Claiming a Scanner Error After Getting Caught Stealing

[SlowDippa]

My question involves criminal law for the state of: Texas

So the story go's I was in Wal-mart and went through the self check-out lane. I scanned some stuff and some stuff I didn't. I had 4 small things (total cost according to LP at wal-mart was 51$). I paid with my debit card, and went to talk out. The door greeter actually stopped me (never has happened before). I handed her my receipt she reached in a bag and pulled out something I didn't pay for. I told her oh it must not have scanned, and I told her to just keep it, that I didn't have time to go back to the check out. I grabbed my receipt from her hand and walked out the store. I went to my car, and started putting stuff in. Then 2 guys walked up in long sleeve shirts with Wal-Mart and asked to see my receipt again. I told them "look the lady at the door was rude to me, something didn't scan so I just gave it to her. I don't have time to go wait in line to buy that one thing." The manager looking guy said "well let me see your receipt" and picked it out of my hand. He then started looking in the bags of stuff I had still in the buggy. The one bag of stuff I had that was not paid for was still in the buggy. Everything I had put in the car already I paid for. He looked in that back and said "none of this stuff is on your receipt" I told him, well it must have not scanned but you can keep it I don't have time for yalls bs and I don't have time to go back in and pay. He told me that I needed to take al the bags out of my car and come back into the store so he could go through them. I shut my door, then opened my front door. I started my car and yelled " I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS SHIT" I put the car in reverse and left. I could see him writing down my license plate number.
When I got home I was freaking out. I decided to call Wal-mart. I talked to the dude on the phone that was outside and told him that I didn't have anything I did not pay for. He claimed to have me on camera stealing more and that I needed to come back up there so he could fill out paper work. He said that the cops where there. He knew my name and was calling my by it (I assume from the use of my debit card). He also said that the car I was in wasn't mine and he knew that her name was Jessica. I told him that I didn't have anything that I did not pay for at all and I knew he was lieing about having me on camera. I told him I was being truthful to him and that he should be truthful to me. He still insisted that I had items. I told I would send someone up there to pay for the items that were not paid for, and that they could just keep the crap. He then told me that it was 51$ worth and it didnt matter, that the cops were already there. I asked him if wal-mart was pressing charges and he avoided the question. His response was that he turned over the information to the police and that they would deal with it. He told me that if he ever saw me in the store he would call them and have me arrested for trespassing (I have already been warned off wal-mart property from a prior offense.) I wasn't sure to believe him if the cops where there or not. So I rode up there on my motorcycle and verified that their was a patrol car there.



My question-
1- If they would have pressed charges should he have said that they where instead of beating around the bush and trying to get me to come back up to the store?

2- I don't think what I stole was 51$ I think it came out to be like 48$. I think he inflated the price on items to make it a class B, or he just told me that it was 51$ to scare me up. Was that legal? And if he did inflate the price to the police what could happen?

3- No police officer tried to contact me, no one came to my house, no one came to the house where the car was registered (girlfriends). I called the police dept, and asked if there was an arrest warrant for me. They ran my info and said that there was nothing. Nothing has showed up anywhere at all about in in our county database search or by calling the police. How long would it take for something like this to be issued and show up If charges where filed.

I am just going to say that your whole story screams that you do this a lot and cause a tantrum when anyone calls you out. You knew what you were doing, and the WalMart LP and manager knew your exact type playing this 'I aint got time for that/I don't understand how technology works' scam. You by definition of the law, stole, and stole a lot. The cameras have you pretending to scan. They even have systems to flag people whose movements are running a scam on the u-scan machines. If you think that what you did was clever, it's not and they are cracking down on these scan it yourself schemes thieves are coming up with. I suggest not doing it again, and paying for EVERYTHING so other people don't have to pick up the tab for your scummy ways of living off the backs of others. Now onto your questions:

1) He doesn't have to tell you or guess what upper management will be doing with the complaint. I'm pretty sure they will press charges and have a civil demand mailed to you soon. I don't think going back to the store would have changed much other than it may look better in court later on that even though you fled the scene, you came back later to acknowledge what you did.

2) For some reason I doubt this manager guy is going to inflate the prices by a few dollars to try screw you over when it has just as much possibility of screwing WalMart over later for making up facts. You must be a pretty regular thief to know that your stolen items were just under the legal amount of a Class B theft charge.

3) The police are unlikely to contact or visit you over a minor theft charge. They have much better things to do with their time then show up at your place hoping you will be there. The county police department may take some time to get this bench warrant in the system, but it will show up soon in the county you broke the law. I would imagine you have up to a week before anything shows up.

Lastly, I would like to point out. I know you think everyone is as stupid as you, but they're not. You not only didn't scan one item which the greeter found as you left, you had a whole bag of items up to $51 that you incorrectly or forgot to scan. I have never once forgot to scan a single item that I bagged, and even when there are errors scanning, the machines alert you by weight of the scanned items for almost all items except maybe something from the specialty departments(bakery meat, secondary store). You were running some sort of easily detectable scam to steal from the store and got embarrassed when they called you out, not once, but twice.

Start saving your money, because all that thieving you've been doing it going to cost you BIG TIME.

[PandorasBox]

^ I like this poster!

[Security Consultant]

Every register at WM has a camera backed up by pan-tilt-zoom cameras. On every register they can tell if you scan an item or not. There is a detection device that shows them. I'm not going to go into detail about the safeguards in place as I don't want to give the thieves any ideas. The last WM I had to a review on had 106 cameras throughout the store.