The manager of the TigerDirect that unlawfully detained reader Shaneal Manek for his refusal to show a receipt called him this afternoon and apologized for his store’s behavior. Shaneal told The Consumerist by phone that Tony, the store manager, pledged to retrain his staff on proper procedures and that they wouldn’t retain the services of the security guard involved in the dispute.
Earlier, we spoke with Tiger Direct Executive Vice President Richard Wallet, who confirmed the receipt dispute incident did occur, and cast doubts on Shaneal’s version of the events.
When asked whether the verbal altercation happened as Shaneal described, Wallet said he couldn’t be sure as he wasn’t there. He said that he found it unlikely that the security guard would taunt and threaten Shaneal as he had met the guard and he “didn’t seem that type of guy.”
Wallet accused Shaneal of trying to bait the store after being detained a week prior for also refusing to show a receipt. Shaneal said that on that occasion, he declined to show a receipt because he had already waited over an hour for a part to be pulled from the back, some more time at the register, and didn’t feel like waiting in a line for a security guard to check his receipt when he was under no legal obligation to show the receipt. On that date, cops were called to intervene, which is store policy whenever there’s a possibility of a confrontation with a customer, Wallet told us. He also said the cop told Shaneal to not return if he wasn’t going to follow store policy. Shaneal says that that didn’t happen.
Wallet also told us that on the date of the most recent incident, Shaneal purchased three items in two separate transactions and stuffed one of the receipts in his pocket and began to walk out of the store with his items. Wallet said the head cashier only saw one of the transactions and that gave her cause to tell the security guard to stop Shaneal. Shaneal told The Consumerist that he was buying items for a friend who wanted his own receipt for record-keeping purposes.
By law, shopkeepers are only allowed to detain customers under suspicion of shoplifting if they actually see the customer hide the item on their person.
Wallet encouraged any customer with a TigerDirect complaint to call him directly at 305-415-2441.
Shaneal told us that he is satisfied with how the situation got resolved and thanked us for posting his story as he felt it otherwise wouldn’t have been paid as much attention by TigerDirect. Wallet said he had been fielding phone calls and emails about the issue all morning.
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Hello, the previous week the police were also called, but I was not detained. The guard asked me to stop for not showing my receipt, and I asked if I had to. The guard said yes I had to (without actually physically detaining me), but a manager overheard and assured me I was free to leave, but she would appreciate it if I stayed until the police arrived. Because she asked nicely, I consented. The officer arrived and told them they couldn’t detain me unless they saw me stole.
Unfortunetly, they didn’t learn their lesson. The next week the same thing happened (different manager, same guard) but I was physically detained and unable to leave. That is when I tried to press charges and emailed the consumerist.
In the first incident they did nothing illegal (it was poor customer service, granted, but I was willing to give them a second shot).
The store’s manager, Tony, said he spoke to everyone involved and agreed that my version of events was substantially correct.
He was still a Dick. He went in there to cause trouble and he got it.
@smanek: And why and by whom were the police called on the first occasion ?
I really think it comes down more to ethics than anything else, I mean civil rights and all that jazz are understandable. But when it comes down to it would you really want to shop somewhere where they think you are a thief, and they are constantly questioning your actions? Honestly I would go to a different store, they are being shady in their business.
Furthermore is this really an apology or an explanation? What was the point of this follow up, to say hey we were wrong but so was he? Honestly step up to the plate TigerDirect, say that you are sorry and stop making excuses about it. Sure there was more to the story, but the way Wattle says it points a finger at Shaneal and it is shameful. Learn some ethics for gods sake take a look at a good company like Nordstrom, talk about an A company….
@Buran: Yeah, technically speaking, civil rights can only be violated by a government actor – not a private actor, like a store.
BUT, I totally agree with you in principle.
I really think it comes down more to ethics than anything else, I mean civil rights and all that jazz are understandable. But when it comes down to it would you really want to shop somewhere where they think you are a thief, and they are constantly questioning your actions? Honestly I would go to a different store, they are being shady in their business.
Furthermore is this really an apology or an explanation? What was the point of this follow up, to say hey we were wrong but so was he? Honestly step up to the plate TigerDirect, say that you are sorry and stop making excuses about it. Sure there was more to the story, but the way Wattle says it points a finger at Shaneal is shameful. Learn some ethics for gods sake take a look at a good company like Nordstrom, talk about an A company….
Tiger Direct is a slimy company. The only time I bought something there recently I used a newly created spambait gmail account and a week later I requested to be removed from their mass mailing ads.
I started getting spammed to hell in that email account within a few days to a week.
No doubt here that they sold my email address to a spammer. Pricks.
In other news, Tiger Direct has brick & mortar stores? Which part of the country?
@Freedomboy:
If they search anything of yours or do a “pat down” I would then claim that I am suddenly missing $500 in cash that was in my bag or pocket.
This is why no one is allowed to search your belongings. So it does go 2ways.
@North of 49:
I have had that happen a couple of times & I usually just stop dead in my tracks & look at the employee manning the door near (or nearest cashier) with a wide-eyed “wtf did I do wrong?” look on my face & the person almost always just waves me through. I stop because I dont want to be tackled in the parking lot by some dirty harry wannabe loss prevention employee (or pulled over by a cop down the road).
Its a bit annoying because everyone within earshot of that alarm is looking at you like you are some POS thief!
This changes nothing. I still think the OP over reacted. I’d rather be a modest “sheep” who shows his receipt and goes along on his way, then the asshole who waste everyones times just so he can flex one of his “rights” muscles.
I’ll now say rude things toward people who waste my time in stores by pulling this bullshit. Your right to be a asshole, my right to embarrass you more than you would have ever been if you just showed the fucking receipt.
All this is nothing out of the ordinary. TigerDirect has always had bad customer service, this is why I don’t do any business with them to begin with. I left Target with a PS3, they didn’t try demanding to see my receipt as I went by the security guard, no demands for it.
When asked for a receipt I have always declined and said it was my right to do so. No one ever gave me an issue with this, but I can anticipate there will eventually be a problem. Sure you can just show them a receipt, but why must an honest person prove they are not a thief?
Hell in some stores, I have seen people go out of the store, the security system goes beeping and no one even tries to stop them. That I suppose would be reason enough to stop someone, but hey…
After reading the saga and the posts, I fall on OP’s side. I think OP should have shown the receipt (yes, civil rights, blah, blah, blah). I honestly don’t think its that big of a deal. I choose to save my anger for spying on my emails, phone calls, IM chats, etc. without a warrant and then push to give the companies immunity. BUT, I think once he refused, Tiger had a choice, escalate the issue because they really thought the guy had stolen, or let him go. They choice to escalate and they chose wrong. The law is clearly on OP’s side.
Haha, PLEASE!, for some of you “gravitating toward the store’s viewpoint”, remember, even a cop cannot search you without charging you with something, or having probable cause. That receipt is her property, as well as the groceries that she just bought. If they have no evidence of her stealing anything, such as a surveillance tape, they have no right to detain her. Even then, unless she’d previously entered into a contract with them, allowing them to do so, they still can’t search her. Tigerdirect, and any other shithole store doesn’t make Federal Law, and they’re certainly not above it.
~Grow A Brain
Love Nero
@ThyGuy: Fine. When a store illegally detains you and a guard lies to get you arrested (and it does happen [blogs.mercurynews.com] Don’t call me for help. Don’t complain about it. Just do your time and reflect on it. You don’t exercise your rights, then you do not deserve them or deserve anyone to come to your aid when they are violated.
The fact is you have YOUR rights because ‘assholes’ fought for them…
After all, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. If you don’t like the way we squeak, then up yours and the horse you rode in on.
Baa Baa Baa
Ugh. Please sue these pricks. They will just keep doing what they’re doing until someone shoves a lawsuit up their asses. On a sidenote, do any process servers offer this as a delivery method?
Im wondering how all the people who posted in response to the original story and said that Shaneal should just have showed his receipt and “gone along” with the store’s policy feel now that the store has agreed that they acted illegally?
So, Shaneal should have just gone along with an illegal order?
You guys would have made great Nazis. Just do what the authorities say (even if they’re really only minimum-wage security guards). You’re going to LOVE showing your government-issued ID card every time you go to the court house…or the local DMV…or the post office.
@crankymediaguy: They’re all too cowed to give a legitimate response.
@dantc:
Dantc, Cranky…
The store admitted to acting illegally when they detained the OP, not when they asked to see the receipt. I think that most of Shaneal’s critics would reiterate that the store’s illegal behavior would not have occurred if he had produced the receipt. Neither I nor they are condoning the store’s behavior once the situation escalated and Shaneal was detained. The point people are trying to make is that they would rather show a receipt and avoid the potential ensuing conflict. There are a number of ways to put this – “pick your battles,” “don’t be a jackass,” “chill out” – you get the idea… but they drive home the same point.
And cranky, if the governmental authorities (i.e. the courts, USPS, etc. begin to do those things, that is the time to raise civil rights issues and Nazi analogies.
Not when a private entity does it.
Pretty much I am with Flynn’s comment. TigerDirect needs to rearrange their stores so the checkout is an aisle format. When you clear the register you are nearly out the door.
A Fry’s near me has the same arrangement. They do the stupid check receipt thing. I refuse every time and just walk past the checker. But this store is so arranged that anybody can walk out of the store without approaching a register aisle, they have product displayed AFTER you have checked out. I mean come on. The Tiger/Fry arrangement is very antiquated on this score.
@ArtDonovansDrunkenLovechild: “I would think it would be no different then them requiring shoes or shirts as a condition of service.”
Other people answered the first part above, but in many (probably most) states, you’re required by law to be clothed and shod in places of public accommodation. (This even includes things like requiring dancers to wear shoes the second they come off stage so they can’t even run to the dressing room barefoot!)
The other policy (“you must show receipt or be detained” without an actual contract signed) tends to contravene state law. “No shirt, no shoes, no service” is merely a store restating state law. There’s a huge difference.
@All: As for other stores that do it, some Best Buys do. I don’t shop there anymore because of it.
If the store has a problem with their employees stealing, it is NOT MY PROBLEM. It is THEIR PROBLEM. If they want to make it my problem, then I expect to be paid or otherwise compensated for my time and trouble, and I expect to be able to opt out if I choose not to participate in their loss-prevention program. That means that, at minimum, the prices for everything I buy should be significantly lower than they are at stores that don’t expect customers to give up their time and rights to help catch their dishonest employees.
The more I’m thinking about this, the more I disagree with it being a “civil rights violation”. *If the policy is posted,* (which, admittedly, I don’t think it was), then you always can choose NOT TO SHOP THERE. But otherwise, it’s private property and unfortunately, they can choose the conditions under which you enter. The US Constitution applies specifically to interactions between the govt and it’s representatives and individuals. What the constitution does let you do is stand outside on the public street and hold up a sign saying TigerDirect is a bunch of jerks.
Basically, the search in this case is probably not unreasonable, since the receipt is more like a written manifestation of the contract (for the transaction) between two parties, and when viewed that way, while there is the right to refuse to show a receipt, the store has a right to ban the customer for this (though, really, that would be a stupid practice). What is illegal is the forcible detention against Shaneal’s will, which is tortious. Having worked in retail (big box home improvement retailer that isn’t Home Depot), great care is taken to almost never confront a customer even if they are blatantly stealing because of the potential liability. I think receipt check in general works much in the same way as people who put up signs in their yards for security systems they don’t have. I mean, I’ve certainly never had anybody go over each and every item in my cart to see if there is a corresponding entry on the receipt. I think TigerDirect is missing the point of the practice.
Vangogh71 – Well said! As our rights are kneaded, over and over again, slowly but surely, we become more maleable and can be formed into whatever the corporations/government (one in the same anymore) want.
The rights we have lost, and are still losing, were not lost overnight. This has been a constant, deliberate and covert assault. Having our rights taken away a little at a time, ie: showing our receipts to prove we aren’t liars and thieves, will inevitably lead to something much more intrusive, ie: a camera hovering over our heads and following us through the store. I, for one, am not OK with this!
On the other thread, I was tempted to invoke Godwin’s Law when people started ranting about Rosa Parks and soldiers in Iraq.
When you come right down to it, my policy is simple. If there’s no line to get out of the store, I’ll show the receipt. If there is, I walk right by. They have the right to courteously ask to see it, and I’ll normally accomodate that, but I’m not waiting my turn to do so.
Even if the policy is posted, they can’t use force to detain a customer. All they can say is that you are no longer welcome back. And I didn’t see a posted policy either.
@Allura: You’re missing the point – even if the policy is posted, it can’t be cause for detainment. And once you detain someone without reasonable cause, yeah, it is a civil rights issue – it’s false imprisonment.
And simply posting the policy isn’t enough. Çustomers have to have explicitly agreed to inspections and possible detainment. But “it’s our private property so we can set whateverthefuck rules we want” doesn’t work in this country. By that logic, we’d all get away with criminal acts as long as we do it in the privacy of our own homes.
@Slytherin: I am not one of those people who think the government is always right (far from it!), but I DO think they did something right when we were granted those ten basic amendments to the Constitution.
@BrockBrockman: Technically true — BUT — since stopping you from leaving involves committing a crime, they still cannot violate this right as long as you refuse to allow yourself to be searched. And the police, if summoned, cannot do so either because there’s no reasonable cause to search you and that’s where the Bill of Rights comes in. They have no proof that you’ve done something wrong.
@CubFan99: They can ask. And we can say no.
@smanek: = “We don’t want customers who know their rights because we can’t get them to do our dirty work for free.”
@Jwissick
your link didnt seem to goto the article but i did find this one [blogs.mercurynews.com]
Shaneal is an asshat with too much free time.
It’s private property. You do not have a “right” to dictate to the store its policy on showing your receipt any more than you have a “right” to pay for your purchase with pixie stix.
Instead of spending so much time on a useless jihad against showing a receipt, why don’t you use that energy doing some charitable work.
@Mojosan:
I think it would be good for everyone to brush up on the definition of “citizen’s arrest.” You can check here to get started: [en.wikipedia.org]
I am not really sure where all this “no one can detain you” stuff is coming from. Any citizen who sees you commit a crime can detain you legally. There is not some blanket “no one can detain you” law. Now, the question is whether they store saw him commit a crime. That is open to debate, but there is no such law anywhere that says you can absolutely not be detained.
Refusing to show a receipt is not a crime. Stealing is. Most companies merely ask to see a receipt as an opportunity to avoid making a mistake. The store goes out of it’s way to prevent false accusations. They didn’t detain him because he didn’t show a receipt. They detained him because they believed they witnessed him attempting to leave the building with unpaid merchandise. Before they put their foot in their mouth, they give you an opportunity to correct the situation.
I understand the company made an apology, which was probably done merely as a public relations move.
To all these people who keep bringing up that it’s the store checking after their own employees, doesn’t this mean that I’M doing THEM a favor? Shouldn’t they be NICE to me about it? And if I refuse, well, tough cookies. They shouldn’t DETAIN me and accuse me of committing a CRIME!
@Jerim: I don’t think anyone is actually arguing that stores can’t detain people, ever. But they have to have good reason to suspect that a crime occurred. And even with the lower threshold of evidence for citizen’s arrest, I don’t think “I see two bags of stuff but only saw one transaction” comes close to probable cause.
People always bring up citizen’s arrest. There is no such thing. Wikipedia’s version of US “citizen’s arrest” is laughable if you have any real law background.
For comparisons sake, a Police officer cannot approach you in the parking lot a TigerDirect and ask to see the contents of YOUR shopping bag without probable cause or a warrant. Surely a rent-a-cop does not have more search powers than a sworn law enforcement officer. The stores receive most of their authority from the lack of education of the shopping public. A local store stopped a suspected teenage shoplifter with the old “sit on him and wait for the cops” trick. The kid died and the family got millions and millions and millions…and the store now has no security personnel, just cameras.
At this point, all I really want to know is WHY did you go BACK if this same sort of thing had already happened before? Surely at this point you already knew they would probably want to see your receipt and that they would probably make more of a fuss over it this time if you didn’t. Particularly if someone along the line recognized you as the guy from the week before they felt the need to call the cops on (and why exactly DID they call the cops the first time anyway?)
Personally, while I disagree with the way the situation was ultimately handled, I am still at a loss to understand why so many people are equating a store wanting to do a receipt check to a civil rights violation. It’s NOT the same thing as a cop wanting to search your car. The security guard is not even looking in your bags, for Christ’s sake. He’s not asking to frisk you, he’s not asking you to bend over so he can make sure you didn’t shove an iPod up your ass. If you honestly think that a receipt check is going to LEAD to any of those things, you’ve got a much more active imagination than I. If you think this is a privacy issue, shouldn’t you be more concerned with the security cameras that are watching your every move? Sorry, but I don’t consider my self a “sheep” just because I don’t have a problem with occasionally waving my receipt (which is usually in my hand anyway) as I walk out the door. I might have a problem with it if it was clear they were singling me out, but in the OP’s case they were not. Again, if you really have a problem with it, you are free to not go back, especially considering what happened the week before. Sounds to me like you were just itching for something to be outraged about.
@Allura: “But otherwise, it’s private property and unfortunately, they can choose the conditions under which you enter.”
Yes, it is private property. And they can ask you to leave, and summon the police to escort you off their property and charge you with criminal trespass.
But their rights don’t go any further than that, least of all to some putative right to detain a person. (Seriously.)
@Jerim: “They didn’t detain him because he didn’t show a receipt. They detained him because they believed they witnessed him attempting to leave the building with unpaid merchandise.”
Maybe you should go reread that Wikipedia article. “Belief” (and no matter how strongly you believe it) just doesn’t cut it as legitimate grounds for a citizen’s arrest.
I have this view of the receipt checking: it’s a service for the customer.
Even if the customer is caught with items not found on his receipt, he still cannot be arrested for stealing, as he was still in the store.
Until he leaves the store, it’s not stealing. If a customer doesn’t want his receipt checked, he’s simply taking the liability of theft on himself.
@Jerim: I know its already been stated, but lets go over it again…the only way they can lawfully detain you is if they PHYSICALLY see you take something off the shelves, put into your pocket/handbag/backpack. Its right there on the post, people. So, them just ASSUMING the extra bag = unpaid merchandise is not grounds to detain. Therefore, making him show a receipt or keeping him there is ILLEGAL no matter how you feel about him just showing the receipt. Lets not even get into rights, lets just look at it being illegal.
This guy sounds like your typical trouble maker with nothing better to do.
@acasto: I agree, the security guard sounds like a dick.
@ColoradoShark: At this point, he’s probably taken the liberty of restricting himself from the store… on to NewEgg for him, I guess.
@acasto: Troublemakers with nothing better to do founded the United States, oddly enough.
Why stand up for your rights against oppression when it’s easier just to give in to simple, easy, unjustified demands?
Go shaneal! You are Rosa Parks, Thomas Jefferson, Malcolm X, Admiral William Adama, and Walter Sobchak all rolled into one delicious ball of store-baiting American pride!