If you shop at warehouse clubs like Costco or Sam’s Club, you know that you never put your receipt in your purse or pocket as soon as you get it. Why? Because there will be someone waiting to check it at the door before you can leave.
This is obviously because they are hoping to catch you smuggling out 40 rolls of toilet paper, right? Wrong. According to a Reddit thread, the reason for checking receipts at the exit actually has nothing to do with stealing. In fact, the purpose is to help the customer, not because they assume we’re all thieves.
According to the Reddit thread, which has responses from former employees of these big-box retailers, the exit greeter, as they’re called, is simply checking your receipt to make sure you weren’t charged for something twice and ensuring that you didn’t missed any discounts, etc. If they do see a problem, they will then work to make sure it’s corrected before you leave the store.
“If a receipt shows under 20 items, we count. It’s a very quick count to 20,” wrote one Redditor who says they worked there before. “For carts with over 20 items … [t]he main things we check for are stuff on the bottom. Cases of water, TP, pop cases, etc. All those extra things that maybe a cashier misses.”
The same goes for if you use the “scan and go” app at Sam’s Club, which allows you to scan the items you’re buying as you shop and avoid the line and cashier completely. You could easily forget to scan something or scan something twice by accident, meaning you could end up saving money if the exit greeter were to catch the mistake.
“Trust me, we’re not loss prevention, we have loss prevention in the store and that’s not us,” another Redditor wrote. “We’re literally just trying to make sure our cashiers do the job right, and when we do catch it, all the information gets stored. Who did it, what time, etc. … and those cashiers get spoken to. This is not to benefit anyone but the member to improve the experience overall.”
Sam’s Club
Laura Ladd Poff, the senior manager of corporate communications for Sam’s Club, confirmed this to Cooking Light, saying that having an exit greeter is also an opportunity for the store to connect again with the customer before leaving.
“It’s an opportunity to ask them if they found everything they were looking for, and if they have everything they need — but it’s also a chance to make sure their transaction went smoothly, and the cashier didn’t accidentally ring up anything twice,” she said.
Did you know this is the reason Sam’s Club checks your receipts?