We will always have crooks among us, and naively believing in an inherent goodness in man will always be a costly mistake

yeah, well, it’s like a corporation, man, and that’s like evil; besides the check from my parents hasn’t com yet

Reader “Save My Sanity, Please” (in these times? Doubtful) brings our attention to this news story:

Wegemans ends its scan-and-go app due to excessive shoplifting

The app, Wegmans SCAN, promised customers a quicker checkout and also let them see a running total of their purchases as they shopped.

This week, the grocer announced that it is ending the app because of rampant shoplifting.

“Unfortunately, the losses we are experiencing prevent us from continuing to make it available in its current state,” the company said in a statement. “We’ve made the decision to turn off the app until we can make improvements that will meet the needs of our customers and business.”

… The chain debuted its “scan-and-go” app as Amazon was beginning to ramp up its cashier-less Amazon Go stores. Many other traditional retailers also rushed to keep pace with Amazon and introduced their own scan-and-go style apps. Wegmans called it the “right technology” at the “right time.”

… But scan-and-go has come with unintended consequences for stores: higher levels of shoplifting, fraud and other losses than would normally occur at traditional checkout lanes staffed by cashiers.

In a 2018 report on losses associated with self-checkout systems, Adrian Beck, an emeritus professor at the University of Leicester in the UK, said scan-and-go “currently offers far fewer opportunities to amplify risk and enhance detection” compared to regular cashier lanes or self-checkout kiosks.

There are many types of scan-and-go thefts, including customers who intentionally do not scan items, or scan cheaper items than what they put in their carts.

Self-checkout abusers feel it is “easy to do, reaps rich rewards, and even if they are caught, leads to little or no sanctions being applied,” Beck said in the report, which analyzed 140 million scan-and-go app transactions.

One retailer shared data with Beck comparing its stores with and without scan-and-go apps. Those with the technology had a loss rate 18% higher than those that did not.