Some Walmart employees say customers are getting hostile at self-checkout — and they blame anti-theft tech

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 544 points –
Some Walmart employees say customers are getting hostile at self-checkout — and they blame anti-theft tech
businessinsider.com

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.

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No we just care less about theft. The German ones are build to maximace speed and therefore usability. This theoretically makes it rather easy to steal.

If this would become to much of a problem they would also reduce comfort to increase security

In Finland, we've been getting handheld scanners in a few shops where you scan and pack while you shop, and then pay everything at once. The "theft prevention" is very infrequent random checks where they ask to rescan three items to see if you paid for them.
It feels like stealing would become really common, but it's been a few years and they are just installing more of em, so I guess not.

We are talking about Earth, not about Finland. We are still lightyears apart.

The supermarket I use here in the UK has an app that uses my phone's camera to scan the barcodes on items. Same as the handset, but I don't have to pick up a handset that's been handled by another disgusting human.

As a rule, it'll only trigger a "Quality Check" if a couple of products don't scan first time. Then it'll trigger a check for the next couple of shopping trips. Assuming I didn't miss anything, after that it'll settle down and almost never require any verification unless I've bought age restricted items.

If I'm doing any weekly shopping, I will always use the app, because it's SO MUCH QUICKER.

Is it really? I imagine, paying a Person for every checkout must be way more expensive than some higher theft rate.

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