‘Steer Clear Of Self-Checkout’ Says Lawyer
A lawyer went viral on TikTok because of advice she gave to her followers.
Criminal defense attorney by day, and TikTok star by night Carrie Jernigan recommends that patrons stay away from the self-checkout lanes that most grocery and retail stores have. Although the original reason behind self-checkout lanes was efficiency and timeliness, Jernigan alleges that stores are using self-checkout registers to accuse people of stealing.
@carriejernigan1 Reply to @afamily20202 I have no idea why it cut off
♬ original sound - LAWYER CARRIE
“There’s currently three groups of people getting charged with shoplifting using self-checkout,” Jernigan says in the video.
The first of which are those who intend to steal. Over the years as self-checkout has become a norm in stores, those who utilize these machines have developed more in-depth strategies for fooling store security and other protective measures.
“The second group of people catching this charge I will call the ‘theft-by-mistake’,” Jernigan explains. “These are the people who I genuinely think just forgot to scan an item.” According to the video, Jernigan says that when self-checkout first started, most people who were approached by store security were allowed to either return to the registers to pay for the item they mistakenly took out of the store, or they were given the opportunity to just hand it back.
The third group of people Jernigan calls the “truly innocent,” and a majority of shoppers in this group are confronted on these accusations because of short inventory counts or quality control checks that occur weeks or months after the original purchase. Once off numbers are identified, store security teams will “begin watching hours of video” to see the last person who checked out with an item inventory counts are short on. Once a shopper is caught on video purchasing one of these items, Jernigan explains that retail giants have to present “very little evidence” to potentially get a warrant.
Jernigan takes it a step further when she mentions the use of cash as a payment method at self-checkout machines. “Let’s just hope you didn’t pay with cash that day because that’s even harder to show what you paid versus what they are claiming got paid or did not get paid for.”
This isn’t just another TikTok video. A shopper from Arizona for example says she was given a citation for petty theft after she mistakenly forgot to scan some items at a self-checkout lane.
Jernigan says she plans on posting another video explaining how shoppers can be careful if they still plan on using the self-checkout machines.
Ben Beaulieu, radio personality at Country 102.5. Saturdays 10-3, Sundays 12-5.
