PORTLAND, Ore. — Fred Meyer recently announced that it will begin checking customer receipts at the door at Portland-area stores as part of a broader push to crack down on crime and shoplifting.
After the announcement was reported, a viewer emailed KGW asserting that a mandatory receipt-checking policy would be illegal because it's only permitted if the store has a reasonable suspicion that a person is shoplifting.
The story drew similar comments on social media, and those claims echo many older posts taking exception to similar policies at Walmart and other stores. Videos on TikTok show customers arguing with Walmart staff about the policy, or simple refusing the receipt request and walking out of the store.
KGW reached out to Fred Meyer for clarification about how the receipt-checking policy would work in practice. A company spokesperson said the receipt checks will be carried out by third-party security guards, but didn't respond to questions about whether the policy would apply to every single customer, or what would happen if a customer refused to produce their receipt.
THE QUESTION
Is it legal for Fred Meyer to check customer receipts at the door?
THE SOURCES
- Michael Fuller, Underdog Law Office
- Greg Kafoury, Kafoury & McDougal
- Oregon Revised Statutes 131.655
- Costco Membership Policy
THE ANSWER
It is legal for retailers to ask to see receipts at the door, but they can't do it in a discriminatory fashion, and they can't detain customers solely for refusing to provide their receipts. Stores could also pursue penalties such as trespassing a customer from the building or banning them from coming back, rather than detaining them.
The policy could carry legal risks for the store depending on how it plays out in practice.
WHAT WE FOUND
The practice of checking all receipts at the door isn't a new concept; Costco is well-known for taking that approach at all of its stores, and it has defended the policy in court when faced with lawsuits.
But Costco also requires all of its customers to be members, and the membership terms explicitly state that receipts and merchandise will be inspected at the exits.
So what about a store like Fred Meyer, where anyone can walk in at any time? Does a blanket receipt-checking policy run afoul of the rights of customers?
KGW reached out to two Portland attorneys to get their takes on the policy; Michael Fuller at Underdog Law Office and Greg Kafoury at Kafoury & McDougal.
Fuller said that store owners are generally free to implement receipt checks as long as they don't do so in a discriminatory fashion. He said stores have faced lawsuits over policies that targeted specific groups, but he hasn't heard of a legal challenge to universal receipt-checking.
"Generally, stores can have loss prevention policies, and those policies can generally include checking receipts," he said. "Stores are also subject to Oregon's public accommodation laws, so they can't target particular groups with their receipt-checking policies and they can't discriminate."
Kafoury was more skeptical; he agreed that stores technically can ask to see receipts, but he said it's risky on the part of the store, noting that Fred Meyer has been sued in the past for receipt-checking policies that were found to be discriminatory in practice.
"The actual practice of their people on the ground has to be within the law, and once you start stopping people, you're sticking your neck out," he said.
Detaining customers
The big question: What if a store employee asks to see a receipt and a customer says no?
Oregon law does give stores the ability to detain suspected shoplifters, but only under specific circumstances. Here's the relevant bit, from ORS 131.655:
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, a person may be detained in a reasonable manner and for a reasonable time by… a merchant or merchant's employee who has probable cause for believing that the person has committed theft of property of a store or other mercantile establishment.
Many states have similar laws, and one of them factored into a recent court case over receipt-checking in Colorado. According to BusinessInsider, a man sued Walmart after he was detained in a Denver-area store when he refused to show his receipt at the exit — and Walmart was ultimately found not liable.
But the full details of the case aren't so clear-cut. According to the report, the man wasn't solely detained for withholding his receipt — the courts concluded that he had also deliberately walked out with his purchased items unbagged and his receipt not visible, and he had done the same at multiple Walmarts, essentially trying to provoke the staff into detaining him.
Under ordinary circumstances, a customer's refusal to hand over their receipt at the door would not rise to the level of probable cause to suspect shoplifting, Kafoury said.
"Probable cause means that they are aware of facts which make a reasonable person believe that the customer is engaged in theft," he said. "And saying 'I don't want to produce a receipt, I want to go home now' is nowhere near probable cause."
Does asking count as detaining?
Even if a store instructs its staff to only ask for receipts and never detain or try to block people who refuse, it's still a risky policy choice, Kafoury said.
"A store may tell people, employees, to never use force or never try to physically stop someone leaving who doesn't want to produce a receipt, but in practice, that sort of thing gets ignored by people who are manning doors," he said. "It happens all the time."
Plus, even if the store doesn't allow staff to detain customers, the customers may not be aware of the policy, Kafoury said, which raises the risk that the request itself could be seen as a form of detention.
"If you're stopped at a store by someone who appears to be an authority and demands that you produce a receipt, it is reasonable to assume that if you don't produce a receipt, you're going to have trouble, you're not going to be allowed to leave," he said. "And if somebody reasonably believes that, they've been unlawfully detained, and that store is subject to to civil litigation and to damages."
Consequences for customers who refuse
Fuller said it would be unlikely for Fred Meyer to detain anyone who refuses the receipt check because it's already fairly rare for stores to try to physically detain people, even in cases of outright shoplifting.
"In my experience, if a store suspects someone of shoplifting, they're not going to physically detain them under almost any circumstance. The liability's just too high. And what if you're wrong?" Fuller said. "But you can trespass them out, you can call the police, you can have private security, you can restrict their access if they were to come back, you can take those steps."
Stores with universal receipt-checking policies could take those same alternative approaches for customers who refuse to hand over their receipts at the door, he said, but many of the online posts don't mention that risk when they declare that receipt requests can be ignored.
"I think the people online may be right, in that they don't have to comply with the request," Fuller said, "but they might not be shopping at that store much longer."
Kafoury acknowledged that possibility as well, although he added that such a policy would still need to be carried out in a non-discriminatory fashion.
"Stores do not have to do business with anybody, as a matter of course," he said. "On the other hand, if they trespass people, tell them they're not welcome in the store anymore, on a basis that reflects race discrimination, that's very much illegal."
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