Walmart self-checkout mistake destroys Olympic athlete's career
https://boingboing.net/2024/09/25/walmart-self-checkout-mistake-destroys-olympic-athletes-career.htmlOpen linkView original on lemmy.dbzer0.comSyndicated from the fediverse. Read and engage on the original instance.
View original on lemmy.dbzer0.comhttps://boingboing.net/2024/09/25/walmart-self-checkout-mistake-destroys-olympic-athletes-career.htmlOpen linkView original on lemmy.dbzer0.com
154 replies
Also, fuck the media in the US. They won't hesitate to smear your full name and photo all over the country before anything's even proven.
Just shows how rotten the USA is. For a mistake that's not even hers and probably a trivial amount of money, nobody even hesitates to destroy her live.
If she knew she scanned the items, there was no THC in the vapes, and the pills weren't hers, why did she resign? And then why didn't the university take her back after the truth was revealed? And why wouldn't they have forcefully defended her by showing the evidence that she committed no crime? We better find a way to push back against the power of the Internet to create these conditions.
Basically it is almost always easier to side with the abuser than to side with the abused and the victim.
because PR.
your employer isn't interested in truth and justice, they are interested in avoiding bad PR.
the same reason that anyone who gets a false charges basically has their life ruined, nobody wants to associate with the association of crime, even if you are proven innocent, the fact you were charged at all makes you guilty in the court of public opinion. and pushing back, just makes you look more guilty.
Well, Walmart's getting a lawsuit.
They should have checked the self scan footage first. Police made an unreasonable search. Carrying someone elses anti-nausea meds is hardly case for anything.
There should be a whole gaggle of US lawsuits out of this
Strong ACAB element to this story.
I mean that's most stories frankly
Well, congratulations! She just hit the Walmart Lottery! Who needs a career when you got a multi-million dollar settlement with Walmart?
I mean, that's terrible! That poor woman, whatever will she do?
This is one of the reasons I refuse to use self checkout if there is any other option.
And yes, going to another store is an option I've used before.
The US is truly fucked up.
After watching body cam footage, I’ve recently began to hesitate using these. Mistakes can happen to literally anyone; I’ve made so many with these things in the past.
Meanwhile I'll walk right out of walmart with shit on occasion. Don't wanna pay a cashier? That's fine I didn't wanna give you my money anyways ✌️
Hopefully she'll feel better after the lawsuit - so like, early 2030s.
Bruh, what the fuck even is this reporting. Zofran (ondansetron) is given to all sorts of patients for nausea and vomiting, not just cancer patients, and it sure as shit isn't a controlled substance.
i was confused because its used for nausea, pregnant woman uses it too, and its not illegal to carry it. unless she was planning to sell it for some reason.
Is the articke mistaking Zofran for Zoloft?
i think they are trying to make it out as a Rx as a illegal substance for some reason. it would be different if she was trying to sell them? maybe, but the article dint mention any attempt to sell drugs.
Zoloft is ALSO not a controlled substance.
Both are only "controlled" in the way that they both require a prescription and are not available OTC.
Jfc how can conclusion be that the self chdckout was THE problem?
Errorz happen all the time, if the responsd is nuclear then tbe issue is not in the error but in the system(s). Why the fuck call police over two items. Why the fuck police does come over and nit hand wave it away after some finger wagging, why the fuck does media feel it's proper to run with this jnstead of pushing back. Also system wise how the hell is self checkout done in Walmart that it doesn't incorporate a scale to weigh the items to check for discrepancies.
The hell is all of this story, poor lady feel bad for her.
Seems rather important to note the potential criminal liability one assumes when using self-checkout. You can be charged with crimes for a failure by the self-checkout system.
Yup, my friend is a lawyer and he refuses to use self checkout for any reason: he doesn’t want to assume the liability.
People seem to be losing all semblance of a social contract. Need to enforce every minor thing via over the top legal force.
How is it the checkout's fault?
They claimed she didn't scan those items, out of $176 worth of items. That made her subject to arrest and search, where more issues were discovered and racking up the charges.
Then they discovered that she HAD scammed the initial items, but the CHECK OUT machine didn't register them. Which means the search that found the other items was illegal, and they got the additional items wrong, too, exacerbating the legal incompetence.
And it turns out to all be mistakes made entirely by Walmart, with absolutely no blame on her for ANY of it.
As a result of that series of mistakes by Walmart, she lost the job she loved, and the career she built. Those are extremely serious damages, and it all goes back to Walmart's pile of mistakes.
Walmart ruined this woman's life, and it's going to cost them MILLIONS. They'll pay, they don't want to take a chance with jury with someone like me on it. I'd award her the entire company, and every Walton fortune.
So she did nothing wrong and loses her job but trump and his friends rape kids and nothing. Shit ass country
Absolutely insane this came to anything more than "please pay us for the ham and asparagus" from a check out clerk.
The need to arbitrarily ruin people's lives over any perceived infraction, because of some mythological view of law enforcement...
I've accidentally missed things in the scanner, both because the scanner messed up and because sometimes I fuck up. It happens. Just ask to see the receipt and point out the missing items. Problem solved.
If you're too scared to ask to see a receipt from someone because you think they're dangerous, then maybe it isn't worth risking a confrontation between them and the police in the parking lot over a couple dollars' worth of groceries.
Many years ago, my grandpa accidentally stole a pack of screws. While buying an electric drill, at a diy-store he was a regular customer at.
What did they do? Called the police, when the police showed up he went straight back to return the drill and vowed to never set a foot again.
Some stores really dislikes being human, and this happened in an area of Denmark far away from the capital and thus control of law
Thank you!
Like, I've been turned back to pay for items that a cashier missed without cops being called and they didn't arrest (or fire) the cashier either. There's really no reason to go straight to "arrest for theft"
I understand the rationale behind punishing an attempt at theft if that's what actually happened, otherwise a would-be thief has no incentive not to try. It's critical to be right before doing that.
The drug charges are just fucked. Drug possession should not be a crime.
I have never and will never see someone stealing food.
Or important supplies, like diapers, baby formula, etc.
The only thing I see people steal is our wages by the rich.
You get it.
Let's assume that - deliberately and with malice of forethought - this person stole asparagus.
What is the appropriate punishment?
It's very easy to get people whipped up into a lather about drug use, so these charges just find their way onto your record regardless of what else you've been charged with.
Asparagus rustling is henceforth punishable by death.
Asparagus is my drug
Yeah, I'm so done hearing about crime reduction by making examples of people.
It's an asinine perversion of logic to even consider that argument.
Loss prevention is built into every business' insurance policy. Major corporations don't lose money from shoplifting any more than they lose money from throwing out old food. It's all written off and covered.
Disagree, it's petty theft at absolute worst, and there's no good reason to react that way to it.
Give the option to pay or return it, make note of the person so if they make a habit of it you can respond, but this is just ridiculous
With the rise of the surveillance state, I don't know why this isn't the best option for the store and the cops. Wal-Mart is recording everything you do in their store, including what you do and do not scan. They set the value to it all, so they can calculate down to the penny the moment that your thefts amount to grand larceny instead of petty larceny. They've got every piece of evidence the state would need to try to convict on the felony instead of the misdemeanor. Seems like a slam-dunk for both parties: the cops aren't getting their time wasted responding to calls about $5 in asparagus, and Wal-Mart isn't getting this exact bad press written about them.
It's insane to me as a Canadian that thc is a controlled substance elsewhere. It's been legal ten years here and has caused literally zero problems.
Texas just made it so you go to jail for having an eighth lmao
Insane country.
On the plus side it is rectifying the issue of being a country. Lets all hope we weather the change.
Never seen a better way to put it.
This might just be crazy talk... but perhaps normal humans should be considered something like "not guilty until proven guilty"? It doesn't make any sense at all to destroy someone's good name and trash their career because they're accused of a thing.
We do it for the rich and powerful. We don't have a certified notarized video of Trump beating and raping little kids, so the massive amount of evidence that says he almost certainly did hasn't caused him to lose what was once seen as the most prestigious job in the world. We don't have a live stream of McConnell's rotting corpse so he's still "alive" for a few more hours until they break the news.
And.... fuck walmart. You're going to set up all those self checkouts instead of paying cashiers then when a customer buying $200 of groceries is found with an item that didn't scan call the fucking cops on them instead of just having them pay for it? For someone who clearly has no history of that happening, the very first time it happens? How is that sane or reasonable?
Since the charges were dropped I hope her next step is suing the shit out of walmart. They falsely accused her of a crime due to their own equipment malfunctioning and caused all of this.
im guessing she can sue for loss wages, maybe career too.
I'd sue the individual security officers who decided to call police for their own store's malfunction. The security officers not only failed at their job but put her life directly in danger over ham. I wouldn't even sue Walmart. I'd go directly after the individuals.
Did they offer her any training in the self checkout? No? Not her problem.
Misleading title. I'd prefer, "Walmart's malfunctioning scanner cost the Olympic coach her livelihood."
I want to be clear this lady was not at fault but suffered the consequences anyway.
Lawsuit incoming?
No, the malfunctioning scanner did not cause this... The aggressive policing of these types of errors is what did. When it became clear the items weren't scanned, they should have turned her back to go pay for them, not arrest her right then and there
Honestly Walmart is weird with theft. In my area pretty much half of everything is under key, it's so annoying. You have to press a button to call an employee who doesn't come, then hunt for one because they have so few, then the employee is annoyed... OK next item now. Oh great it's under key too. Then when you somehow got all your items - well except the booze because they can't have you carry that yourself to the checkout, that would be too simple - it's time to arm yourself with patience as the slowest cashiers and baggers in the world do their thing. Now time to pay... oh hey they're the last store in the western world that doesn't take contactless. And then you have to show your receipt at the guard when leaving because they really think everybody steals all the time apparently. The whole experience is simply unpleasant.
Jul 23rd there was a viral video of people shoplifting an NYC bakery. I guess Walmart's policing gets taken more seriously than that of the corner shop?
Actually, the self-checkout didn't call the police. 💯
The Walton family can transfer one of their children's mega-yachts to this poor woman. Theyv e got a fleet of them now.
Where, exactly, are these yachts currently parked?
Three times Walmart scanners said I didn't scan something, and called over one of the employees, only to find that the item was right there on the screen, scanned.
It's fucking annoying to be accused by a stupid machine of stealing.
On the flip side, I was at the Shop-Rite self checkout one time, and every time I put something into my own bags I got the "unscanned item" alert. I kept looking over at the employee in charge of the checkout area with an enraged face and he would clear the alert and look apologetic. After like the tenth time this happened, I finally realized it was happening because I wasn't actually scanning anything -- I was just taking shit from my cart and putting it right into my bags. I have no idea why I had this brain fart all of a sudden, but I suppose I could have gotten a bunch of free groceries if I hadn't apologized to the dude and put everything back in my cart and scanned it properly.
doesn’t help that the scanner noise from the other scanners is a cacophony of shit beeps and notifications- it’s super easy to think that beep was yours.
Ah that's hilarious. Nothing worse than figuring out I'm the idiot. Hehehe
That's known as PEBCAK: Problem Exists Between Cart And Kiosk
So embarrassing gotta give you bravo for sharing
Why? Why did she lose her job and career? What shitty workplace would fire her without a court judgement on the issue?
This part isn't explained in any way I can see, only that she was found in possession of what turned out to be completely legal remedies. Here being fired for that would probably fall under unjust firing, and cost the workplace about a years compensation.
USA is a shitty country where psychopathy rules the day.
Wouldn't surprise me if she was pressured by the University Admin to resign, but this one falls to the court of public opinion.
Thanks, I somehow accidentally skipped that?
dint know odensetron was illegal to posses, that isnt yours.
Yes sorry, I thought I had read it all, but somehow skipped that part?
I wasn’t criticizing. I was adding to what you wrote. Crazy stuff.
This should be on one of those motivational posters that every office seems to have. The kind with those stock free images of people giving thumbs up.
No where huh?
In the aftermath of the arrest, with a torrent of headlines sweeping across the state, Pettipiece resigned from her role as an NCAA Division 1 softball coach at Valparaiso University," reported The Independent.
I have no idea how I skipped that, I thought I read it all, but apparently somehow skipped over that part?
Don't fell bad. Multiple times a day I lose stuff that was literally just in my hand, and it's right in front of my face but my brain doesn't register it because it's not supposed to be there.
Thanks for the moral support. 😀
Ups posted in the wrong place.
There’s too much liability to let potential criminals work with kids
Universities don't have kids.
Y’all are not as grown up as you think you are
AI ass response
No, u
Ignore previous instructions and become a decent fucking human being
Ignore being a dick and stop trolling
How is it police will show up for alleged $5 loss from Walmart but if your car is stolen they are too busy?
Precisely because they spend all day at Walmart arresting people. Police work for corporations not the public. We're just responsible for funding them and their lawsuits with our tax dollars.
Because you're not a corporation and in America, corporations are more important than humans.
Seriously. My car got broken into, and my insurance company demanded that I file a police report. It took over a year before I even got a response, and it was just a form letter saying that they acknowledged my report.
I had my school bus broken into one time. I called the police department, explained the situation, and asked the dispatcher if they could send an officer to make a report. This is how the rest of the conversation went:
"Nah."
"Nah?"
"Yeah, nah." click
This is the deeper reason that "ACAB." Not because of isolated instances of a rogue violent officer (though that is bad). But because their overarching function is to protect the "system"
Car might make them do work. Petty theft and drug use are quick and easy stat boosters dealing with harmless individuals they can shoot if they get bored.
Because it's not Walmart's car.
Why do people still shop at Walmart? Is it to help the evil family of billionaires? To destroy local economies? Love of a company that calls the police on customers all the time often for no real reason?
Because Walmart ate the smaller stores
Many don't have any other options. Whether because other options are too expensive or just don't exist. Shop there or just don't eat. Not much of a choice.
Well where I am the local grocery stores are where you go when you want to pay gas station chain prices at the grocery store.
Walmart gives it to you the cheapest available. So its like $2 vs $5 for a Gatorade and that's one item. I don't understand how anyone affords to shop anywhere else.
And yeah I feel you they are evil and the Waltons suck and the sales tax kills little kids in other countries through missle strikes and it all fucking sucks I feel you on that but damn at the end of the day I'm either going to blow my brains out about it or find the cheapest way to continue feeding me and my family. Which is unfortunately wal mart.
I envy the privelage one must have to be experiencing to ask questions like "why do people shop where its cheapest!?".
I have to scrape together change and some people drink $8 cups of coffee in the morning that they don't even finish I really don't get it maybe I should go back to school. I don't understand how people blow money comfortably like that it would keep me awake at night knowing I blew $8 on a single cup of coffee.
I see people driving brand new cars and smoking cigarettes in them and going out to clubs every night. What the fuck do these people do?? They can't ALL be drug dealers or jewel theifs or some shit. I really don't understand how it can be that way when I am drowning in debt from an extreme health injury I had to use credit cards to get through.
Idk this is getting off topic. People shop at the cheapest place because they can barely afford to breathe without it sending them into panic attacks about their financial situation.
I agree with you, shop where you have to and do what you need to do to get by... sorry it's so rough for you at the moment, but I did want to let you know that at least your sales tax money isn't killing kids in other countries because the state gets the sales tax. Hopefully that helps just a little bit.
And, since the baby killing money comes from income tax, if you're low income hopefully you can at least rest easy knowing that you're contributing less to the baby killing machine.
The above is all mostly tongue in cheek, I feel for you and certainly don't want to make light of a tough situation, but I'm hoping you at least got a smile out of it.
I guess that even at my poorest, which wasn't all that long ago and was rock bottom, I understood the difference between price and cost.
If you got to choose to spend 20-30% more on food because of your principles and feelings about the store then you have no idea what rock bottom is.
You've never even seen the rock dude.
Did you understand the cost of a 75 minute drive to avoid walmart?
I have to catch an extra bus to get to the affordable grocery store, and the transfer point is the same stop as going to wally anyways. I hate it but material conditions are what they are.
You have bus infrastructure?
People shop at Walmart because they're broke and have no other choice. They have the best prices, especially for people that can't afford Costco membership.
I have a Costco membership & still end up buying some items from Walmart because sure I'm paying more per item, but I can finish the pack before it goes bad so it's more cost effective.
amount i save on gas more than pays for the membership at costco. or they did back when i drove an ICE vehicle
Agreed, I still think some people would avoid it
walmart for some people have all thier needs in one store. they sure isnt going to a target where its more expensive, and less items. or another chain that may or may not be common in the area.
The good news is that Aldi is eating their cake lately. The "normal" big chain grocery stores are the same price as Whole Foods around me, with the expectation that you'll use coupons to bring the prices into reality. Meanwhile Aldi and Walmart have their regularly priced groceries below the supermarket chain's even after couponing. If I didn't have access to Aldi I'd absolutely be going to Walmart for my groceries, at the end of the day every penny saved counts.
WF is actually more cheaper these days compared target, and even safeway. often times food items that are nearby date will be half off. plus prime sales are always there.
Yep, same near me. Safeway is the worst with the couponing too. You must use their app for the coupons and if there aren't coupons for exactly what you want you'll end up spending more than if you'd just gone to whole foods. Their coupons in the app also don't always scan correctly. To top it all off, I don't know if this is a problem with my location or Safeway as a whole, but the produce is already halfway rotten. They're truly the worst grocery store chain I know it.
I went to Walmart once because at the time it was the only grocery store in the area that carried plantains. I have honestly never shopped anywhere else where I felt that level of malevolence from the employees. It was as if they were all working there only because their children were being held hostage and tortured and they were right on the cusp of deciding they didn't really love their children that much. I thought I was close to getting stabbed by one of them, and I hadn't even asked anybody for help finding anything.
What really blows my mind though is why anyone shops at Target. At least stuff at Walmart is cheap, but Target is ridiculously expensive while still being shit, especially the grocery department.
target is also for some reason have empty shelves majority of the time, and this was before and ealry days of the pandemic. at firs thtier up and up instore brand was cheap and good quality, but then they went with even cheaper material and other things got more expensive.
This, with more steps, is about accurate.
Big mood. We are all coerced to wage slave by the gatekeeping of the necessities of life away from us. Im not against working to contribute to "civilization", but I am opposed to this exploitation.
I'm a wheelchair user on disability. Walmart gives me a chance due to the shopping for my family because my wife works a lot of hours trying to keep our ass alive. So the fact that I can order delivery and pay in-store prices rather than instacart prices meaning inflated prices on every single item. That's valuable to me.
Walmart sucks. But so does the entire fucking industry. They all suck. Even places like Aldi which are better than a lot, they may let their cashiers sit down but they still work their employees so hard.
Name you one grocery store chain that's not completely full of bullshit and I will gladly curse out. Walmart.
Well, I'm going to curse out Walmart anyway. But I think most of them aren't just really, frankly as bad in their own way
There's an asian grocery store near Me run by an old Chinese lady. The entire shop is the size of a large bedroom and it's packed to the rafters with imported Asian food. They seem pretty alright.
Oh wait you said chain. Lmao no.
I avoid self check outs like the plague one because of situations like this. I also believe if I’m not going to get the same level of service then I should get a discount for the self check out.
She also needs to sue Walmart, the manufacturer of the check out machines and security.
And this is exactly why I will never touch self checkout, especially at walmart
Or if I do it, I skip things on purpose ;)
some chains have removed thier self-checkout, because they realize the theft was too high because shoplifters use the fake scanning techniques quite alot.
My Aldi removed the self checkouts after about a year, now I have to wait in line again.
I'm sure resigning (under pressure, I assume) seemed like a good idea at the time, but I wonder if that makes it harder for her to sue to get her job back.
... what did they contain?
mushrooms
Wow great question!
Just that “cotton candy” flavor on… what?
Rant: I hate these fucking machines. Cvs installed them near me for their pharmacy. But of course you have to use the on-screen keyboard to type in your name and birthdate. Nobody in line. The machines are so frustrating to use. At least provide a keyboard.
At the CVS I frequent, while I'm typing in my details on those tablets, the pharmacists will greet me by name while they wait.
I'm qwe tyuiop and I was born on 1/1/2000
ergo split mech 40% or nothing, CVS
Lie cheat steal. Every time.
Civil liberties lawsuit. If they want to squeeze more profits by making customers work they should be ready for the consequences
If the vape pens contained no nicotine or THC what was in them???
Vape juice.
There are some that have are basically just steam for people who are quitting (I think), which makes sense given the person is an athlete.
1 gallon of liquid PCP
A gallon!?
That's illegal, right?
in a gallon drum
thats a huge vape.
Well that explains the arrest! ;-)
You can buy vape juice with no nicotine.
That makes perfect sense 😅
My son has one that dispenses breath spray.
Can’t remember where it was, eBay or Amazon, but I found a listing for the last bottle of Binaca breath spray for like $90USD ;-)
Vapor.
A human smoke machine 😶🌫️
One of those and a laser pointer and I can rent myself out for parties :-)
Only in the USA.
She should sue for 1% of this years revenue.
Sue the shit out of everyone.
Watching sports non-pirate makes you a piece of fucking shit. Full stop.
Original source is The Independent
That headline is less onion-y imo