New cashier maybe? These things happen. No biggie.

Anyone could easily do this, especially those of us with young kids who need refereeing while waiting in line to pay.

However, it sort of encapsulates the whole message of the site: be a vigilant consumer. Sucks that you have to keep an eye on the company you're doing business with every second - not unlike toddlers - but there it is.

Those cases are really not hard to open if you know what you are doing, sames goes for most so called "Anti theft" measures.

I know it's "wrong", but I bought a jacket at Kohl's once, and they left the little "Checkpoint" tag on it. I eventually got it open using some hard drive magnets. I took the guts out(a resistor and a square coil of wire), and stuck it in an old keyless entry unit I found once while at work. It's amazing how often I set the alarms off going INTO a store, and not on the way out. It's like Russian Roulette.

The only place I seem to really have trouble is Barnes & Noble by me. There is this annoying lady who swore up and down that there is NO WAY my keys could set off the alarm. She even went as far as to BET me it wasn't my keys. I took her up on it, and she walked through the sensors with my keys, and it went off. She then handed my keys back and said "you should have taken my bet, you would have won". I said "I did" and she went, "I must not have heard you".

But as to the OP, some stores will actually send someone to your house to take the sensor tag off if their employees forget to remove it in order to save you the trouble of going back. I doubt Worst Buy will though. Couldn't hurt to see if they will send a Geek Squad guy over.....

This is easily solved. Those things are plastic, and hack saws are cheap!

@courtarro: Better yet, figure out where you have to put a magnet, or whatever trick the machine does that causes them to release. This is a good thing - now you have something new to figure out!

CDs and DVDs will set off the alarms at my local Macy's. It's very strange. I had a CD (opened, not shrink wrapped) in my purse one time and it set off the alarm as I walked into the department store.

If you saved your receipt (and all good Consumerists do, right?), there shouldn't have been a problem going back to the store and having them remove the cases without question. But as was mentioned, driving back 30 minutes when the cases can be popped off with some prying isn't worth it.

Maap torch, my friend.

I had a AT&T phone card that would set of B&N's alarms until I swiped it over their degaussing coils. It killed the magstripe, but at least I had some peace of mind in comparison to being humiliated every time I go in there.

The card's shredded now having no need for one now.

This is the reason why our store puts anti theft stickers on the keeper boxes over the spot where the barcodes are on our keeper boxes for blu-ray movies. The product can't be scanned unless the box is taken off, which prevents the cashier from leaving it on unless they accidentally give the game to the person for free.

back before i realized how much they suck, I got a few movies from the local BustBlocker, got home, and they still had the boxes on them.

I had purchased one and rented two. a short time later, all were open. watched the rented ones, brought them back the next day and raised a stink (got home, couldn't watch these, blah blah) and got a couple free rentals.

maybe a tiny win, but still a win.

@myself= movie, not game.

@KenManiac Let me get this straight. You watched the movies and lied about it to get free crap? That's not the same thing. That's lying.

@courtarro: At least the boxes don't have CD jewel cases inside. Breaking the outer casing is easy but that hymen of a plastic wrap? Near impossible.

One day, years ago, I went to Best Buy to purchase a cheap portable CD player to hook up to my car stereo via the casette deck.

I picked up a $19 CD player, and a cheap casette adapter. The cashier was so focused on pushing the extended warranty for the $19 CD player, that she threw the casette adapter in the bag without scanning.

I was so irriated with the cashier, trying to explain to her that she is offering me a warranty that costs more than the item, I didn't realize I didn't pay for the adapter. I noticed it when I got in the car...but didn't go back in.

For that extra push into delivering childhood trauma to your nieces/nephews, get them Best Buy games, then seal the security box seams with superglue before gift-wrapping them and handing them out to the adorable little tykes.
Needless to say, feign ignorance when your irritated brother/sister call you for an explanation for the screeching/wailing/gnashing of teeth you hear over the phone in the background.
Or go for the offensive, saying, "I guess if you really loved your kids, you'd be working on fixing this instead of playing the Blame Game. Can we move on?"

i agree with nforcer, as long as you have your receipt, returning/exchanging/unlocking wouldn't be awkward at all except for the cashier perhaps.

I spent a summer working at a local CVS and we used the same type of anti-theft tags as the video store three doors down. Most of the people we had setting off the alarm were people who came in after renting movies.

@AlteredBeast:
What would have been bad is if the tape adapter had a security sticker on it. When you set off the alarm you would have gladly shown your receipt only to be carted off for theft.

@GropedByChuckECheese_GitEmSteveDave: I carry headphones wound up in a coil inside my coat, and they often do the same thing. I think any suitably long coil of wire sets off the stupider security tag systems.

All the local stores use these... big black things on top of their big/high end bottles of booze. My mom bought a big bottle of Jim Beam and got it home before she realized the black thingie was still on top. Took my brother about twenty minutes and much swearing to get the thing off.

Do those black pads, like at Barnes and Nobles, demagnetize the tag? The little ones in the books look like RFID's, maybe that black pad just puts that id number into some sort of "safe list" or something.

Maybe that is why they seem, kind of hit or miss.

@Applekid: Agreed. It's always nice when I have to end up breaking my new stuff just trying to get it out of the package. I've cracked cases and broke the hinge tabs off, as well as screwing up the insert of some of my videogames trying to remove those stupid spine stickers they use on CDs and DVDs.

@GropedByChuckECheese_GitEmSteveDave: I hate annoying book store employees. There is not much better in the world than someone who acts like they are better than you while making retail wages.

@kbrook:

Yeah those things are a pain, I had them leave one on, but it's just down the street so I ran back and had them take it off.

I work for a company that manufactures these systems. I work in a different division but I used to go to their HQ to teach classes all the time.

One day, one of my coworkers slipped one of the tags inside a little-used pocket on my coat.

Thereafter, every time I went through one of the stores we supplied, I set the alarm off. One of the Walmart "greeters" insisted that I wait while they triple checked my purchases and searched my coat.

I didn't find the tag for six months.

@pecan 3.14159265: Well sometimes I've seen CDs that have EAS tags inside the casing, in addition to whatever might have been on the plastic wrap. It's weird, though, how some gates will be affected and some not.

@Reginald2: If you mean the ones on the counter, yes, they just demagnetize. I work at Borders and we have similar (maybe even the same) pads. But the demagnetizing range doesn't extend very far upward, so I've had instances of having a large pile (>5) of CDs or DVDs and it not demagnetizing the top ones, setting off the gates.

On a side note, I used to work in a store with an Apple Store a couple shops down and people would always set off our gates bringing Apple stuff in.

@nakedscience: He deserved free crap for the inconvenience he went through.

@Reginald2: Nope, it just fries the circuitry in the security tag. The thin ones in book are NOT RFID, just a little transmitter than gets energized by the EM field between the "security gates".

@pecan 3.14159265:

Well, if it still had the magnetic security strip on the case somewhere, that actually makes sense. They are normally black or white in color. Though there are other ones that are square in shape rather than rectangular which can be a pain to remove.

@ajlei: It's b/c some are on and some are not. Some also don't work. I've set them going into a store, yet not on the way out.

@pecan 3.14159265: The tags are now inside the jewel cases, usually under the tray the disc sits in, or on the spine.

@jsbeagle: Nah, tape would have saved him.

@Trai_Dep: Hrmmm, epoxy/hot glue and jewel cases? BRILLIANT! I now know how this years gift cards will be handed out!

@courtarro: Yep, magnet in the correct spot on the end will do the trick. Find someone who has or does work at BB and they should be able to get it no problem.

@Powerlurker:

Sounds like someone wasn't doing their job deactivating them.

Yeah, but it's not about keeping you from stealing it, it's more about forcing you to make a scene of smashing it on the floor or bringing a hacksaw into the store to get it out of the security box. I'm surprised the door alarms didn't go off... maybe the cashier deactivated the boxes when they were scanned...

@NinjaMarion: Broke one of the discs in a set of Oh My Goddess! trying to get it out so we could watch it. Stupid inner ring simply would NOT LET GO.

@GropedByChuckECheese_GitEmSteveDave: they might send a geek squad "agent", but there's a $99 off-site fee

You just need a magnet to unlock a lot of those cases. Even with a receipt Best Buy would most likely call you a thief.

As for the sticker being over the bar code so they have to take them off to scan them. At Best Buy the loss prevention guy at the door is supposed to take them off and not the cashier. They see the receipt, look in the bag and see the cases and remove them.

My wife bought a skirt where the dye pin was not removed. That was annoying to get corrected since the store was a ways away, but she was not thought of as a thief. She just showed the receipt. I hope Target would have done the same.

Not sure how your best buy works... but at the one i frequent the clerk never removes these cases. You are supposed to hand it to the guy by the front door for removal.

Worst experience as a retail-slave regarding anti-theft devices: I worked at Victoria's Secret in college, and someone came in with an item (bra? nightie? I don't remember) that they'd bought at a different Vicky's, but which hadn't had the tags removed. They had the receipt, and all would have been fine, except we had different tags than their store, and hence, different tag removers. We are stuck. The customer is getting increasingly angry that we can't take it off, but we can't take it off. The machine won't fit the tag, and that's the end of the story. We tell her that she'll have to go back to the original store, or else she can wander around the mall looking for a store with similar anti-theft tags, and ask them nicely to remove it. Of course, she is screaming about needing it tonight, and is misdirecting her anger at us for not being able to remove the tag, and not the original store for leaving it on in the first place...

I worked at a movie rental store that used those types of cases. They really aren't hard to get off if you have two fairly strong magnets.

Because no one who reads The Consumerist would ever use this information for ignoble purposes, here's the easy way to get them off:
Hold the case in your left hand, with the bumpy slide thing under your left thumb, facing you. Place one magnet on the top of the case, at the right side. Place the other magnet on the back of the case, basically at a 90 degree angle to the first magnet. Now try to slide the bumpy thing to the left. You may have to move the magnets around a little bit until it clicks in, but you get the basic idea.
If you don't have access to two magnets, using a butane lighter to melt the hinges also seems to work, though I have never had to do so. Though, as previous posters have stated, a hacksaw would work just as well.

I bought a pair of jeans once with the security tag hidden in the bottom of the pocket. Apparently the tag wasn't properly deactivated.

When I visited the store a few weeks later the tag went off as I was exiting the store, and the LP guy came running up to me demanding to inspect our belongings. We hadn't purchased anything and weren't carrying any bags so there was nothings to inspect.

Then he recognized the jeans (which still looked new) as a brand they sold and accused me of switching old jeans for a new pair told me to return the jeans I was wearing or he would call the police. I told him to call the police and produce the jeans I had allegedly switched so I wouldn't have to leave naked.

He left to call the police, and I left the store.

Found the tag later.

@pb5000:

Funny thing is... my wife has *just* finished grad school and worked at B&N because they could deal with her school schedule (they were very good to her).

While B&N was good to her, my wife often complained to me about the snotty customers. She has been a manager at GAP, Bath 'n Body, Gymboree, Pac Sun... she knows her retail customers and apparently the ones at the book store were the worst.

@starrion: When I worked at Wal-Mart we would do that to each other all the time. Management and Loss Prevention hated it and would routinely yell at us for wasting security tags on practical jokes.

One thing I do not miss about Wal-Mart: Their penny pinching. If you're throwing anything away or go one second over forty hours you'd better have a damn good reason for it!

When I was in college, we had security cards to unlock the doors to the dorm. They also happened to set off the alarms at some of the stores in the mall near campus.