Accused of racial profiling, Lowe’s ends policy of checking customers’ receipts as they leave

[SummerMadness]

Accused of racial profiling, Lowe’s ends policy of checking customers’ receipts as they leave

Memorial Day weekend was supposed to bring three productive days of home improvement for Will Mega, a dean at a North Philadelphia charter school.

He would go to two Lowe’s locations near his home in Philadelphia’s Wynnefield neighborhood for a grill and other items for a contracting job. But when Mega, who is black, found that only certain stores made customers show their receipts before leaving the store, he began to feel that the company’s policy was a way of profiling and harassing some of its customers. He raised the issue with a store manager.

 

[iluvatar5150]

It's kind of a useless policy. I've been through this at a number of stores and nobody has ever been thorough enough to verify that I wasn't stealing anything.

 

[Ana the Ist]

It's kind of a useless policy. I've been through this at a number of stores and nobody has ever been thorough enough to verify that I wasn't stealing anything.

Old contracting scam...

Go in, buy required items, hang onto receipt...

Go to work site, dump necessary materials, return to store during busiest hours...

Grab the exact same list as before, go to front of store, pick newest looking employee, tell them you're returning materials because the job was canceled. The idea is the job cannot be too large to notice you picking up the materials a second time...but not so small that they'll scan them all before refunding cash. If they do scan it, you simply say "oh my mistake, I left the correct one out in my car" and leave...

That's one of maybe 3-4 contractor scams I learned growing up...and these are probably why these stores did this in the first place. Contractors can be a shifty bunch.