外刊 打卡20180204.pdf - Hugo 读报时间 February 4 2018 Passage 1...

February 4, 2018
Hugo 读报时间

Passage 1

The Banana Trick and Other Acts of Self-Checkout Thievery
“Anyone who pays for more than half of their stuff in self checkout is a total moron.”
By RENE CHUN MARCH 2018 ISSUE words: 740
Beneath the bland veneer of supermarket automation lurks an ugly truth: There’s a lot of shoplifting going
on in the self-scanning checkout lane. But don’t call it shoplifting. The guys in loss prevention prefer
“external shrinkage.”
Self-checkout theft has become so widespread that a whole lingo has sprung up to describe its tactics.
Ringing up a T-bone ($13.99/lb) with a code for a cheap ($0.49/lb) variety of produce is “the banana trick.”
If a can of Illy espresso leaves the conveyor belt without being scanned, that’s called “the pass around.”
“The switcheroo” is more labor-intensive: Peel the sticker off something inexpensive and place it over the
bar code of something pricey. Just make sure both items are about the same weight, to avoid triggering
that pesky “unexpected item” alert in the bagging area.
How common are self-scanning scams? If anonymous online questionnaires are any indication, very
common. When Voucher Codes Pro, a company that offers coupons to internet shoppers, surveyed 2,634
people, nearly 20 percent admitted to having stolen at the self-checkout in the past. More than half of
those people said they gamed the system because detection by store security was unlikely. A 2015 study
of self-checkouts with handheld scanners, conducted by criminologists at the University of Leicester, also
found evidence of widespread theft. After auditing 1 million self-checkout transactions over the course of
a year, totaling $21 million in sales, they found that nearly $850,000 worth of goods left the store without
being scanned and paid for.
The Leicester researchers concluded that the ease of theft is likely inspiring people who might not
otherwise steal to do so. Rather than walk into a store intending to take something, a shopper might, at
the end of a trip, decide that a discount is in order. As one retail employee told the researchers, “People
who traditionally don’t intend to steal [might realize that] … when I buy 20, I can get five for free.” The
authors further proposed that retailers bore some blame for the problem. In their zeal to cut labor costs,

the study said, supermarkets could be seen as having created “a crime-generating environment” that
promotes profit “above social responsibility.”
Whether out of social responsibility or frustration with shrinkage, some retailers, including Albertsons, Big
Y Supermarket, Pavilions, and Vons, have scaled back or eliminated self-scanning, at least in some
stores. But others continue to add it. Worldwide, self-checkout terminals are expected to number 325,000
by next year, up from 191,000 in 2013. In some places, meanwhile, the likelihood of being punished for
petty shoplifting is decreasing. Even if a manager wants to press charges, many police departments can’t
be bothered with supermarket theft. In 2012, for example, the Dallas Police Department enacted a new
policy: Officers would no longer routinely respond to shoplifting calls for boosts amounting to less than
$50. In 2015, the threshold was raised yet again, to $100.