(DailyAnswer.org) – Target’s self-checkout service has been exploited by a thief in California who made off with $60,000 worth of goods in more than 100 visits to the store.
The news comes as more self-checkout services are replacing manned checkouts, though the move has been reversed in some stores. Aziza Graves, 43, reportedly entered the Target store at San Francisco’s Stonestown Galleria 120 times between October 2020 and November 2021. In her scheme Graves took items off the shelves, scanned them at the self-checkout counter and then left with the items having only paid a tiny amount in cash.
The San Francisco Police Department followed Graves into the Target store and arrested her in November 2021. After stealing the merchandise she would go to the United Nations Plaza and find vendors of stolen goods to sell the goods to. Brooke Jenkins, a San Francisco District Attorney, stated that Graves would then sell her stolen items to any passersby. The woman was convicted on May 10 of 52 misdemeanor counts of petty theft in addition to one felony count of grand theft.
Graves was also convicted of a separate petty theft misdemeanor relating to a theft that occurred at the city’s Abercombie and Fitch location.
In November 2023, British supermarket chain Booths removed self-service machines in all but two of its 28 stores as a study found that 15% of shoppers admitted to stealing items. Managing director of Booths Nigel Murray described the machines as “impersonal” and “unreliable”. Some U.S. stores took a similar approach in 2023; Walmart removed self-service lanes from at least three stores in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Target started limiting self-checkout items to a maximum of 10 items in some stores in October.
In May 2024 Progressive California lawmakers opted to severely restrict self-checkouts with new legislation. The proposed bill would require stores to assign one employee to every two self-checkout machines, which would improve security and keep some staff in jobs that could otherwise be threatened by technology. The bill would also prevent shoppers from using self-checkout machines for over 15 items.
Commentators have highlighted how tempting it is to steal from self-service machines, particularly concerning items such as loose groceries that need to be manually entered by the shopper rather than scanned. Jenkins said thefts such as those Graves committed severely impact the ability of retailers to serve the general public.
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