i haven't really uncovered any earth-shattering secrets about wal-mart. still, i thought it would be cool to relay some of the more interesting stuff that happens at the "world's largest company".

1) stealing is easy. getting caught would suck, but stealing is easy. cashiers have these training acronyms -- BOB and LISA that stand for "Bottom Of Basket" and "Look InSide Always" which means, check the bottom of the shopping cart for merchandise and open up any containers that come through to check for merchandise. we had a fake customer come through with a thermos full of dremel bits and shit, and a boxed coffee grinder packed with men's ties, and apparently all the cashiers did pretty horrible. if you don't put all your merchandise on the counter, the cashier might just plain forget to ring it through, and if you are stopped, you can play dumb and act like you thought the cashier *had* rung it through (especially if its a somewhat large item, then you can say you thought the cashier had seen it).

2) any decent counterfeit bill will get through. a cashier running the express lane with a line down the aisle is not going to stop to check every 10 dollar bill against a list of known counterfeits. when i went to the movie theatre last night, they had more security than we have at walmart, because they checked my $10 with a UV light to confirm authenticity. we don't have UV lights at walmart.

now, what they MIGHT do is check a videotape to see if they can identify the person who passed the counterfeit money. but, that's practically impossible because they have no idea which bills in the till came from which people in line, and the cameras practically look straight down at the lineup.

3) security tags on jeans are practically useless, as they can be ripped off in half a second. i started doing this with customer's new jeans, the stupid things wouldnt deactivate so i just started ripping them off. they're only attached with a few of those plastic doohickeys that usually attach brand labels to new jeans.

4) don't try to use counterfeit USA money in canada -- its standard procedure to get them checked out with one of those special pens that disappear if the bill is real or whatever. i guess this is because all canadian cashiers are retards and won't be able to identify counterfeit USA money.

6 i mean 5) the *best* scam to pull is to have a cashier scan your order except for one big-ticket item. not TOO big ticket because if it's a big box it might have a security tag in it that the cashier can miss. the reason this is a great scam is that it just isn't possible for them to check the receipts on every person leaving the store, so they have to rely on their cashiers being honest. because of the ease with which this scam could be pulled off, there is a policy that says cashiers cannot serve family or friends. the line is pretty fucking blurry on who could be considered a "friend", heh. as with any theft, if you go overboard, you will be caught. if they notice that merchandise has been disappearing more-than-usual, they might start a rat hunt.

6) an item is useless without a barcode. completely fucking useless. we don't even have a "quantity" button at my store, and we can't type in barcodes manually. this is why walmart is scared of that site called re-code.com or whatever, because it fucks over their entire system. half the time, the cashier doesnt even look at the barcode, so they wont see if its just a sticker you put on, and if it is, a lot of the merchandise has barcode stickers on it because of store specials or wahtever. printing out a bunch of barcodes for your purchases is like printing out your own coupons if you know which barcodes will drop the prices of what merchandise. i can practically guarantee the cashiers will not notice, they are slaves to whatever the computer system tells them the price is.

A friend of a friend used to work at the supermarket near our university and they had a scam to steal stuff. My friend would go in at a prearranged time when his friend would be on the checkout. He'd then do his normal shopping but also pick up some extra items they had decided beforehand. He'd go to the checkout and the guy would scan all the items through, then simply cancel the extra ones.

They didn't steal massive amounts of stuff, although I remember one time they stole a catering pack of meat worth £50.

Posted by Jon R from 213.107.224.6 @ 05/08/2003 04:48 AM CST

see i dont understand that part of the scam.. why would you scan them, then cancel them? why not just miss scanning them.

if i try to cancel an item worth more than $50, i have to call my supervisor for an override and explain what happened.

Posted by mewse from 24.76.13.157 @ 05/08/2003 12:24 PM CST

You know your life is going places when... you steal meat.

Posted by Afterglow from 24.42.72.116 @ 05/08/2003 01:51 PM CST

heh, i knew a guy that worked at a grocery store and when he was out of money he'd go around the store with a bag near closing time and get whatever he wanted then stash it out in the back, then when he was going home he'd snag it. pretty sneaky

Posted by ryan from 207.6.74.68 @ 05/08/2003 09:15 PM CST

dear lord.

A catering packet of vegetables, though...

Posted by Jon from 81.26.112.119 @ 05/10/2003 05:15 AM CST