Costco is great for many reasons: free samples, a pretty quick checkout process, major discounts, pizza, etc. But there is one thing that is perhaps a little bizarre, and that is the employees posted at the exits like sentries, constantly checking customers’ receipts at the door.
If you’ve been to Costco, you know the drill: They grab that receipt from your hand, scan it, then take a marker to it. It makes you feel a little under scrutiny like you’re some kind of shoplifter. But that’s actually not the case.
In fact, the Costco policy for the receipt rundown isn’t at all to try and pick out potential shoplifters from the crowd. In reality, it’s quite the opposite. According to the Wall St. Watchdog, they’re trying to make sure that the company isn’t “stealing” from their customers!
In other words, the employees checking results are just verifying that the customers haven’t been overcharged for their purchases. For example, someone with two tubes of beef jerky might have anciently been charged for three. By having an employee check the receipt and do a quick cart scan to verify that everything is correct and a customer hasn’t been accidentally charged for a non-existent pack of toilet paper.
And yes, technically if someone were to try and sneak a laptop past the exit without a receipt then it would be caught. But the main reason isn’t loss prevention but more customer satisfaction.
In fact, according to Reddit and Quora, some employees off the record have said that if you do accidentally bring an item through that you haven’t paid for yet, their immediate assumption is it’s a mix up of the cashier just not properly scanning the item rather than jumping to the conclusion that the customer is a thief. And that is nice to hear!
In fact, most theft that occurs in Costco doesn’t occur at the front door. But instead, there are theft incidents like the Seattle Costco where thieves stole some laptops by running out the back door. And there was another incident at Alpharetta, Georgia, where thrives broke in after-hours and smashed a jewelry case where they managed to steal $10,000 worth of jewelry.
Did you know the real reason why the receipts are checked? Let us know!