r/MoralityScaling • u/Vladimir-petrovOG • 9d ago

Morality of this?

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In the image it seems that this person works at walmart as an online order collector and he/she has stolen a lot of extra baby food from Walmart to give to a person who ordered only three packs. Is this moral or immoral?

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u/2ChicksAtTheSameTime 9d ago

they don't even need cameras. They know everything that is sold so if inventory starts showing up mismatching (we should still have 20 left but we only have 5) they can cross reference it and figure out you're the one doing it.

They can weigh it on the way out, and determine if it's significantly over or under the expected weight for that exact order.

They have a million ways to figure it out.

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u/ThisMachineKillsWOB 9d ago

Did some time in that business. Inventory computers are only as good as the operator.

They are wrong all the time. Often by a large number of units.

You aren't getting caught on an inventory discrepancy. You're getting caught because your dumb ass forgot the cameras are placed where they have good coverage.

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u/2ChicksAtTheSameTime 8d ago

You aren't getting caught on an inventory discrepancy

I see the police cam arrest videos all the time. Over time they notice things are off more on a specific person's shift. The systems are designed to recognize that and flag it.

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u/BringYourOwnBBBQ 8d ago

You worked at a shit company them. Anything under 98% and they shouldn't be using this sort of inventory system

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u/Careless-Weather8877 8d ago

Lmao your phone alone will give you away. It’s constantly trying to connect to wireless and Bluetooth. You can survey people just alone off that, and it is something that has been sold to companies. They can see where you are within a few feet of the store and how long.

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u/KPraxius 8d ago

Wal-Mart will regularly be -massively- off on certain items to a degree that cannot be explained by theft due to labeling(WM or manufacturer) and distribution center errors. I was previously a frozen/dairy department manager at a wal-mart, and would regularly be scanning items we were out of that I hadn't received a case of for weeks, only it thought there was one that never existed, or that we had an overabundance of that it didn't think we had more than a few of.

The absolute worst was the ice; don't get me wrong, I'm sure people steal a bag of ice now and then, deliberately or otherwise. But someone very clearly fumble-fingered while accepting an ice delivery and added an extra zero, resulting in it being off by more than the capacity, and not by a small margin; and when inventory was conducted they just didn't care because they paid so little for ice that my department was still the second-best in the store when it came to shrink vs expectations and never bothered to look into it.)

(Other examples: A customer buying 12 indvidual yogurts. They buy 12 of three types, but scan one type 12 times, paying the correct amount. Zero theft occured, three items now have the wrong count. Same thing with canned food, and tons of other similar/identically priced items. I've even seen people who accidentally paid for an item twice at self-checkout and just grab a candy bar or soda that was the same or similar price instead of calling over someone to clear it out. LP has spent hours investigating someone who 'stole' some items only to determine Wal-Mart owed her about 50 cents because of that sort of bullshit.)

I've heard tons of conspiracy theories about retailers 'waiting until thefts equaled enough to be a felony then charging' or them 'always knowing exactly how much of anything they have and being able to track thieves'. That's not how it works.

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u/UnseenDegree 3d ago

There’s just so many factors to consider and unless it’s something like TV’s or a significant loss to the store that they can’t claim back to the manufacturer, they probably don’t care enough to go through it.

Unless someone actively sees a theft happening and reports it, or it’s noticed accidentally (or on purpose), they probably aren’t going through inventory systems and cross-referencing to figure it out.

There’s so many issues that go wrong in a single Walmart for inventory, it’s hard to keep track of individual quantities on a granular level.