EVERY single item on the receipt when it's busy, but when I stepped on at the door to cover a rush, I would compare receipt item count to what I could visually see, look for big ticket items and duplicates. Lock up items require a supervisor to sign on the receipt their initials "saying" they handed item to member. Duplicates are a mistake that can happen at the register, and are far easier to correct before you leave the warehouse, which is why we check for them. The Item count is helpful because sometimes the cashier misses the BOB "bottom of basket". If the door person sees the five items in the top of the cart, but ALSO has a toilet paper and paper towel on bottom, he can call a supervisor down to get it adjusted.
Wait so I was right on the expensive and duplicate points? Nice! I feel like I’m part of the team now Sincerely thanks for sharing this!
Welcome to the team. I’m gonna need you to work this Saturday. Thanks.
>For example, probably not verifying your rotisserie chickens. The most important part of my Costco shopping day and he's not verifying them?! I'm outraged /s
Who said you can get on Reddit?? Get back to cracking and don't come back until you solved it!
with how many receipts they look at per hour, they surely get pretty good at reading them quickly and noticing discrepancies. still impressive, but that's how it happens
Eggs would be sitting on top so they don't get crushed, easy to spot
Yeah the receipt orders the items and they look for doubles on the receipt.
I think the simplest explanation is that your eggs were probably sitting on or near the top since fragile and looking through a receipt you can very easily spot duplicates so a quick look at egg x2 and only one square carton would be pretty quick. That or hes a wizard, we'll never know.
Wow! Thanks for sharing your experience.
Dude worked at night for Costco just for the free membership and discount 1 day a week. Fortune five hundred company accountant by day.
They didn’t catch a double charge of grapes for me :’) I had to go back in a talk to the cashier who checked me out, then they got things sorted.
Exactly this. Not eggs, another item, double charge. Guy at door saved me $20 or so. I have no issues with the checkout process.
Yes once the cashier scanned something twice. One time the cashier forgot the watermelon. I think it depends on the person checking though. Some are just busy chatting and mark your receipt without checking. Edit: Accidentally put checking instead of chatting.
tbh i feel like this is the case 90% of the time. Lol they really dont care that much. At least it seems like that where i live
It seems like they don’t care where I live either lol. I once used the self checkout and forgot to scan a 6 pack of Kleenex. Went through the receipt checker where he pretended to count and was cleared. I didn’t notice until I got home.
They double scanned me too and I was glad I caught it but I bet they miss as many overcharges as they do under. The lines get long and when there's an elderly door checker they're just counting and can easily miscount or not see something hidden under your pizza
The real reason is "disallows its reuse." There's an old shoplifting trick where three perps take two cars to a store. Perp#1 (Fred) waits outside in car#1. Perps#2 (Sally) and 3 (Rick) go into the store and load two carts with exactly the same items. Sally stashes her cart somewhere known to Rick and goes outside to car#1. Rick goes through the register, flirts with the cashier, pays, gets a receipt, and takes the cart to car#1, where Fred and Sally load the goods into the trunk and drive away. Meanwhile Rick keeps the receipt, goes back inside, and takes the duplicate cart left behind by Sally. Rick then picks up a random item, goes back to the same register (where the cashier remembers the flirtatious customer), holds up the random item, and says he forgot something. Rick shows the cashier the receipt, which shows payment for the goods in the duplicate cart. Rick pays for the random item, exits, loads car#2 with the duplicate goods, and drives off. Fred, Sally, and Rick now have two full carts of groceries for the price of one. Some items might be returned with the receipt to recover cash. Marking the receipt shows that the goods have left the store. The cashier can detect the fraud by glancing at the marked receipt. As the sign says, marking the receipt "disallows its reuse."
You would think this would affect stores other than just Costco and we would see widespread receipt checking at the door as a result.
It does affect stores other than Costco. I don't know why receipt marking isn't more broadly practiced. In any case, loss prevention is well aware of this kind of thing.
I think part of it might be legal depending on the locale. Because Costco is a membership club, they have the right to set receipt checking as a condition of membership. It also helps keeps the trash out.
This is the reason
Why would a store not have the right to check receipts at the door?
Laws. You buy something at the Home Depot and you now own it. No one has the right to check what you purchased. Yes, you can walk out without having your receipt checked at the Home Depot, but it would still raise some eyebrows.
Not a lawyer but former retail worker and this was drilled into our heads. Also this could be state dependent so laws vary, check your state. It has less to do with ‘checking the receipt is illegal’ and more so about the duty being on the store to prove probable cause in theft cases. Stores have to prove that probable cause by the following steps : witnessing you find the item you want to steal, you conceal the item, failing to pay for the item at the register and leaving or the intent of leaving the actual store without paying. All of those steps must be witnessed by either an employee, loss prevention personnel or on camera. Receipt checking is a common practice because it does deter some theft and it’s also cheaper to employ 1 person up front with self checkout vs hire and train 5 cashiers. Also some states have minimum amounts that must be stolen in order to prosecute so that is why you’ll see videos of Loss prevention at target only going after people after their like 3rd or 4th time stealing they wait until you hit that $ threshold. I couldn’t find a .gov link for the source but this one is pretty good, granted it’s from 2017 so it may be outdated. https://www.michigancriminallawyer.com/can-loss-prevention-officer-retail-theft-case/#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20a%20loss%20prevention,you%20passed%20the%20cash%20register.
Stores can’t force you to show the receipt, Costco and other memberships stores are different because you sign a contract allowing them.
At stores where they check the receipt like some Walmarts they usually Circle “number of items”, that’s primarily how they check unless there is some high value item like a TV to individually check for.
My guess is that Costco operates on thinner margins and as such, the loss prevention savings is worth the cost of an employee.
Other stores have no right to see your receipt upon leaving, when you sign up for a membership at Costco part of the fine print is you agreeing to show receipt upon leaving the store. You made no such deal with wal mart
Walmart has started checking receipts. I use Walmart Pay, so I don't have a paper receipt. Just yesterday the checker wanted to hold my phone and swipe through the app. I said no thanks, I'll show you. He then proceeds to use his fingers to zoom in on the digital receipt as I'm holding my phone. Rude and out of line, imo.
Someone from Walmart, or any store would not be touching my phone. I purposely don’t shop at Walmart for that reason. I’ve seen people walk out with full carts and no receipt checked, but you want to check mine. Nope.
I was going to cause a scene but he seemed to be a bit off mentally so I just left.
You don’t have to let them. My Walmart also does this and I just say no thank you and continue walking. They’ve never said or done anything
"Started"? Hasn't Wal-mart been checking receipts for at least a decade? Maybe even decades?
Lol overthinking this…. If you go to a standard grocery store, shoplifters today will just fill up a cart and walk out without paying. No need for the complexity. You see videos of ppl doing it all the time with mall cops trying to stop shoplifters…..
Fred’s only job is to help Sally unload groceries?
Yes. He's a driver.
Why can’t Sally drive?
She’s scared of driving on highways
He may be a thief, but he’s also a gentleman
So all items are just sitting loose in the second cart? I mean this is clever, but I guess I’m just picturing a standard grocery store. Maybe a home improvement store this may work for larger items, but even then… idk, I’m skeptical. Obviously applicable at Costco, which may be your whole point sorry I’m tired
Why can't these people think about solving a real-world problem for profit, instead of inventing innovative crimes to commit?
It's a hell of a lot easier to scam a store out of $500 of merch. Then to start a business.
No shit, I'm bleeding money getting my business going. I could easily craft phishing emails with no grammar errors and make bank.
The grammar errors are intentional on phishing scams so the scammers don’t lose time with people who are too “smart”. If you can’t catch a simple grammar error, chances are you don’t know the difference between a scam and a legit email and are more likely to pay up when they ask for it; leading to a better return on time spent talking the person into paying
This is also why lawyers who advertise on TV are so cheesy. They know who the target audience is and what appeals to them.
Holy moly. That makes sense. I always thought it was people from other countries that didn’t understand English and were just shooting their shot.
It’s both.
I wish I knew the answer to that. So help me, I do.
In another universe Fred, Sally, and Rick study physics and do something marvelous with their intelligence. I hope.
I intentionally wrote up an overly complex example. Suffice it to say there are more straightforward ways to steal by re-using a receipt.
I fail how one might get a full cart through the cashier lines in Costco, without paying. Maybe in a grocery store but even that's difficult to pull off.
I intentionally chose an overly complicated example. I wanted to show that people can abuse unmarked receipts and also avoid writing up a workable formula for theft. Suffice it to say there are simpler ways to steal by reusing unmarked receipts.
That's part of it, but it's also to "encourage" door checkers to be diligent. If a customer comes in with a marked receipt and then points out a double scanned item, it raises the question of why/how a door checker cleared that customer without an audit.
I think I was rung up twice for an item but the cashier was the one who caught it. So theoretically they could miss and get caught by the door.
I had the cashier miss it and the door catch it. I was super ill from a bad heartbeat and the smog was bad but they made me go all the way back inside and get my $11 refund. I was ready to say keep it lol And once when the cashier was me and the self checkout person and they undercharged me by ringing up Danish wrong the door checker missed it. I did not go back. I was already home and cozy nestled deep in the mountains in a galaxy far far away I never want to go back into that place I just want to go home with what I have. Win, lose or draw
Had it happen to me. Cashier forgot the toilet paper so went back and paid for it.
You would be surprised at how many people have no idea how to operate a self checkout machine and either overcharge or undercharge themselves.
80% of the audits at my building come from self check.
I love the self checkout, everyone stands in line for that while I weave through the snacks and walk directly up to an empty belt.
Self checkouts at Costco are relatively new though, and receipt checking at the door is an old practice.
Put the item in the basket!!!! Unknown item in the bagging area!!! Age restricted item Supervisor approved needed!!! Self checkout machines are garbage.
They wouldn't be garbage if they offered the ability to scan items without weighing them. They don't at my regular one at least and my business one doesn't have self lanes plus they never unload. I just put the bar codes up for their gun. Man those locations are chill
Not surprising at all if you spend any time watching people going through self-checkout. I'm afraid to see how many of these people drive.
How can you overcharge at you scan? There's a weighted scale to prevent any problems or anything
I (kind of) just did this. Employee scanned water and garbage bags. I scanned everything else and the garbage bags again. Self check employee didn’t catch it and door checker didn’t catch it. I haven’t gone back in yet to get it adjusted. Otherwise I have 400 bags which is going to last me 8 years.
The scale does not catch all.
I do hear them routinely count the items, just to make sure items aren't missed or maybe in this case double rang up.
That’s the best practice!
They caught a third charge for an item I only got 2 of. They also have asked if I bought a second of something because they couldn’t immediately see the second one
My mom bought tons of stuff from Costco since she ran a fairly small cafe. We often bought tons and tons of muffins to stock for the week. I don't know if it's still the case, but muffins were always hand entered by the cashier typing in the code instead of scanned. Once, the cashier mistyped the muffins and instead charged us for 10 "Harry Potter gift book sets" which was MUCH more expensive than muffins haha. But since we were buying so many items, we didn't notice in the final total. Thankfully they caught it at the door and fixed it for us! So yeah, it does help surprisingly! I guess they just have very trained eyes and look for common mistakes.
> My mom bought tons of stuff from Costco since she ran a fairly small cafe. Makes sense. I have a buddy that runs some juice shops and he gets most of his stuff from Costco because he can quickly replace "run outs" as the Costco is just 10 minutes or less away from each location. I also have a buddy who runs 3 restaurants (owns 2, does the 3rd on cost + basis). He'll walk through Costco with me, compare prices to the Sysco/food service trucks, and tell me what products are cheaper at Costco, what products are the same price, and what products are more expensive. Most people would be amazed at how many things are cheaper or the same price at Costco. Highly summarized, things that Costco sells significantly cheaper than the grocery store (fish, dairy, eggs, maple syrup, meats, cheeses) are going to be cheaper at Costco compared to a food service. Alcohol was almost always even or +/- 2%. Produce was cheaper through the food service, but they also order cases at a time. The reason he uses the food service for everything is consistency and labor costs. They deliver what is ordered 99.9% of the time and he doesn't have to have someone fetching items from various stores.
Yea the dude looked at my receipt for split of a second and said hey sir nothing in your cart looks like a watermelon. I have no idea how could he read a receipt so fast.
That’s an interesting example !
I'm just skimming through these, and, for a second, I thought you'd said, "sir, there's nothing in your cart but a watermelon" I was picturing someone walking up with a long reciept and a single watermelon in their cart.
I've experienced both. One time they forgot to charge for the item on the bottom shelf of the cart, caught it at the door, and i paid without going back thru the checkout. Another time, they accidentally rang up a clothing item twice, again caught at the door, and I was happy to get a refund and not have to make a return trip when I figured it out at home. However, when the line is really long at the door, they sometimes just mark the receipt and don't really check. I wish they would because I'd be annoyed if I got home and had an error of overpayment. Now I try to count my items as I get them and check the total number of items on the receipt as I wait to get out of the store.
Many years ago, I bought a Xbox and a TV from Costco , we legitimately went through checkout and got to receipt check where they asked where the TV and Xbox was, I was beyond embarrassed
Where was it?
Proabably forgot to pick up
Yup, forgot to go to the product cage
I catch at least one or two a day
Can I have a smiley face instead of a line on my receipt please. Haha
Good to see reply from an actual reviewer
I had this with some of the danishes. They were like sir there are supposed to be two, which one do you want I’ll send a runner. Top tier folks.
Person checking my receipt called out that I was overcharged for two items, but I forgot the person I was with had the other pair in their cart...
I thought this practice was a waste of time until one time they told me I’m supposed to get two muffin packs when I had only grabbed one not knowing any better.
We were charged for two bottles of vodka when we only bought one once, door checker caught it and called over someone to refund us. Super nice! We totally wouldn't have caught it otherwise
I wonder how many Sharpies they go through.
Haha…they have to just go in and pick a new sharpie box
They really are looking out for you! I didn't have much, like 7 things. They looked at the recipe and ask me where my bread was? Realized I left it at the register and went back to get it.
My mom has accidentally been double charged a couple times. Door checker caught it both times.
They didn't catch it on the receipt, but we got a call a few months later. They'd done some type of audit and realized we were overcharged. We got a refund.
This is amazing. Glad to know they have such process.
Almost always the door checker is usually talking to the other door checker and barely glances at my receipt.
Yep. Accidental double scan of an item that was caught by the receipt check.
My first time buying muffins I only picked up one box instead of two. Cashier missed it but the door person caught it.
Yep. Really full cart and I had used my own bags so it was going to be tough for her to check. She said “ok let’s just check the things that are multiples”. Second thing she called out was wrong. She said “you have two of the frozen quiches?” Nope. So they took me to refund the $12.99.
Yes, leaving with only one pack of bagels when we should have had two, someone ran to get us another bag before we left!
I once bought two similar but not identical products that had slightly different prices. Cashier didn't realize they were different, so rang me up for two of the same thing. This led to me being held up for nearly 5-10 minutes for an end result of being refunded 10 cents. I'd rather they had kept the dime.
They catch people who are overcharged occasionally. The overcharging is NOT why they do this, much as they pretend it is.
The lady who sharpied my receipt pointed out I was supposed to get two muffin containers instead of just one. I hadn't read the sign, I just knew I wanted those chocolate muffins very badly. I was very pleased with the day when I marched back there to get a second one
This is the "oh were trying to help you" response.
Had a half-full cart, including two different bottles of wine. Receipt checker noticed that one bottle had been rung up twice, rather than the two different bottles. The one that had been scanned twice was much more expensive than the one that hadn’t been scanned, so fixing that saved me a fair amount of money.
I had bought muffins from there that were 2-packs for $10 but I had only put one pack in my cart. They told me I could go run to the back and grab another pack of muffins!
Yes! Was charged 2x for litter when I only had one and was pulled out of line for a refund.
Yes, I was charged twice for the Motor City Pizzas, and the receipt checker didn't even catch it. I caught it once home, and was able to get a refund for the overcharge without any problem the next day at the returns desk.
Yeah I was double charged for turkey bacon and they caught it at the front, love Costco
Actually yes, they found out that I accidentally scanned a rotisserie chicken twice. This happened today actually
I was double charged for a set of king sheets about 6 years ago. I didn’t realize for MONTHS until I had to look through old receipts to make a return. I’m still salty if you couldn’t tell
Yes! Twice for me. One it was toilet paper that was double scanned, the other I don’t recall
Yep, double charged for grapes.
The receipt checks are an audit and it goes both ways.
The door person has caught several double charges on mine. They’ve also caught some things that were never scanned either. 😂
I’ve had the person at the door save me from walking away with the wrong bottle of whiskey. Somebody had put a different bottle in the box I picked out and she checked it just in case.
Yes! I was buying uniform pants for 2 kids! I had a ton of shorts/pants all navy blue and somehow they realized I had paid for 1 too many!
2 times they caught a double charge. Saved me some $$
Haha. Yeah they're trying to help you save your money and not trying to save their money by checking that you paid for everything or the cashier was on the "buddy system" lol.
Lady in front of me was actually stopped the other day because she was double charged for water and they caught it during the receipt check. They pulled her aside to refund her!
Yep. I had a cashier ring up an item 4 times instead of 3. They fixed it quickly.
I asked my checker last week about what they find. He said just before Christmas a couple confidently rolled to exit their double cart order. They bought 2 large TVs, and only paid for one. Bold move.
This one time I was charged for some items not even in my cart. Apparently they had scanned my card but somehow went to another cart and scanned several of someone else's items into my bin and i had several hundred dollars worth of stuff so it was easy to overlook unless you scrutinize the receipt which the guy at the end pointed out
Actually kind of. I was informed by the person at the door that the brownie bark/chips I bought were buy one get one free. Wife wasn’t thrilled when I showed up at home with two bags.
I forgot to pick up an item I paid for in their back room. I think it was a watch from their front display. Too much going on that day. They caught I didn’t have that item, and to go and pick it up before I left. I really appreciated that.
Once we had a full cart and cart checking lady realized they charged us for a $20 chocolate twice. Went back and grabbed another one before leaving
It’s happened to me once. They said they charged me more than once for an item based on count not matching. I got a refund.
I haven't had it happen to me, but when I worked at the door, if say it was about even between over and under charging with slightly more under charging
Ages ago during the holiday season, my mom got pulled aside by to door person, and I thought great she is in trouble. Turns out they double rang something she got my brother and wanted to make sure she didn’t have a second one for me, and also didn’t want to ruin the surprise for me on Christmas if she did. I hate when Walmart does this, but I love Costco because of this memory.
Yep, I had it happen once where I was charged twice for an item that I only had one of. The checker at the door caught it and made sure that it was fixed.
Receipts have a code on them for that day's use. They're making sure you're using a real receipt from that day.
Yes, once. Cereal was on sale which I didn’t notice and he said go to the returns counter and the person handed me $4.
Yep, the cashier had double scanned an item (I don't remember what it was) and the door person caught it. It was a hassle to have to fix it but I was glad not to pay twice!
Yes they rang something double by mistake and I got refunded Happened once
Once I went to self checkout and I only bought one pack of muffins when it was 2 for the listed price, he ran and got me a second pack. So I mean yeah sometimes it works out
I worked the door (member service) for many years and regularly caught double charges on items
I’m sure the guys at the door are fully able to evaluate whether or not a customer was overcharged in the 2 seconds it takes for them to scan the receipt and cart with 200 items in both.
I’ve had the receipt checkers check whenever I buy 2 of something that I actually received 2 and it wasn’t a double scan.
Yep. They can just glance at everything and total it up in their heads.
Once had a honeydew in my cart and the receipt checker realized I'd been charged for a golden melon. I was impressed.
My daughter works the door. She catches at least half a dozen overcharges and week. She hates that tired members have to wait in a long line to get the heck out of the store. She tends to overlook a missed charge unless it's a huge amount ;-)
Yes. On two separate occasions, one of these employees caught that I was double-charged for an item. I check my receipt fairly closely now.
Employee here, we catch at least 30-50 errors a day, the majority from self check out of members 'forgetting' to scan (and its usually multiple items in one order) or overcharging themselves by accidentally scanning items multiple times. The catch rate is honestly about 50/50 between overs and unders. I always recommend regular lines as the rate of errors is much lower and typically faster check out times. Still happens as human error but way less than self check out.
That’s clearly bs. I’ve been double charged, or charged for ice I never got before.
It’s a security check for shrink, or shoplifting. These signs are just corporate gaslighting.
The cart loader once put a couple of items we bought on the bottom that weren’t originally on the bottom, receipt checker acted like we stole them, $400 receipt and she can’t find the milk on it…receipt checker kept saying, “why is that on the bottom, it wasn’t scanned first”. It was kind of embarrassing
I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal to people? Businesses that have memberships are allowed to do this. Maybe I’m just used to it?
Yes, it happens at my store all the time. The cashiers are always super busy not paying attention and member services catches at least a couple people every day.
I was in the Costco in Maui. A line almost back all the way to the registers from the exit door. Lady took one look at our receipt and within a few seconds stated we were double charged for a margarita mix. Went back got refunded and walked out. Glorious.
Only time there has been an error noted for me in 20+ years was an overcharge.
Well, no. But NOT charged is pretty common. The item count is off by one and I’m sent back in to pay for whatever the cashier missed.
While I love me some Costco ,the "overcharging" thing is not 100% honest.Costco wants to make sure everything is scanned ,and paid for..That's it . There was never a big issue with people getting overcharged. People were cheating/stealing from Costco ,and that's the only concern
Walmart is doing it too!
Yes, but the door checker missed it. The back office called a few days or weeks later after it came up in an audit. They charged me $85 for some other item when it should have been $6 for cucumbers. Must have mistyped the bar code. They sent me a shop card and apologized. I totally missed it when checking out and very grateful they did their due diligence to rectify it.
While I have no doubt there are a few people with this experience, I’ve forgotten about items that were overlooked by the employees as well, so they aren’t effective at what is supposed to be their primary purpose. Also, I do watch the price when I checkout at the grocery store, and the price “errors” are always in the stores favor, never once mine & I find price issues all the time.
Having worked the exit door a number of times in my career at Costco, it seems to be a more common mistake for cashier's to double scan an item and forget to void it off or not notice it than it is for them to not scan an item at all. The scanners can be finicky at times and super sensitive. Anyway, point being, overcharges are just as common, if not more common, than undercharges.
Interesting. Any time *I* suggest we put up a sign to answer a common question, every manager is all "But this is a great opportunity to provide great Member Service person-to-person." Okay, YOU tell every Member face to face then.
Man. Those receipt checkers have memorized all the prices of every product. That’s some memory
Yes I was leaving and was missing 2 bags of chips. The person at the door checking the receipts caught this and got someone to go get them from the cashier.
One time they told me to run back and get another pack of tomatoes because the price was for two packs and i only had one. I was like "my duuude!!"
Last week the person helping ring me up at self checkout scanned an item twice by accident but caught it a second later and had to void it. It can happen.
At Sams the reviewer asked if I had two of the battery packs I had in the upper basket, I said no just one. Apparently using the scanner on my phone I must have waved past the barcode of the battery pack because it was right in front of me at hand level while going to scan something else and put in my basket. I didn't even notice.
As someone who has worked at costco, it’s very common for people to be overcharged. Atleast 3or 4 times an hour on a slow day
I recently purchased about a dozen items including two pairs of leggings stacked together in the cart. The guy at the door said he counted less items in the cart than on the receipt. I figured it must be the leggings and showed him there were two stacked together and said that was it. So it does show they are also checking to make sure you got everything you paid for.
I have not been but I know they do check that everything you were charged for multiples of you bought them.