Imagine working at a store where carts lock before leaving the store if the cart didn’t spend enough time at a register.

This would be to prevent customers from stealing.

The cashier in this story, went to unlock the wheels of a cart that locked up.

It didn’t seem like the customer was stealing at first, but when she saw what was in the cart, she realized the truth.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Woman with a toddler attempts to walk out with a cart full of groceries.

I work as a cashier at a store that sells groceries and household goods (not Walmart) and this happened on Valentine’s day.

I work at one of the registers nearest the door and because of this we’re responsible for responding to the eas (security) pedestals and our shopping carts are designed with locking wheels that we’re also supposed to respond to because if a wheel locks up the customer can’t move the carts easily anymore.

They lock in 2 locations for 2 different reasons.

If they lock at the eas pedestals it means they either didn’t go through a register or they didn’t spend enough time with the cart in the register to trigger the “don’t lock up” feature.

The other location is if they try to remove the cart from the perimeter of the parking lot.

She noticed a customer with a toddler but didn’t think much of it.

I was ringing up customers after my lunch break.

I already had higher anxiety due to the sheer number of people who are in the store. Social anxiety. Yay. I totally work in a great job for that….

I see a woman with a cart walking towards the doors, but I don’t really pay her much mind.

She had a toddler holding a balloon in the child seat and a cart full of large stuffed animals and what appeared to be food.

She didn’t have anything in her cart bagged but that’s not extremely uncommon since I live in an area where we charge for bags if you don’t bring your own.

The cart locked.

Suddenly I hear the song of our people…. Ding ding ding… Ding ding ding…. Her cart wheel has locked up.

I finished up my transaction and told the customer next in line I’d be right back, grabbing the device to unlock the cart wheel.

When I approached, the toddler had started screaming.

Me – “hello, ma’am, could I see your receipt please?”

The customer made an excuse.

Her – “oh…” Holding some crumpled (what we refer to as garbage) receipts she shuffles through them “I think my girlfriend took it” starts fighting with toddler who is trying to climb out of the cart.

Me – “I can hold this here (gestures to register) while you go get it from her”

Her – “I’ll call her” still fighting with her toddler she starts fumbling in her large purse for her phone. She gets on the phone.

I’m starting to feel anxious and shaking because I had a line and I thought this was going to be quick.

The customer noticed the line.

Her – “go help them”

I paused a moment before going back to the register and immediately as I’m ringing up the next customer call my manager.

I brief him on the situation and he says he’ll get someone up there.

But before he got someone there, she picked up her kid and walked out with just the kid and the balloon they were holding.

She moved the cart out of the way.

I called my manager back and told him what happened.

I excused myself from the next customer to remove the cart from blocking the middle of the eas pedestals, and pulled it over to my register.

One of my coworkers later rang it up for me.

Our policy is if we stop a theft we get 10% of the recovered merchandise in cash.

She doesn’t feel bad about stopping the thief.

I’m making a nice $60+ off of her.

Turned out she had a bunch of expensive makeup and ethnic haircare products buried under all the stuff.

I kind of felt bad at first because it looked like basic groceries and Valentine’s stuff for kids, but when I found out it totalled over $600 in theft I stopped feeling bad really quick.

That was one sneaky lady. I’m glad she didn’t get the cart out the door.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This is a pretty cool policy!

This person would love to work somewhere with that policy!

This person shares the situation with the parking lot and cart wheel locks at their local grocery store.

Locking wheels on carts is a good idea in theory.

Locking wheels really do prevent customers from stealing.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.