The security practices used by Walmart may not actually be a legal requirement.
Most customers stop for Walmart’s receipt checkers without protest, but they are not required by law to do so.
A KHOU-TV reporter confirmed this information with Officer Wayne Thompson of the Ford Bend County 3rd Precinct.
“There is no law (criminal law) that allows a store to ask for a receipt,” Thompson told KHOU-TV. “You can walk past it if you like.”
But KHOU-TV legal analyst Gerald Treece said a Texas law called shopkeeper’s privilege blurs the line between what’s legal and what’s illegal in this case.
KHOU-TV reports that store owner privilege allows stores to detain shoplifting suspects for a limited period of time if they have probable cause.
While failure to provide an employee with a receipt is not sufficient cause for disciplinary action, it can aggravate other allegations by the retailer and could lead to detention.
Treece said customers are not legally required to provide receipts at Walmart in Texas, but they are required to provide receipts at Sam’s Club and Costco.
The reason is that these stores require membership registration to use their own terms and services. When a customer signs these store terms and services, they agree to provide a receipt.
Retail store employees are checking receipts to reduce theft, which is proving to be a big problem among retail giants this year.
According to data from the Criminal Justice Council, cases classified as felonies related to retail theft increased from 6.6% in January 2019 to 15.1% in January 2023.
In fact, major grocery drug stores and other retailers have cited shoplifting as a reason to close multiple stores, going so far as to place merchandise in locked cases behind the counter, the Criminal Justice Council reported. ing.
Verifying receipts not only helps reduce theft, but also helps keep cashiers in check.
“We do this to double-check that your purchase was processed correctly by our cashier,” Costco said on its website. “This is the most effective way to maintain inventory accuracy and is also a good way to ensure members are properly charged for their purchases.”
Although presenting a receipt is an easy and painless process, some customers are dissatisfied with this step.
Employees at the retail giant have taken to TikTok to film confrontations with customers who don’t comply.