I didn't think it would take very long! You held out almost a fortnight. Hope your wait at the DMV is tolerable.
It's by appointment and was super easy - got permanent in the mail already.
State-specific, but may explain @Dicey 's position a bit: in CA, there is either case law or statute that says stores do not have the right to see the receipt of everyone who exits. They should only be stopping those that they have some reason to suspect are shoplifting.
That's kind of funny, because I had several people visiting from CA who said their Walmart checks everyone before they leave and were surprised that I didn't ask for their receipts.
I only checked people:
- who had expensive items in their cart (the problem being that I don't exactly know what's expensive/not, so sometimes I messed up and checked a person who had a $12 iron, and inevitably missed someone who had Airpods stuffed in their purse),
- who came from the store and not the register area (this is where the vast majority of shoplifters I observed tried to leave the store),
- who set off the alarm,
- who was flagged by the cashier as suspicious.
I also asked anyone who had items on the bottom of their cart if they remembered to scan them - if they said yes, I didn't check the receipt. Surprisingly, I had one person who said "I don't know", incidentally, I couldn't find the item on their receipt, so they left it. I had a few people who had forgotten and were more than happy to go back and pay for their items. I approached this as "trying to help" because I had several people return to the store to pay for items they realized they didn't scan when they got back to their car.
My worst experience was a woman with a handful of shit who I did not stop - just smiled and said have a nice day. But, she set off the anti-theft alarm. I had to ask to see her receipt, that is not a grey area. I held her shit while she fished her receipt out of her pocket. Handed her stuff back, checked the receipt - she had paid for an ink cartridge but the anti-theft device was not removed. I said she could leave since I verified she had paid or have it removed, and she marched over to the man who checked her out and bitched at him for forgetting to remove it. She dropped her stuff (she didn't want it to touch the floor because "you know how nasty it is") and was very upset at everyone. Called me and the cashier the rudest people she's ever met. I just let her rant, and apologized for the mistake. But seriously lady, you would have left in a MUCH better mood if you had just sprung for a goddamned 78 cent bag to hold your shit. ORRR instead of leaving your empty cart at the register for the cashier to deal with, wheel the goddamned thing to your car.
Honestly, the bag situation was the worst. I might have lasted longer if Walmart had allowed customers to pay 10 cents for plastic bags.
FYI, Plan B sets of the alarm. I hated working the "General Merchandise" door - everyone *says* it's easier, but people going to the pharmacy buy OTC stuff that I then have to check because they aren't coming from the register area [I ignored any prescription medications, we don't check those]. So, I checked lots of "hidden" condoms and pregnancy tests that I really didn't want to check. And the Plan B that set off the alarm. Sorry dude.
