Cookaholics Bulletin Board

So, I was giving some thought to this post: viewtopic.php?p=24478#p24478

... and wondering. I mean, I loathe the self-checker machines (both from a personal and labor perspective), and try to avoid them whenever possible. However, it occurs to me that they offer an opportunity for systematically discounting your own groceries. For example, what's to keep me from buying vine-ripe tomatoes and ringing them up as yellow onions? Or organic basil as lettuce? Shitake mushrooms as regular mushrooms? I could be saving a lot of money here.

Anyone you know cheat the self-checker machines regularly?

I love the self checkers. Seriously love them. We just go them recently. Of course we don't have anyone bagging our groceries so that it cuts out a couple steps. We also have to weigh our own fruits and veg. They do spot checks but I guess if you wanted to beat the system you could. I was raised Catholic so residual guilt would make my head explode upon exiting the store.

Mary

Cheating the machines is one name for it. Shoplifting is another. Easy enough to do if one is so inclined, but I would be willing to bet that security cameras are watching.

I happen to like self check out, but Home Depot is the only place that I see them.

The only thing I do to "cheat" them is when there is a limit of 4, FI, on a sale item, so I just ring up 2 orders for myself. The old way, I would just go out to the car, come back in, and get another order!

Where I shop the self-check machines are in a bank of six, supervised by a single store employee. Any time anything os placed on the scale it goes in view of a small camera. The employees' console has a view of what all six cameras see.

The most you might get away with is organic produce for the price of plain-old pesticide-laden stuff.

BTW, I'm a fan of self-checkout even at the hardware store.

Honesty? The law?

Karma?

The self-checkers are also programmed with weights so if you try to ring up a watermelon as cilantro, it will alert the employee who is monitoring the checkout due to the weight mismatch. That would apply with some, but of course not all, items. I suppose I could get away with cheating, but it goes against my principles. But I must confess, I let the checkout girl ring up leeks as green onions once.

I guess I am lazy, but I hate the self checkers. I also prefer to have someone else do the bagging. Maybe a remnant of when by brother was a bag boy. I've used them but only if I only have one item. Usually I have coupons or buy 2 get 2 free and the like and I am afraid it will mess up. DD uses them all the time.

Cheating, no way, I am the type that if they give me change for a 20 when I've given them the a 10, I tell them and give it back. I've noticed the folks behind me give me this "she has 2 heads look" when I've done that. Must be that Catholic upbringing as the Jesuits say, give me a child until they are 8 and they will be mine for life, so i guess it is true.

Not really. The store has already chosen to lay off a bunch of checkers and bring in expensive imported self-checking machines instead. They've abrogated any moral right they might have to fair payment from me. The reason I personally don't take a self-checker discount is that saving $6 isn't worth the risk of getting caught, however small. But I can hope that enough ripoff artists take advantage of the self-checkers to make the grocery chains abandon them.