I stole from Home Depot!

[Roy Smith]

Went to the local HD yesterday to pick up a bunch of sandpaper and a few

5/16" and 3/8" bolts I needed. Found what I wanted and decided to speed things up by going to the self-checkout line. Bad move.

The sandpaper scanned fine, but I was at a loss how to deal with the bolts.

4 @ $0.13 and 4 @ $.14, IIRC. No bar code, no obvious way to enter them into the system. I futzed around a bit while several sales droid types hung out and observed the chaos.

Eventually, I found a screen that said something like "press here to summon help", which I did. Still no assistance from the droids was forthcomming. Finally, in desperation, I just dropped the bolts into my bag, which immediately generated a message that the weight of my bag didn't match what I had scanned, and that I should remove the extra items from the bag. Still no assistance-droids.

Some more futzing, and the machine prompted me to swipe my credit card. A droid came over, helpfully showed me how to swipe it, and watched me complete the transaction.

Sigh. I walked out the door with my $11 or so worth of paid-for sandpaper, plus (by my calculations), $1.08 worth of hex-head bolts, shamelessly absconded with. What's a customer to do?

[Clint]

Ummmm... Couple quick options:

1) Wave your arm to attract the attention of the "sales droids" 2) Talk to the "sales droid" when it comes over to help you with the credit card transaction 3) Cancel the transaction, and walk all the way over to the regular tills.

It's only a dollar's worth of items, so I doubt that HD is going to go broke over it. But the fact that you couldn't scan the items in is not really an excuse for not paying for them, IMHO.

Clint

[TeamCasa]

Pay them - on your next visit. Next time, ask for help or better yet, shop at a place that has better customer service. Dave

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[Bill]

I have done this three times at both Lowes and HD. Hollar at the top of your voice, "Your stupid machine does not work." I guarantee, you will get their attention and some service. The short embarrasment on you part is well worth seeing their shocked faces. Since everybody knows that what you said is true, they all laugh with you, not at you.

Bill in WNC mountains

[Mekon]

I once stood in a store waiting for a salesperson for way too long. I eventually whipped oput my mobile phone called the store and explained the problem. Inside of 60 sec I helpful person was speeding toward me. YMMV

Mekon

[Steve DeMars]

Well here in the south, our droids run on extremely low power at all times . . . usually they are the ones to throw it in the bag and say don't worry about . . . They to are tired of begging for "price check at register" so and so . . . I left with 14 Simpson straps a few days ago this way .

At Office Depot, after "pitching a bitch" about no one at the check out counters for over 15 minutes . . . a manager simply walked up and started pushing my flat cart with a folding table and a case of paper out the door to my truck . . . loaded it, apologized and ask me to come again . . . no money ever changed hands . . . .

Steve

[Randy]

I was once given about thirty dollars of pipe by a Home Desperate manager.

I went in and bought four, ten-foot lengths of pipe for pipe clamps, had them cut into three pieces (2, 3 and 5-feet long), and threaded on both ends of all the peices. They give you one threading for free, and charge for any more. The drone in plumbing didn't know how to write up the ticket for the extra cuts and threading, so we walked up front to talk to someone else, who also had no clue. They called another cluless droid, who called another, who called another, who called another... ...over the course of twenty minutes every droid in the store had come up and tried something but none of their somethings had worked. Finally the manager came up front to see what all the calls were about. He tried a couple of things, neither of which worked. Finally he looked over at me and asked, "How long have you been standing here while we have been trying to figure this out?"

When I told him it was pushing a half hour, he told me he was sorry for my inconveniance, and to take the pipe and leave. I was back in the store a week later, and there were prices and codes for the extra cut and thread fees posted next to the machines.

I thought about writing a letter to corporate, to let them know how much I appreciated being treated right, but thought better of it. I figure they would probably fire him for it.

[John Emmons]

Heehee...I did the same thing at a Home Depot once, called the manager and asked him why he wasn't running one of the cash registers since the lines weren't moving and there were no cashiers to be found, amazingly, after I hung up, he found some employees to put to work.

One other time I called and asked the manager on-duty why she had someone who was basically incompetent stopping every customer at the door and demanding to see their reciepts, told her as I had told the employee that I thought I had stolen something to call the police.

I refuse to stop and have my belongings gone thru by drones.

John

[Joe]

The lags have a code ---usually 3 letters like....AAG....on the head. That code needs to be entered into the system X the count.

If I were you I would just go back and pay. I once bought a bunch of pipes and fittings. When I got home I realized that I had screwed one piece to another and left it that way at checkout. The lady just scanned one item. The next time I went back I just brought the item with me and told the the story and paid for it. If you don't pay for it you're a thief. If I'm going to be a thief it should be BIG money..not some lags, etc

[Guess who]

1. Be honest.

1. Don't waste our time with this childrish drivel. Get a life.

[Swingman]

You're right. They say everyman has his price ... but a buck eight?

[David]

Do you make excuses for inaccurate income tax returns too? Do you claim that there was no IRS agent available to help you fill out the forms correctly?

Dave

[Brian Henderson]

You have absolutely no legal obligation to do so and shouldn't. Once you purchase something and they take your payment, you own the item and have no obligation whatsoever to show it to anyone, any more than you can demand the drone empty their pockets for you.

I've had some of them being very insistant, but I ignore them. It's funny to see some of them running out into the parking lot after me yelling "I have to see your receipt".

No you don't. You *WANT* to see it, you don't have to.

Wal-mart has gotten sued over this and has lost every time. They have no right whatsoever to demand to see anything. They can ask, you can decline. They cannot stop you and frankly, I'd love to see one of them try, my lawyer wouldn't mind picking up some free and easy money for me.

[gfretwell]

Find something in your bag that weighs about the same, roughly the same price (if you are honest) and scan it again. That works with a bag full of stuff but only a couple items can be a problem

[Jay Pique]

I was at the local Napa today to get an airfilter, and told the guy that I owed the store $1.26 for a couple of plastic license plate nuts and machine screws. He remembered the transaction, said thanks for coming back to pay, and looked genuinely pleased to have had me come in. That's just gravy for me. The real payoff is the satisfaction and peace of mind I get from doing the right thing.

JP

***************************** The soapbox is yours.

[Dave Balderstone]

I'll drink to that.

Happy Birthday, Larry!

[Larry Blanchard]

Sonce today was my birthday (69) I went for a nice lunch at a local microbrewery. Along with a very good fettucine with portobello mushrooms and chunks of prime rib, I had a pint of stout and a pint of dunkel. They forgot to charge for the stout. I told the waitress I wasn't going to cheat someone on my birthday, and she said the stout would be a birthday present. Good feelings all around.

BTW, the pints inspired me to compose the following bit of verse.

Here's to the brew you can't see through, Black as a witch's cat. If the porter runs out I'll switch to stout, Straight from the brewers tap.

[Al]

They can legaly check your bags/carts from the store and verify your receipt at least in Oregon. Never had HD or Lowes do it mostly Frys Electronics and Walmart.

Al

[CW]

They can legally do it anywhere, if you let them.

[John Emmons]

I find that very hard to believe. Once I pay for something, I own the property. No one has the legal right to search my belongings without reasonable suspicion that I've done something illegal. If the police can't do it, I doubt very seriously that a drone working for WalMart or Home Depot can. When I say that they "can't" obviously if they're willing to make it into a physical confrontation they can, but not legally and certainly not without my sueing them and winning and possibly filing criminal charges against them for battery.

Stores and their employee's don't enjoy any more legal rights to search or detain citizens than any other business.

John