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Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

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Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#281

Post by fc417fc802 »

Aurornis wrote: post #238
rationalist wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any lawyers here? > wait for you to do it repeatedly until it adds up to enough for a felony instead of just a misdemeanor Isn't there a concept in the legal system where you have to mitigate damages even if you're the victim? I can't think of the example off the top of my head that Steve Lehto (consumer lawyer on YouTube gave). I'm guessing people who steal from the stores aren't able to afford a decent lawyer, but…

> why didn't you stop him after the first theft? Why did you keep letting him steal? Enforcement goes to the police. Stores can't apprehend thieves. There is a lot of training for store employees to not try to engage the thieves because some can behave erratically and dangerously when they feel like they're caught. You can tell someone they need to stop and pay for merchandise, but if they choose to keep walking ther…

Well they can apprehend thieves but they choose not to because it has the potential to go poorly or result in bad PR. That's a modern trend though - 50 years ago they were happy to have private security do the job.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#282

Post by fn-mote »

toast0 wrote: post #270
lmm wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather scan stuff myself than awkwardly hover while someone else does it. What's the point of paying (directly or indirectly) for another human's labour if it doesn't save me time?

Many self-checkout stations are setup to be slower than a skilled cashier. So it can save time to have them do it.

Sure, but I deliberately choose my grocery store to increase the probability of having an actually skilled cashier. And I’ve never had a skilled bagger, including excellent cashiers. Doing it right is worth some of my time.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#283

Post by ssl-3 »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #279
ssl-3 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police may not care about stealing fifty dollars worth of steaks one time by entering a PLU of 4011 and declaring them to be bananas. It's hard to prove, and even if everyone takes the time to prove it: Then what? A misdemeanor? But at some point, they do start to care. Stealing fifty dollars worth of steaks on 20 different occasions (every couple of weeks, say), with video and transaction evidence of the acts happen…

There will be video either way though. They'll either have security footage of you walking out the door without paying or they'll have security footage of you "paying". The only important variables here (AFAICT) are the likelihood of getting noticed coupled with the frequency of the act.

They're different risk profiles.

When a thief takes a steak from the cooler and walks out the door, they don't know who that person is. And while they may have video of parts of this, they don't necessarily see enough to prosecute. (Acting like you're stealing a steak but not actually doing it isn't a crime. Shoplifting can be hard to prove; part of that proof means demonstrating that they didn't change their mind and just drop off the steak somewhere else in the store.)

When a thief takes a steak from the cooler and walks it up to self-checkout and pays for it as if it is a bunch of bananas with their credit card, they have identified that person. They have them on video at the self-checkout committing this crime.

It actually doesn't matter much if they leave the store with their bounty or not in this second case. The crime is already done by converting the steak into bananas.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#284

Post by gustavus »

recursive wrote: post #245
lamasery wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd probably be happier about self-checkout if I had previously been expected to tip checkers.

Customers are paying their wages either way.

I've always felt this is an absurd statement. Yes customers are paying the wages of the people working at the store, that's literally how basic exchange of goods and services has worked forever.

Like what is the alternative? Businesses sell things they sell those things for more than they make and then they use that money to pay people to work for them. People agree to work for them expecting they will be paid primarily from the money made by the business saling things to customers.

Like what is the alternative businesses pay their employees from some magic pool of money that you get the key too when you file articles of incorporation?

At the end of the day the customer is always paying the wages of the employees, that's literally how it worked since ever. Which is honestly an improvement where the local lord would take 30% of whatever you grew and in exchange would give you diddly and squat.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#285

Post by InexSquirrel »

bpoyner wrote: post #76
compton93 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's crazy. But coming from someone who wrote a book on retail fraud and worked as a retail fraud analyst for several years... you could have just walked straight out with those items. Transacting was your way of leaving a calling card for the investigators/analysts to find you... You stole regardless of how you did it.

That's _bananas_.

But definitely not nuts.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#286

Post by jojobas »

ssl-3 wrote: post #235
data-ottawa wrote: post #203

I’m very surprised here. I worked in retail many years, including doing store shelf tear downs and replacement and night shift stocking. Back in the day we would get our planograms from HQ, then we’d print out all the labels on perforated paper, and walk the shelves moving product and updating the price tags, throwing out the old. The epaper tags are very clearly an improvement to that process in both time and waste.…

It doesn't really change anything. Previously, a criminal could just print their own shelf tags. They'd probably do this somewhere other than in the store to get the details right, but it was doable. (We've all probably seen rolls of blank shelf tags sitting around at the store, and thermal printers are inexpensive. So what if it's two crimes instead of one?) And then, in the store, they could just switch out the she…

>It doesn't really change anything.

Yes it does, unlike before, a shits-and-giggles attacker could change all the tags in an aisle into "you're gay" without showing anything on surveillance cameras.

He wouldn't gain anything but the store would lose.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#287

Post by fc417fc802 »

ssl-3 wrote: post #283
fc417fc802 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There will be video either way though. They'll either have security footage of you walking out the door without paying or they'll have security footage of you "paying". The only important variables here (AFAICT) are the likelihood of getting noticed coupled with the frequency of the act.

They're different risk profiles. When a thief takes a steak from the cooler and walks out the door, they don't know who that person is. And while they may have video of parts of this, they don't necessarily see enough to prosecute. (Acting like you're stealing a steak but not actually doing it isn't a crime. Shoplifting can be hard to prove; part of that proof means demonstrating that they didn't change their mind an…

In principle I agree with you but in practice I feel like this really misses the reality of the situation. If it was an isolated incident at an isolated store in the mid 90s I think you'd be right. But presumably the thief makes a habit of this (otherwise why worry), it's likely a major chain with centrally coordinated loss prevention, the thief has presumably made a legitimate purchase from this chain at some point in the past and will again at some point in the future, and facial recognition is a thing.

In that scenario it seems to me that the best the thief can do is to "accidentally" ring up a steak as bananas occasionally and hope that if someone ever takes note that the past events will remain undetected.

That said, I'm pretty sure all of the self checkouts I've interacted with over the past several years would automatically flag such a "mistake". There are some things they're still bad at and they generate plenty of false positives but they seem to be reasonably good at identifying obvious "errors".

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#288

Post by F7F7F7 »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #275

A lot of discussion about self-checkout fraud, but these tags are only for shoppers' convenience and don't control pricing - One tag goes in front of that SKU on display so you can see the price. At checkout, a barcode or plain old paper tag / printed barcode on the item itself gets scanned and that's where the price is looked up.

You've never been to a grocery store and had something incorrectly 'rung up'? It's happened to me more than a few times and I've never had a problem getting a "price check" and having the item adjusted according to the shelf label.

It's typically in-store policy.

Is Best Buy going to let you walk with a $10 Sony FX3 camera? Probably not. Are they going to fight you over a $10 difference in posted vs look up? Probably not.

From what I remember Connecticut laws used to require retailers to charge the lowest advertised and/or physically labeled price.

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#289

Post by ButlerianJihad »

JCTheDenthog wrote: post #162
conductr wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The visual risk of walking out without paying is much greater than the risk that anyone actually investigates AND tries to track him down for it. Back when I was a kid it was common to still just have simple price tag stickers on every single item. We’d pull off a cheap sticker and put it on an expensive item. If they noticed, we’d just shrug and say “oh Nevermind then” when they found the right price. The only probl…

A year or two ago I had a cashier ring up my zucchini as cucumbers because he apparently couldn't tell the difference. Young guy, looked barely 18. I have no idea if he overcharged or undercharged me as a result, but I didn't care enough to point it out because he seemed like the type who would have needed 20 minutes to figure out how to change it (or would have needed to call down a manager for help) and I didn't wa…

I've had dates like that

Re: Edit store price tags using Flipper Zero

#290

Post by ssl-3 »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #287
ssl-3 wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're different risk profiles. When a thief takes a steak from the cooler and walks out the door, they don't know who that person is. And while they may have video of parts of this, they don't necessarily see enough to prosecute. (Acting like you're stealing a steak but not actually doing it isn't a crime. Shoplifting can be hard to prove; part of that proof means demonstrating that they didn't change their mind an…

In principle I agree with you but in practice I feel like this really misses the reality of the situation. If it was an isolated incident at an isolated store in the mid 90s I think you'd be right. But presumably the thief makes a habit of this (otherwise why worry), it's likely a major chain with centrally coordinated loss prevention, the thief has presumably made a legitimate purchase from this chain at some point…

I mean, eventually the people working there would take notice. "Oh, look. Banana Man is doing it again." :)

That said: I've never, ever weighed meat at self checkout. In fact, I've never had a cashier any weigh meat, either.

I've bought plenty of steaks in regular grocery stores, but each of those steaks (even the ones that they wrapped in butcher paper just for me after I selected them from the glass case at the back of the store) had the weight coded into the UPC that was printed at the time it was wrapped up (and weighed by the meat cutter).

There has no further weighing required for the register to know the price, so weighing a steak at the checkout is pretty bizarro-world behavior to begin with -- at least in my experience.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Product_Code#Number_...

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