Be aware of someone scamming you into paying for their purchases at self-service checkouts.
My wife was waiting in line at a Fred Meyer checkout in Battle Ground. Some woman approached her and said how much faster it would be to use the self-service checkout. The woman said I will help you and show you how it works.
When my wife got home, she noticed the receipt for Fred Meyer was missing, so she wrote down what she had bought and the price paid. The list totaled about $10. When I was matching the credit card bill against my Quicken data, there was billing of $54 at Fred Meyer that I had no receipt for. After checking the “My Purchases” listing on Fred Meyer for that date there were a number of items that we never buy. My wife went to customer service and told them of the extra charges. He checked and said that the purchase was made at self-checkout. Fred Meyer refunded the $45 for the items we had not purchased. I don’t know how often this happens, but Fred Meyer appears to be aware of it happening. The $45 was a small price to pay for what they save with self-checkout and the scammer got her groceries for free.
I suppose this happens at other stores like Safeway, Albertsons, Winco, etc. Maybe not so much at Winco, they have a person keeping a close eye on things at the self-service checkout.
Words of advice, never let someone help you at self-service checkout unless they have an official store name tag.
Myself, I refuse to use a self-service checkout, unless a clerk does all the work. Each time you use a self-service checkout, you are putting someone out of work.
Fred Meyer use to have six or more check stands open. After they got self-service checkouts, they only have one or two check stands open. That is four people who have lost a job.
