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Walgreens Isn’t Supposed To Have Self-Checkout, Is It?

Written by Frank Hayes
July 5th, 2011

Apparently, the latest retail trend is walking out of a Walgreens with a cash register. That happened three times last month: First in Orlando on June 10, when a man was spotted on surveillance cameras only after he disconnected an unattended cash register and walked out, according to local news reports. Five days later, a man in Gary, Ind., disconnected an unattended cash register at a Walgreens cosmetics counter and walked away with it. Ten days after that, a man in a different Orlando Walgreens again walked off with an unattended cash register (this time he dropped it in the parking lot before driving away).

Many Walgreens stores have modular POS systems that include a separate (and unattached) cash drawer under the counter, and maybe that’s what newspaper reports called a “cash register.” But when a thief can walk in, duck behind a counter and spend three minutes unplugging any piece of a POS, then walk away unnoticed, maybe it’s time to start making it a little less easy to swap out those modular POS pieces—or maybe add an alarm when the cash drawer is removed. At least these thieves weren’t tampering with PIN pads. Er—has anyone seen the PIN pads lately?

Posted in In-Store, Payment Systems, Security/Fraud
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