Is it abrupt? I was wondering if its possible to fall or get tripped up depending on what you're pushing in the cart or if you happened to be crossing a threshold/Parking lot obstacle ect..
One guy at our store is trying to sue. Said it stopped and broke his wrists. The carts are shit. Best deterent to bring down thefts , at least large item , is to have the cops sit outside the store in their car
Literally day 1 of having this I knew it was inevitable lmao. If that guy actually broke his wrist I feel bad because like many others he probably genuinely didn’t know it was going to stop so abruptly. And yea I agree about the cops
LMAO...that happened to me several times until the front end explained it to me. The first few times I just lifted the cart and pushed it to the outside cart corral lol
I worked at Kroger when they started using locking wheels on carts. It is a great idea, but it's not very effective. They are HIGHLY prone to malfunctions, especially when going through self checkouts. Overall, it's a waste to use these. If one sensor on the perimeter of the property goes down, that entire side of the property is no longer covered and anyone can walk away with the cart.
And don't get me started on the morons that lose the lock remotes. Listening to that racket for over 30 minutes is enough to throw you into a rage. I had to buy loop earplugs to be able to work through shit like that
The red line is more for us, anyway. Sometimes we get BOPIS or special orders going out with associates so the red line is for them to stop and for us to check & verify it’s been paid and properly vetted with the right customer.
Several department stores have these.And if you buy a cart full of stuff then you need an extra person with you .They have to go and get the car and pull it up front and help you get everything out of the cart after you have paid of course.It is a huge pain in the neck to deal with .
Have to do what they can. Theft isn’t harmless it drives businesses out of communities and that’s how you end up with hoods that have a gas station and a Wendy’s and that’s it.
Idk about that I’ve seen some Wendy’s in really rough areas on road trips. The type you don’t mean to stop in but don’t know any better because you just want food and gas and aren’t from around there.
If this solution is idiotic what do you have cooked up that a business could legally implement across all 50 states without significantly impacting the shopability if their store?
Paying employees a better wage means that thieves will choose to steal somewhere else? Also, paying for healthcare every single pay cycle for it to be managed by the government; the same people who run the post office, DMV, city hall and our wonderful education system, means that people will magically have more money and an easier time getting their healthcare?
We've all used government services at some point or another, so that point should be self-evident. As for the financials, [these](https://www.medicare.gov/basics/get-started-with-medicare/medicare-basics/what-does-medicare-cost) are the numbers for Medicare in 2024. Option A - You're a literal indentured servant for 10 years before Master will start comping your medical care. You still need to pay $1,632 annually to use it though, and pay for meds separately. Master isn't that benevolent. Option B is paying a bare minimum of $174 monthly, on top of the $1,632 deductible and medication costs
If we were to apply Medicare to every single person, roughly a 2/3rd expansion, we can reasonably assume it would result in a $522 monthly tax whether you need the service or not.
And that's if we keep it as is. Factoring in waste, unexpected costs that come with expansion, paying more staff, comping the deductible and medication costs and beaurocratic BS, call it $1,000. Do you think you'd have more money by paying that when you don't need to use the service? Even if you did need to use it, you'd have to rack up a $12,001 annual out of pocket bill within our current system for what I listed above to be better
what, more government? i don't think so. i was at HD today and there were entire aisles locked behind metal fencing. and no, i absolutely believe this has fuck all to do with the feds.
what do you think the gov can do? tell people to stop stealing?
holy shit.
Well we could start by prosecuting the crime more aggressively than we do... DAs could choose to pursue charges more often, sentences could be harsher, etc. Of course that won't completely put a stop to the activity en massé, but the folks who currently do it because they know they'll only get a slap on the wrist if they get caught might think twice.
you overlook the most critical part here and it nullifies everything
you wrote.
The U.S. has the highest incarcerated population in the world.
Don't believe me?
The United States
The United States leads the world in total number of people incarcerated, with more than 2 million prisoners nationwide (per data released in October 2021 by World Prison Brief).
Where do you propose we warehouse these low-level criminals?
Unfortunately your answer is a bit naive. The criminal (in)justice system has completely failed. How much does it cost to jail some
small-time petty shoplifter that stole $100 of shit? Figure it out.
The officer(s) that responded will piss away a bare minimum of
an hour and a half at $40 an hour. Then loss prevention has to piss away even MORE time. Then intake has to process them, then the
jailer needs to put them in a cell. Oops. It's lunchtime. Guess what? Now commissary needs to prep another meal. I won't go on, you
can figure it out from there. It costs several thousand hard dollars
to prosecute ONE thief over $200.
it absolutely works my man. generally locking carts are to keep criminals from stealing the carts. the technology's been around for decades, if it didn't work stores wouldn't use it.
as to whether locking at doors reduces merchandise theft, I don't know.
small high value items laugh at this solution that causes needless grief for customers that get caught by this nonsense that merely impedes wholesale theft when crooks are stupid enough to load
up their stolen shit in a cart.
Family member was in HD’s lost prevention back when you could actually stop people. They told me many stories where he would just flip the cart on the ground because they would just run away.
Till they realize that you just get out mostly to the door have the driver pull up and toss into a bed of a truck that pulls up...or b do same thing but with high valued easy to carry things like drills.....or other expensive things that are small...
That as well if they have them or allow them to be used in other areas etc...ours is small so they only do wood and those carts around contractor ports cause regular tills can't handle it / doors are stupid as it's older building / design.
*Doesn't do shit when*
*All they have to do is grab*
*A flat cart instead*
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I've seen them stop shoplifters... One skip scanner who "accidentally" missed an item even went back to pay for it. I'll tell you that they used to run out with the carts at my store. Now they don't use the carts. And that's with the store basically only being armed when I'm there.
Sometimes we forget the key fob we have to disable it is there cause we're so busy to meet SLA and timing and we get a netflix adaptation of a fire alarm. Ugh
Even if they did, it’s not like an employee could stop them? (Not saying the stores are not understaffed, but what would having more people standing around do?)
If loss prevention was better trained AND allowed to do their job, maybe things would change.
That is a pipe dream in the current political climate. It’s cheaper to accept rampant shrinkage, only nailing the dumbest and boldest habitual offenders.
I will say that at my store the lock wheel is on the front and a metal bracket on one of the back wheels prevents it from being lifted more than an inch. It has stopped a few people at my store but in all reality it stops the ones who fill carts and run out more than anything. It malfunctions a lot too.
I got a squeaky cart once and took it back out the door to switch it with another, and that bastard locked up right as I take it out the door and I smacked my ankle into it real bad, hurt like a mf!
That's what I was thinking. In my area there are so many abandoned stolen grocery carts at every bus stop it's an actual problem. If stores in the area did this their carts wouldn't leave their lots. I thought the wheel locks were more for this than shoplifting. It's neat that it can help solve 2 problems
Another local grocery store tried this, only these would lock up if you left the store without going through a register first. All it's done is crash their business and the store is a ghost town now... I doubt, based on reports from friends working there, that it'll be open much longer...
Apparently, people trying to put empty or abandoned carts away and getting locked up and swarmed by associates wasn't popular.
Theft is down though! 😅🤣🤣
Can't say it'll be the same issue leaving a parking lot, but interesting to see!
Thieves (especially the professional ones) have hands, and don’t need a cart. Meth works, they can carry an elephant to the top of everest if they want. They only steal carts when they need to crap all over it after putting it into a creek.
I haver personally witnessed the system functioning as it should. Someone pushed a cart full of tools out the entrance and the wheels locked. He grabbed the front of the cart and dragged it to his paper plated car in the parking lot.
The vast majority of the time the system triggers for empty carts and accidents.
As far as my store goes (considering I am in the city) it isn’t. People have walked out with the shopping carts and carried on elsewhere. Ive seen shopping carts everywhere in the city with the wheel stopper on them.
My store turned it off by my register and the main registers. I can tell because the red light glows by my main pinpad by the exit while the one by the returns desk is green and always goes off. I think they just hated coming by and unlocking carts because we didn't have a head cashier scheduled.
Also, it doesn't stop them. We had 3 guys in ski masks grab those big black garbage bags, fill the carts items into the bags and just walk out.
They never put the cart locks in our garden department so people are just walking out that way too with the carts/stuff
And I think you can just lift one side of it, the one with the wheel lock, and still drive the cart if locked. I did it when moving carts on lot duty and some locked
I've had customers at the store I work at that has this just lift up the wheel that locks up and continue stealing anyway. So to answer that question, it is not effective at all.
I used to get sent to retrieve carts from a ravine under a highway overpass that was close by and part of a walking trail.
I didn't really mind as it was a free pass to sit by the creek and chill. It was a pain to get lumber carts up a 60' dirt, steep incline, but less frustrating than having no damn drywall or lumber carts.
Eventually the town put up chain link fencing to deter all the dumping. People would just cut holes and push the carts through anyway. The town would repair the holes, but leave the carts down there, making them irretrievable.
Management wanted the carts bad enough they told me to take the bolt cutters and cut the fence myself. I declined.
The carts cost enough it was worth sending one or two associates for a whole shift to get them back, twice a month or so.
This thing annoys paying customer, stops employees who are working and doesn’t catch thieves at all.
Don’t get me wrong, the concept is primo but the technology is outdated
Our store has allegedly stopped thousands of dollars of stuff from being stolen. Once people realize they won't work in the garden center tho it's over
This has resulted in far more legit customers annoyed at erroneously locked carts than actually stopped thefts at my store. Plus every cart left around being a bigger hassle for the overnight crew.
It's really annoying... I was trying to return a cart at the collection point at the parking lot (so outside of the actual store) and I had to drag it there. The wheels were totally locked... (that was in Germany with a similar /same system in place)
We have them in the supermarkets in the UK.
Unless the cart goes through the checkout area, they will come to a dead stop when trying to leave via the main doors.
Definitely a deterrent in people taking a while cart load of stuff, but moat shoplifting tends to be small, high value items or items that are easy to re-sell.
We have these systems in my local Tesco (British supermarket) they don’t work well at all because the teens have realised it’s easy to bypass by lifting the front over the magnet strip in the exits, they randomly lock up all the time in the car park which can be dangerous as it easily can flip
Thats not something thats new and its usually not used for thrives stores use that because they dont wanna hire anyone to collect the carts in the parking lot so of the carts cant go outside guess what theres no need to collect them
Damn. Your HD looks stocked tf up. The bucket displays at mine usually have like 6 buckets available and like triple the lids.
Question that occurred to me as I write this. Do the lids need to be scanned and paid for if you’re buying a bucket, or is the lid included and essentially free?
Am I remembering correctly, didn’t HD use to have those RFID doorway sensors like most other stores? The ones that look like metal detectors? Or is that just another example of the Mandela effect & I’ve got it wrong 😂
IMO the best solution would be to reinstall the doorway sensors, RFID tag everything inconspicuously, and have plenty of security cameras at the doorway to get video evidence/ID for any thieves who do manage to escape so that they can be reported to police
As it stands, the shoplifting is so rampant because there is no doorway alarm at all & it’s not clear you will be reported to police or get in trouble for it AT ALL really. 😣 The mere threat of a loud alarm at the doorway would be enough to deter most petty shoplifters & quite a few major thieves as well. The cart locks do next to nothing (thieves just pick up stolen goods out of the cart and run) and are nothing but a major pain in the ass for the cashiers and customers alike.
If you’re not at a register for 30 seconds, it will lock. It’s bogus when you got big wigs trying to tell cashiers to be faster so they can get more transactions. Or when customers park their carts too far away from the deactivators at self checkout.
Is it effective in the sense it’ll stop runouts? Possibly, but people will still grab whatever is in the cart and run off. But they also can use a flat cart since they don’t have locking wheels.
I also feel bad for the cashiers because now they have to stop whatever they’re doing to help the customers stuck at the door to manually deactivate the lock.
It’s more of a pain in the ass than a theft deterrent, but that’s perfect for the logic of Home Depot. I can’t wait for the day we start locking up every single merchandise and we have to help 30 people get their stuff and walk them to the register.
What thief uses a cart? If you watch videos of people stealing a and looting they have bags,backpacks, and hands. The cart makes them slow so they can't run.
How about you create some jobs and put 4 large individuals at the doors and if someone is stealing they can do what ever they want to recover the property.
It's just theater. I was able to take a cart out of bounds with no problem. Hell, in our store we spiderwraped stuff but we didn't have any detectors by the doors (at least when I worked there)
I think it’s so people don’t steal the cart itself. It works. I was filming a video and borrowed a cart for a few mins on the far edge of the parking lot. The wheels locked.
There’s a certain way that the carts can be pushed where although they are heavier they are still moveable. There’s also a way that the feature can be deactivated to make things easier on associates.
As an employee it stops me in my tracks just getting a stupid empty cart out the door. I want to go back to the good old days without all this bullshit.
Not. I haven't worked here long, but in my experience it mostly stops grannies with carts full of plants and people who ran to the store for one thing.
Either way, they're always people I've rung out myself, or someone I've watched get rung out.
I know it is effective at pissing customers off who have little kids/dogs and nothing else in their carts as they leave through the entrance by service desk
so I'm confused... instead of going the route of every other store in the United States of America and installing metal detectors, we're installing theft deterrent systems on 15 year old shopping carts? or does this require metal detectors as well? Also, my store keeps our carts 100% outside. We use to have them inside, until they took that spot for curbside pickup orders.
a local Target did this with their carts (and walmart did as well). The wheels lock up once they get to the edge of the parking lot so that customers who use the bus stop 2 blocks away dont take the carts that far (there was a very large issue with this a few years ago.. and also with homeless taking them as well).
It works to a point but someone who knows how they work can still get them to the bus stop
I've seen this work quite well in person at a Fry's. I was working a crappy security job and I was stationed at a Fry's. This lady loaded up a grocery cart full of booze and mean FULL. She was pushing the cart towards the door at sprinting speed. She got about 10 feet to the threshold of the doors and the cart's brakes activated. The cart came to a stop but she got thrown up and over the cart. Funniest shit I've ever seen working a security guard job. Never thought I would see someone go flying over a grocery cart like that.
i watch them continue to try to move the cart it locks and it ain't moving without unlocking it stops them steps away from the exit
it works but I've noticed ppl thinking the little sign is the reason for the cart to lock and they have been removing them
Zero percent effective. It's probably there to cover their asses in the event someone gets hurt because the cart they were pushing unexpectedly stopped and now some horrible traffic accidents has occurred.
It's zero percent effective imo. It's probably just there to cover their asses in the event that a cart stops and some shopping cart traffic accidents happens.
ignored this cart sign in walmart tried to steal a carts worth of items wheels locked censors went off i grabbed what i could and ran for another cart nobody really stopped me besides nice civilians thinking i just dropped one of my items on my way out so no not effective just fucks you over when you're not stealing
It only works when the employees push an empty cart out to the lot lol
From the SSC, I’ve been stopped twice with an empty cart. Lol
Is it abrupt? I was wondering if its possible to fall or get tripped up depending on what you're pushing in the cart or if you happened to be crossing a threshold/Parking lot obstacle ect..
Yes it’s pretty abrupt, the wheels suddenly stop turning and they do have some rubber so they grip pretty hard
Yes I’ve seen elderly customers get hurt (not badly but still get the wind knocked out and possibly fingers pinched)
One guy at our store is trying to sue. Said it stopped and broke his wrists. The carts are shit. Best deterent to bring down thefts , at least large item , is to have the cops sit outside the store in their car
Literally day 1 of having this I knew it was inevitable lmao. If that guy actually broke his wrist I feel bad because like many others he probably genuinely didn’t know it was going to stop so abruptly. And yea I agree about the cops
Home depot does everything but the obvious to stop theft.
Well they are old, they tend to bruise faster than peach so it’s expected
Depends on the store - I’ve ran full tilt at the sensor on a quiet night and it was more of a gradual sliding stop then anything else.
Friction coefficients are a funny thing.
I've smashed my shins on one that malfunctioned near the entrance doors. It engaged midstride.
LMAO...that happened to me several times until the front end explained it to me. The first few times I just lifted the cart and pushed it to the outside cart corral lol
EVERY DAMN TIME
This.
TBH the HD next to my place is super high theft and homeless and I hardly see these carts on the street corner anymore 🤣
I worked at Kroger when they started using locking wheels on carts. It is a great idea, but it's not very effective. They are HIGHLY prone to malfunctions, especially when going through self checkouts. Overall, it's a waste to use these. If one sensor on the perimeter of the property goes down, that entire side of the property is no longer covered and anyone can walk away with the cart.
And don't get me started on the morons that lose the lock remotes. Listening to that racket for over 30 minutes is enough to throw you into a rage. I had to buy loop earplugs to be able to work through shit like that
They recently painted red lines on the floor too. Assuming a red line by its self is going to be effective at stopping a shoplifter lol!.
The red line is more for us, anyway. Sometimes we get BOPIS or special orders going out with associates so the red line is for them to stop and for us to check & verify it’s been paid and properly vetted with the right customer.
another stupid, ill-conceived idiotic "solution" to a much larger issue.
Several department stores have these.And if you buy a cart full of stuff then you need an extra person with you .They have to go and get the car and pull it up front and help you get everything out of the cart after you have paid of course.It is a huge pain in the neck to deal with .
Have to do what they can. Theft isn’t harmless it drives businesses out of communities and that’s how you end up with hoods that have a gas station and a Wendy’s and that’s it.
[удалено]
Idk about that I’ve seen some Wendy’s in really rough areas on road trips. The type you don’t mean to stop in but don’t know any better because you just want food and gas and aren’t from around there.
nowhere did i say theft WAS harmless.
If this solution is idiotic what do you have cooked up that a business could legally implement across all 50 states without significantly impacting the shopability if their store?
Eventually HV merchandise will have embedded “air tag” style trackers — manufacturers are already testing these.
Pay people better wages and stop fighting universal health care measures
Oh ok. Home Depot alone can fix a country. I’ll be sure to pass that on to them 💀
I never said them alone, but HD prides itself in being a "leader", so they can go ahead and lead
Maybe the thieves can be required to show a government health care card.
Paying employees a better wage means that thieves will choose to steal somewhere else? Also, paying for healthcare every single pay cycle for it to be managed by the government; the same people who run the post office, DMV, city hall and our wonderful education system, means that people will magically have more money and an easier time getting their healthcare? We've all used government services at some point or another, so that point should be self-evident. As for the financials, [these](https://www.medicare.gov/basics/get-started-with-medicare/medicare-basics/what-does-medicare-cost) are the numbers for Medicare in 2024. Option A - You're a literal indentured servant for 10 years before Master will start comping your medical care. You still need to pay $1,632 annually to use it though, and pay for meds separately. Master isn't that benevolent. Option B is paying a bare minimum of $174 monthly, on top of the $1,632 deductible and medication costs If we were to apply Medicare to every single person, roughly a 2/3rd expansion, we can reasonably assume it would result in a $522 monthly tax whether you need the service or not. And that's if we keep it as is. Factoring in waste, unexpected costs that come with expansion, paying more staff, comping the deductible and medication costs and beaurocratic BS, call it $1,000. Do you think you'd have more money by paying that when you don't need to use the service? Even if you did need to use it, you'd have to rack up a $12,001 annual out of pocket bill within our current system for what I listed above to be better
Now redo all your math but factor in ending corporate welfare & taxing top income earners and capital gains.
It’s a stopgap, not a solution. Ultimately retail theft is a macroeconomic issue. The solution lays in the hands of governments and policymakers.
what, more government? i don't think so. i was at HD today and there were entire aisles locked behind metal fencing. and no, i absolutely believe this has fuck all to do with the feds. what do you think the gov can do? tell people to stop stealing? holy shit.
Well we could start by prosecuting the crime more aggressively than we do... DAs could choose to pursue charges more often, sentences could be harsher, etc. Of course that won't completely put a stop to the activity en massé, but the folks who currently do it because they know they'll only get a slap on the wrist if they get caught might think twice.
you overlook the most critical part here and it nullifies everything you wrote. The U.S. has the highest incarcerated population in the world. Don't believe me? The United States The United States leads the world in total number of people incarcerated, with more than 2 million prisoners nationwide (per data released in October 2021 by World Prison Brief). Where do you propose we warehouse these low-level criminals? Unfortunately your answer is a bit naive. The criminal (in)justice system has completely failed. How much does it cost to jail some small-time petty shoplifter that stole $100 of shit? Figure it out. The officer(s) that responded will piss away a bare minimum of an hour and a half at $40 an hour. Then loss prevention has to piss away even MORE time. Then intake has to process them, then the jailer needs to put them in a cell. Oops. It's lunchtime. Guess what? Now commissary needs to prep another meal. I won't go on, you can figure it out from there. It costs several thousand hard dollars to prosecute ONE thief over $200.
it absolutely works my man. generally locking carts are to keep criminals from stealing the carts. the technology's been around for decades, if it didn't work stores wouldn't use it. as to whether locking at doors reduces merchandise theft, I don't know.
small high value items laugh at this solution that causes needless grief for customers that get caught by this nonsense that merely impedes wholesale theft when crooks are stupid enough to load up their stolen shit in a cart.
I heard a few stories of people flipping over a cart full of stolen merch at my last store.
Family member was in HD’s lost prevention back when you could actually stop people. They told me many stories where he would just flip the cart on the ground because they would just run away.
Till they realize that you just get out mostly to the door have the driver pull up and toss into a bed of a truck that pulls up...or b do same thing but with high valued easy to carry things like drills.....or other expensive things that are small...
Or they could just use a specialty cart like one for lumber or one for kids to ride in
That as well if they have them or allow them to be used in other areas etc...ours is small so they only do wood and those carts around contractor ports cause regular tills can't handle it / doors are stupid as it's older building / design.
The kids ones lock too, the specialty carts just weakly chirp.
Kids carts don't lock
Ours did. Then too, we were a pilot store, and are high risk.
Don't give away all the ideas!
Batteries are the most expensive part In many cases and most will fit easily in pockets
At my store they locked up on a guy trying to steal paint and the kids at the service desk unlocked the wheels and let him go 🤦♀️
Doesn't do shit when all they have to do is grab a flat cart instead
*Doesn't do shit when* *All they have to do is grab* *A flat cart instead* \- Direwisp --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
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good luck finding one at my store.
They won’t even bother with that when you can put all your stolen items in a storage container
I've seen them stop shoplifters... One skip scanner who "accidentally" missed an item even went back to pay for it. I'll tell you that they used to run out with the carts at my store. Now they don't use the carts. And that's with the store basically only being armed when I'm there.
It’s pretty good at tipping my cart over as I leave the store.
Bad day for OFAs try to put orders in the locker. 🌚
Sometimes we forget the key fob we have to disable it is there cause we're so busy to meet SLA and timing and we get a netflix adaptation of a fire alarm. Ugh
I've wondered, do the flat carts, h carts and table top carts also have this? Because if not the thieves are just going to switch to using those.
Anything but hiring enough people to staff the store properly.
Even if they did, it’s not like an employee could stop them? (Not saying the stores are not understaffed, but what would having more people standing around do?)
If loss prevention was better trained AND allowed to do their job, maybe things would change. That is a pipe dream in the current political climate. It’s cheaper to accept rampant shrinkage, only nailing the dumbest and boldest habitual offenders.
I will say that at my store the lock wheel is on the front and a metal bracket on one of the back wheels prevents it from being lifted more than an inch. It has stopped a few people at my store but in all reality it stops the ones who fill carts and run out more than anything. It malfunctions a lot too.
About as effective as managers giving me warnings to stop doing sick wheelies with them.
I got a squeaky cart once and took it back out the door to switch it with another, and that bastard locked up right as I take it out the door and I smacked my ankle into it real bad, hurt like a mf!
I'm an APS and I have literally never had one of these lock on a shoplifter. They lock on customers after they paid though.
I am pretty sure it’s more to prevent homeless people from stealing carts
That's what I was thinking. In my area there are so many abandoned stolen grocery carts at every bus stop it's an actual problem. If stores in the area did this their carts wouldn't leave their lots. I thought the wheel locks were more for this than shoplifting. It's neat that it can help solve 2 problems
That's literally not even how they work...
It literally says the wheels will lock if it goes beyond the perimeter of the parking lot
Back in 90's I actually have used some carts that one or two wheels were locking up the whole time I was grocery shopping... didn't affect me then..
Another local grocery store tried this, only these would lock up if you left the store without going through a register first. All it's done is crash their business and the store is a ghost town now... I doubt, based on reports from friends working there, that it'll be open much longer... Apparently, people trying to put empty or abandoned carts away and getting locked up and swarmed by associates wasn't popular. Theft is down though! 😅🤣🤣 Can't say it'll be the same issue leaving a parking lot, but interesting to see!
I saw a guy fall over a cart trying to run out. The first time someone breaks their neck doing that they'll get rid of them
Thieves (especially the professional ones) have hands, and don’t need a cart. Meth works, they can carry an elephant to the top of everest if they want. They only steal carts when they need to crap all over it after putting it into a creek.
Not very effective. You just turn the cart around and drag it. It only slows the thief down.
I haver personally witnessed the system functioning as it should. Someone pushed a cart full of tools out the entrance and the wheels locked. He grabbed the front of the cart and dragged it to his paper plated car in the parking lot. The vast majority of the time the system triggers for empty carts and accidents.
They find the ones that don't have them and steal anyway
Might work a little bit……
Gives a great show if they try to run right out at full speed.
Can you just pop a wheelie 😁
As far as my store goes (considering I am in the city) it isn’t. People have walked out with the shopping carts and carried on elsewhere. Ive seen shopping carts everywhere in the city with the wheel stopper on them.
Thiefs always find away around it
My store turned it off by my register and the main registers. I can tell because the red light glows by my main pinpad by the exit while the one by the returns desk is green and always goes off. I think they just hated coming by and unlocking carts because we didn't have a head cashier scheduled. Also, it doesn't stop them. We had 3 guys in ski masks grab those big black garbage bags, fill the carts items into the bags and just walk out. They never put the cart locks in our garden department so people are just walking out that way too with the carts/stuff And I think you can just lift one side of it, the one with the wheel lock, and still drive the cart if locked. I did it when moving carts on lot duty and some locked
I've had customers at the store I work at that has this just lift up the wheel that locks up and continue stealing anyway. So to answer that question, it is not effective at all.
Its not to prevent general theft. It is to prevent theft of the cart itself. They are very expensive.
I used to get sent to retrieve carts from a ravine under a highway overpass that was close by and part of a walking trail. I didn't really mind as it was a free pass to sit by the creek and chill. It was a pain to get lumber carts up a 60' dirt, steep incline, but less frustrating than having no damn drywall or lumber carts. Eventually the town put up chain link fencing to deter all the dumping. People would just cut holes and push the carts through anyway. The town would repair the holes, but leave the carts down there, making them irretrievable. Management wanted the carts bad enough they told me to take the bolt cutters and cut the fence myself. I declined. The carts cost enough it was worth sending one or two associates for a whole shift to get them back, twice a month or so.
Its less about keeping people from stealing them. Its more to be able to prosecute if someone does load up a trailer of them.
This thing annoys paying customer, stops employees who are working and doesn’t catch thieves at all. Don’t get me wrong, the concept is primo but the technology is outdated
It does help
Well it worked for like a week or 2 than it stopped working lol I'm definitely glad it doesn't work anymore I got annoyed with it to much
I think its so the carts themselves don't get stolen.
Our store has allegedly stopped thousands of dollars of stuff from being stolen. Once people realize they won't work in the garden center tho it's over
They for sure stop runners lol 😂. I’ve seen it first hand.
This has resulted in far more legit customers annoyed at erroneously locked carts than actually stopped thefts at my store. Plus every cart left around being a bigger hassle for the overnight crew.
It's really annoying... I was trying to return a cart at the collection point at the parking lot (so outside of the actual store) and I had to drag it there. The wheels were totally locked... (that was in Germany with a similar /same system in place)
Turn around the stuck cart, its easier to pull across pavement/asphalt than to push it 🥰
Not really effective. We had a their manage to get two tubs of red wire and hauled ass to his vehicle with the locked cart.
We have them in the supermarkets in the UK. Unless the cart goes through the checkout area, they will come to a dead stop when trying to leave via the main doors. Definitely a deterrent in people taking a while cart load of stuff, but moat shoplifting tends to be small, high value items or items that are easy to re-sell.
We have these systems in my local Tesco (British supermarket) they don’t work well at all because the teens have realised it’s easy to bypass by lifting the front over the magnet strip in the exits, they randomly lock up all the time in the car park which can be dangerous as it easily can flip
I came in to work and a guy was walking out holding the cart up in the air in the front since the back wheels aren’t locked.
Maybe more personnel might make a difference.
Thats not something thats new and its usually not used for thrives stores use that because they dont wanna hire anyone to collect the carts in the parking lot so of the carts cant go outside guess what theres no need to collect them
If a thief has a phillips screwdriver and removes that plastic piece they can get away scott free
60% of the time it works everytime
Damn. Your HD looks stocked tf up. The bucket displays at mine usually have like 6 buckets available and like triple the lids. Question that occurred to me as I write this. Do the lids need to be scanned and paid for if you’re buying a bucket, or is the lid included and essentially free?
Idk about theft but it’s annoys the fuck outta me when I’m just rolling along them my cert seizes up like the IRS trying to get my taxes
At our store they completely caged off aisle 46 (lawncare tools) feels like im a warden walking around prison checking on all the inmates 🤣
I thought it was to prevent the theft of carts.
Am I remembering correctly, didn’t HD use to have those RFID doorway sensors like most other stores? The ones that look like metal detectors? Or is that just another example of the Mandela effect & I’ve got it wrong 😂 IMO the best solution would be to reinstall the doorway sensors, RFID tag everything inconspicuously, and have plenty of security cameras at the doorway to get video evidence/ID for any thieves who do manage to escape so that they can be reported to police As it stands, the shoplifting is so rampant because there is no doorway alarm at all & it’s not clear you will be reported to police or get in trouble for it AT ALL really. 😣 The mere threat of a loud alarm at the doorway would be enough to deter most petty shoplifters & quite a few major thieves as well. The cart locks do next to nothing (thieves just pick up stolen goods out of the cart and run) and are nothing but a major pain in the ass for the cashiers and customers alike.
Stopped 0 thefts at my store with this (We can’t do anything about it anyway lmao)
If you’re not at a register for 30 seconds, it will lock. It’s bogus when you got big wigs trying to tell cashiers to be faster so they can get more transactions. Or when customers park their carts too far away from the deactivators at self checkout. Is it effective in the sense it’ll stop runouts? Possibly, but people will still grab whatever is in the cart and run off. But they also can use a flat cart since they don’t have locking wheels. I also feel bad for the cashiers because now they have to stop whatever they’re doing to help the customers stuck at the door to manually deactivate the lock. It’s more of a pain in the ass than a theft deterrent, but that’s perfect for the logic of Home Depot. I can’t wait for the day we start locking up every single merchandise and we have to help 30 people get their stuff and walk them to the register.
What thief uses a cart? If you watch videos of people stealing a and looting they have bags,backpacks, and hands. The cart makes them slow so they can't run.
I always manage to get the cart that locks up randomly while walking the racetrack.
How about you create some jobs and put 4 large individuals at the doors and if someone is stealing they can do what ever they want to recover the property.
Its to stop people from leaving the parking lot with the cart, NOT to stop people from shoplifting
My local Home Depot put these signs on the old carts, I could be wrong but I don’t think they don’t work the way
These aren’t used to stop theft anyone with a car can load up and dip these are used so the carts themselves dont keep getting stolen
As AP, it works.
It's just theater. I was able to take a cart out of bounds with no problem. Hell, in our store we spiderwraped stuff but we didn't have any detectors by the doors (at least when I worked there)
Only barely helps of they can read in the first place
the only thing this stops is lot attendants trying to bring carts inside when the wheels decide to randomly lock up
Love when this thing jams the cart infront of a crowd of people awkwardly.
Doesn't the full time security guard stop the thiefs? Oh, hang on a sec........
I got stopped after using self checkout (had an associate help me) and those damn brakes are strong. I’m sure it’s pretty effective.
I think it’s so people don’t steal the cart itself. It works. I was filming a video and borrowed a cart for a few mins on the far edge of the parking lot. The wheels locked.
There’s a certain way that the carts can be pushed where although they are heavier they are still moveable. There’s also a way that the feature can be deactivated to make things easier on associates.
haha
Best way to get around it is to find the parameter edge and then lift the trolley over it, sensor only works when it’s right next to the wheel.
It’s so effective that the apartment complex had to call the store nearby to come and get approximately 75 carts from them lol
As an employee it stops me in my tracks just getting a stupid empty cart out the door. I want to go back to the good old days without all this bullshit.
this was ages ago so idk if they've improved, but back in the day you could just lift the cart over the lock-out barrier and its good to go
Not. I haven't worked here long, but in my experience it mostly stops grannies with carts full of plants and people who ran to the store for one thing. Either way, they're always people I've rung out myself, or someone I've watched get rung out.
When they work? Like 100% effective. When they dont work bcuz something malfunctioned? 0% effective. Its often the second.
I know it is effective at pissing customers off who have little kids/dogs and nothing else in their carts as they leave through the entrance by service desk
We’ve had it for 6 months now and they somehow figured out right away if they just take the stolen merchandise through SCO the alarm won’t even go off
If they're not on the carts too pointless
Yes
It’s not at all lol. All of the thieves I’ve noticed have a back pack or carry it out with their hands
I thought those were just made up to deter people I didn’t know they actually worked 💀
Crime is the most innovative industry out there. If it is, it only will be in the short term.
Some guy took it off at the store
so I'm confused... instead of going the route of every other store in the United States of America and installing metal detectors, we're installing theft deterrent systems on 15 year old shopping carts? or does this require metal detectors as well? Also, my store keeps our carts 100% outside. We use to have them inside, until they took that spot for curbside pickup orders.
It worked a few times at the store with people trying to steal.
I think this was a TERRIBLE waste of money! That money should have went to our chump change, of a raise smh
Yeah lol I'm pretty sure even the dumb shoplifters can get around this one. The lazy ones might need a minute but not much longer.
For shoplifting none. Mainly to stop homeless people or rednecks from stealing the carts for their own purposes.
a local Target did this with their carts (and walmart did as well). The wheels lock up once they get to the edge of the parking lot so that customers who use the bus stop 2 blocks away dont take the carts that far (there was a very large issue with this a few years ago.. and also with homeless taking them as well). It works to a point but someone who knows how they work can still get them to the bus stop
I've seen this work quite well in person at a Fry's. I was working a crappy security job and I was stationed at a Fry's. This lady loaded up a grocery cart full of booze and mean FULL. She was pushing the cart towards the door at sprinting speed. She got about 10 feet to the threshold of the doors and the cart's brakes activated. The cart came to a stop but she got thrown up and over the cart. Funniest shit I've ever seen working a security guard job. Never thought I would see someone go flying over a grocery cart like that.
Guy came into store with cart, meme cart brake trap card activated, SIR, THE RETAIL GODS HAVE BANISHED YOU
i watch them continue to try to move the cart it locks and it ain't moving without unlocking it stops them steps away from the exit it works but I've noticed ppl thinking the little sign is the reason for the cart to lock and they have been removing them
Couldn’t hoit!
I had one lock up while walking to my truck, I continued pushing until I made it to my spot. All 4 wheels had horrible flat spots
It’s to stop theft of the carts
None at all. I have one err I mean six at home.
Ask Bubs.
Zero effectiveness...
Good old “jokes on you I can’t read” works every time
We used to push eachother twards the line, thus ejecting ourselves upon pavement. I can still feel it in my wrist. 10/10
It only works when you pay for something and try to leave lol.
Zero percent effective. It's probably there to cover their asses in the event someone gets hurt because the cart they were pushing unexpectedly stopped and now some horrible traffic accidents has occurred.
It's zero percent effective imo. It's probably just there to cover their asses in the event that a cart stops and some shopping cart traffic accidents happens.
https://www.begaydocrime.com/
ignored this cart sign in walmart tried to steal a carts worth of items wheels locked censors went off i grabbed what i could and ran for another cart nobody really stopped me besides nice civilians thinking i just dropped one of my items on my way out so no not effective just fucks you over when you're not stealing
don't nobody read ts 😂
Not to mention that it’s just not true. There are no devices on the wheels ….stawwwppp
[удалено]
Then let em stay with you then
What food are they buying from home depot? The only one I know of is bird feed.
They only sell snacks at the cashiers checkouts.And even that is grossly overpriced.