Thousands of grocery stores in the United States and Canada have installed self-checkout machines, in order to streamline the waiting lines to pay, and at the same time make the shopping experience more modern and pleasant. Self-checkout machines are automated systems that allow customers to scan, bag, and pay for their own groceries without assistance from a cashier. The opinions are divided: some people love them, some others hate them, but problems are starting to pop up all over the nation, with thousands of problems and complaints.
A customer identified as Christy Phillippe went to buy some things at the store and decided to check the purchase total before paying. At that same moment, she found something strange in the total, but she was in a hurry and just inserted her card to move on. What a mistake she made by not taking a minute for that.
Your Store’s Self-Checkout Machines May Be Charging You More
“I knew, when it rang up, it was $109,” commented Phillippe. “In my mind, I was like, that’s a lot for just what I got. But I was in a hurry, so I paid it.” She still had doubts so, before leaving the store, she decided to check why the machine was charging her such a little fortune. “I looked at my receipt, and at the top of the receipt, there were probably like 15 items that were not mine,” said Phillippe. “And I was like, what is going on?”
And here’s the real problem: supermarket employees told him that this had been happening to other customers recently. In other words, the machines have a design error that creates these errors for customers. What is the mistake that machines make?
This is what’s happening: Some people go to the machine and scan their items, and some of them just go away without paying, leaving the list of items to pay open. The next person just arrives to the machine and start scanning their own items, without checking that some products have already been scanned. So, they wind up paying for the other person’s items, explained Phillipe.
What Should You Do to Avoid This?
This costumer and TikToker recommended all the shoppers to take their time and make a review on the machine, to confirm that the total is on zero, or the starting point. “Make sure there are no items on there before you start scanning, because that seems to be something,” Phillippe added. “What people will do, they’ll just scan, scan, scan, and walk out, and then those items are still there. So make sure those items are not there before you start scanning your own stuff.”
It’s also recommendable to take a minute to check that the items in the receipt you’ve just paid correspond with what you are actually taking in your tote bags.