The extremely wealthy aren't going to steal from self-checkout because they either shop in stores that lack it or they have employees who do their shopping for them.
Rich people are more likely to steal from self-checkout. Why?
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Re: Rich people are more likely to steal from self-checkout. Why?
#12When the self checkout machine refuses to scan my item. I am very likely to just steal it. Consider it a payment for my wasted time and doing the work that used to be handled by the cashier.
Look at the bright side, prison time can be an investment
Re: Rich people are more likely to steal from self-checkout. Why?
#13This entire article is based on a self report study of 5,000 people. Self report studies are usually unreliable and never tell a clear story.
In this case, literally all the study can show is that wealthier respondents self-report having knowingly stolen from self checkout. Is this because they are the most likely to do it? Or are they more likely to tell the truth on a survey, maybe if they feel less insecure in their daily life? We don't know if they actually stole, is it possible that the numbers are inflated when the wealthy respondents for some reason say they had stolen when they hadn't?
Self report studies have a use and can be helpful to find potential correlations worth properly studying, but taking a self report study and blowing it up into an article like this is irresponsible journalism in my opinion.
Re: Rich people are more likely to steal from self-checkout. Why?
#14[dead]
Re: Rich people are more likely to steal from self-checkout. Why?
#15When the self checkout machine refuses to scan my item. I am very likely to just steal it. Consider it a payment for my wasted time and doing the work that used to be handled by the cashier.
I think this is an underappreciated reason. Stores have shifted their labor onto the consumers, which ostensibly keeps their costs down, but since it's happening at a time costs are rising, nobody's going to notice if the costs are really rising more slowly.
If you're wealthy, it feels a bit like a subsidy of other people's groceries. You do the work so everyone can have low prices (or at least prices that rise slower), but if you don't care about lower prices, it's an imposition.
Or at least all that would be true were it not for the fact that there are other options to pay money for time. At my grocery store, the fee for having them do the shopping and scanning for you and bring it out to your car is a whopping $3. I can have someone bring it all the way to the front door of my house for a $10 fee and a $5 tip.
It's a long way from required that I waste my time at the self-checkout.
Re: Rich people are more likely to steal from self-checkout. Why?
#16When the self checkout machine refuses to scan my item. I am very likely to just steal it. Consider it a payment for my wasted time and doing the work that used to be handled by the cashier.
I think this is an underappreciated reason. Stores have shifted their labor onto the consumers, which ostensibly keeps their costs down, but since it's happening at a time costs are rising, nobody's going to notice if the costs are really rising more slowly. If you're wealthy, it feels a bit like a subsidy of other people's groceries. You do the work so everyone can have low prices (or at least prices that rise slowe…
[deleted]
Re: Rich people are more likely to steal from self-checkout. Why?
#17There's also the "bundling". I once stole 3 beers accidentally. 4 bottles of beer were bound together with a cardboard piece at the top.
As it turns out, there's a barcode on the carboard. BUT there's also barcodes on the bottles.
So what happened? I swooshed the 4 bottles of beer in front of the self-checkout scanner. It beeped. Of course, it beeped because it scanned a barcode on one of the bottles, not the one on the cardboard bundler thing. 1 beer bottle was charged, not a set of 4 of them.
I did not realize until I got home. And I've had bad experiences with this, so sorry, I'm not going back.
So yeah, I think there's definitely a decent percentage of "fuck this self-scanning shit", especially when an item presents you with difficulties or subtleties when it needs to be scanned at the self-checkout.
Re: Rich people are more likely to steal from self-checkout. Why?
#18I fantasize about stealing something everytime I get one of these “Unknown item in bagging area” errors forcing me to wait for an attendant to come clear the error. What did I breathe too hard on the scale? The sheer nerve of the retailer both making me do their work and having less than zero trust in me is too much.
Re: Rich people are more likely to steal from self-checkout. Why?
#19This entire article is based on a self report study of 5,000 people. Self report studies are usually unreliable and never tell a clear story. In this case, literally all the study can show is that wealthier respondents self-report having knowingly stolen from self checkout. Is this because they are the most likely to do it? Or are they more likely to tell the truth on a survey, maybe if they feel less insecure in the…
I accidentally stole a drink once because I forgot to scan it, and didn’t realize it until I got to my car. I’m also of income and age that would admit this. It really depends on what question they ask. But ya, self reported surveys are unreliable and can’t be used as real data in even the social sciences.
If I can’t actually scan something, I just hit the help button and it gets taken care of. Not sure what is going on with this question.
Re: Rich people are more likely to steal from self-checkout. Why?
#20Back in the 1990s Sainsburys (a UK Supermarket) had a version of self checkout where you had special trolleys and big boxes you took home and put in your car and a hand scanner you walked around and scanned items with. You then took that to a till designated for it and they had an algorithm for when to rescan people. The idea people most of the time till time was very short and it was just payment. Usually people got checked on the first few goes and if items were found that hadn't been scanned then more rescans would appear in the future. It was meant to drop down to about 1 in 20 for rescan.
Within about a year the entire thing collapsed. Almost everyone was caught stealing expensive stuff like nappies and especially alcohol and the algorithm had the system rescanning almost everyone everytime and rescans took longer than people just putting the items on the conveyor belt. The few people who used it honestly found themselves in long queues behind people who stole due to the rescans and the attempt to save supermarket labour ended up costing much more.
Given that happened it amazes me we have the self checkout systems we do now. There is an obvious and clear trade off where people will use self checkout to take items without paying for them however you choose to organise it. As a business they have to decide if those loses pay off compared to the staff cost.