A Michigan woman is being charged after allegedly stealing $1000 worth of items from Walmart by not scanning all of her items at the self-checkout.
Police say 34-year-old TeddyJo Marie Fliam was using the self-checkout at an Alpena County Walmart when loss prevention workers noticed she wasn’t scanning every item. Fliam became agitated and denied that she was skipping items when confronted by a loss prevention worker and left the store.
The incident caused the store to review its surveillance footage, which showed Fliam had stolen more than $1000 in merchandise by not scanning it from the Walmart since April.
Fliam was arrested at her Alpena home last month and is charged with first-degree retail fraud.
Although stealing from self-checkout machines might seem easy to get away with, Walmart has certain anti-thieving practices in place to prevent shoplifting. One example of this is how the workers at the self-checkout station have a device that can pause specific machines if the employee notices shoplifting. The software halts the scanning procedure, ultimately needing an employee to come over and assess the issue. The Walmart employee can then see if the customer has scanned all of their items properly or not.
Over the last three years, the company has invested over half a billion dollars in an effort to prevent, reduce and deter crime in their stores and parking lots.
