Self-service shoplifting soars

For some supermarket shoppers the temptation is too much. The rapid rise of self-service checkouts is seeing almost a third of shoppers turn to crime - according to a new survey. It's claimed many shoppers give the machines the wrong information - or steal the goods anyway. Are supermarkets doing enough to prevent self-service stealing?

For many, self service checkouts are a source of frequent annoyance and confusion, rather than the convenient and labour saving innovation they were supposed to be - but for just under one third of shoppers that responded to the survey by www.watchmywallet.co.uk,  the bleeping, stern voiced scanning terminals provide the perfect cover for petty theft, or "cheating" - depending on your point of view.

Most Common Self Checkout Tricks:

1.Selecting cheaper fruit/vegetable when weighing

2.Selecting "Small" when required to manually enter size

3.Bagging without scanning

4.Walking off without paying

5.Tampering with scales

The findings of our survey reveal that despite being designed to detect fraudulent transactions as well as picking up on genuine mistakes, self service checkouts have a number of vulnerabilities.

For the full report from www.watchmywallet.co.uk, click here.

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