My pet peeve
A new article is posted each day on Blunt Money, where you get plain talk about money and personal finance. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
My pet peeve is stores that insist that you take a bag when you buy something. This happened again last weekend. I went to the mall in search of at least one sweater so that I could have more than 5 day’s worth of winter clothes. My first stop was Dillard’s, where I found a long-sleeve shirt. I took their bag, since I had forgotten to bring my own and didn’t feel like arguing with them over not wanting a bag at all.
Next I went to Macy’s, which was having a great sale. (I bought one sweater and one twinset at second-hand store prices.) When the clerk finished ringing up my purchases, I held up my bag from the other store and said that I could just put it in there. The clerk explained that no, she had to give me a Macy’s bag, and proceeded to pull out a giant plastic bag. I didn’t say anything, but must have looked irritated because she explained that otherwise the security people might think I was trying to steal something.
I’ve heard this line before, at other stores, but I’m really kind of sick of it. After all, what’s to say that I won’t try to steal something using the Macy’s bag? I’m all for theft-prevention, but surely there has to be a better way? I mean, aren’t the beeping security devices enough? I have enough bags!
Although I’m not ready yet to walk away over it. Maybe that’s what it would take to change things.
January 23rd, 2008 at 7:13 am
Perhaps walking out of Macy’s, removing the item from the bag, put it in the other bag, and tossing the empty bag into the store would help…
January 23rd, 2008 at 7:46 am
They want you to advertise for them by carrying *their* bag around. It has nothing to do with shoplifting prevention, IMO.
January 23rd, 2008 at 8:47 am
Something to consider: the poor lady behind the cash register is probably minimum wage. If she didn’t give you a bag, her boss would probably come and give her a ration of crap.
By the by, I really like this new design for your blog.
January 23rd, 2008 at 1:45 pm
Wow, you’re much nicer than I am. I just remove my purchase from the bag and leave the bag on the counter. Sometimes I’ll say that I don’t want to add more junk to the landfills, so they can’t really argue with that. The “security” excuse is bogus. If you have a receipt, they can’t really accuse you of stealing! Plus, some stores will check your receipt when you leave anyway, even if you have bags, so that tells you it has nothing to do with security. As the other commenter said, it’s all about the free advertising.
January 23rd, 2008 at 4:37 pm
I think next time I’ll just say “I’ll take my chances” and leave the bag. Good ideas…
January 24th, 2008 at 7:42 am
How about talking to the manager? Or just walking out with the item in your hand? If you don’t pass to management your disapproval of their practices, we’ll never have change.
January 25th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Fortunately, at grocery stores people don’t seem to care. Which is nice because that’s where we shop the most. So if we’re just popping by for something, we don’t have to worry about bags.
January 27th, 2008 at 2:29 am
Plastic bags were rated as the number 1 reason for India’s big floods of 2004-2005 when more than a 1000 people died. The Givernment is now trying to ban plastic bags completely (in some states) and get the customers to bring their own bags.
I think this is a great idea.
When I drive past rubbish dumps like in Mali (I am in Bamako now), almost all the rubbish is recycled, except for the plastic bags whihc start flying around…. such a mess.