Guitar Center Ends Receipt Checks At Most Stores

You might associate receipt checks at the door with electronics stores like Best Buy and warehouse stores like Costco, but one notorious door-checking offender is big-box music store Guitar Center. At least, as one reader reports to Consumerist, until now.

An insider tells us that all Guitar Center stores have recently ended the practice, and all stores are supposed to stop asking for receipts at the door. We contacted Guitar Center to confirm in a more official way, and will update this post when we hear back. Guitar Center has confirmed this report.

In 2010, we reported that at least one store in the chain found a novel way around checking customers’ receipts at the door: they had customers pick up their receipts at the exit, after completing the transaction elsewhere in the store. This allowed them to look over customers’ purchases before letting them out the door without being confrontational about it or implicitly accusing them of theft.

“They dissuaded a lot of business and generated a lot of ill will with that policy,” notes our tipster.

UPDATE: We heard back from Guitar Center, and they confirmed that receipt checks will end in most stores. Here’s the statement they sent us:

Guitar Center will no longer be checking receipts in the majority of our stores. This is a positive new change that will allow our customers to have a better shopping experience overall. We’ve been able to move those associates who were previously responsible for checking receipts into much more engaging roles in our stores. They’ll now be responsible for customer service, loss prevention, merchandising and more.

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