I think I would have politely told the clerk that she missed the bar
codes on the ells and pointed them out. As far as the customer, if
he honestly didn't realize the situation he would apologize, pay for
ALL of the merchandise and leave embarrassed after thanking you for
noticing the mistake. If he raised a fuss he would be pointing out
his true nature as a thief and his position beneath contempt.
Considering the location of this Home Depot and the number of Meth
soaked scum balls in the area surrounding it, probability is he knew
exactly what he was doing. I know a lot of the checkers down at
Chehalis and they are still learning. Still better than Tumwater.

Gary

On Fri, 11 Nov 2005 17:13:28 -0800, "Harold and Susan Vordos"
wrote:

Today I was in Home Depot, standing in line to pay for a couple rolls of
hardware cloth. In front of me was a gentleman, and I use that term
loosely, that had placed on the counter six one inch electrical PVC ells,
along with six couplings, each of which was attached to the ells. The
ells had their UPC stamped on them, but the connectors had a stick-on label.
To a woman clerk, that may or may not be wise to how such things look and
are used, it was very easy for the items to be scanned by the label only,
considering the UPC on the ells blended well with the other data printed
thereon.

That's what happened. The buyer paid with a credit card, the total coming
to under $3. It was obvious to me that he had placed the connectors on the
ells intentionally, likely thinking they would get scanned just as they did.
I did more than nothing, but I'm interested in hearing what others might
think would have been a good course of action to take. When I've heard
various opinions, I'll describe what I did, and why I did it.

Comments?

Harold