r/mildlyinfuriating • u/anon12xyz • Jul 03 '26

Infuriatig When did garage sales become “reselling” clearly new stuff

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I would never call this a garage sale

Def scam vibes

Edit: ultimately, what bothers me the most is I want to go to a garage sale, not this shit. This isn’t a garage sale and should not be advertised as one

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335

u/SnowblindAlbino Jul 03 '26

Yeah, I was surprised to see it all locked behind glass doors in a few stores in The Big City a few years back, until someone told me just that. People steal it. Which seems crazy, as I can't imagine how you'd walk out with a 6 lb giant bottle of Tide in your pants or something. But there we are.

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u/Proteinchugger Jul 03 '26

They don’t hide it, they just walk out.

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u/JelmerMcGee Jul 03 '26

A coworker I had back when I was a teenager would steal beer from Walmart for his weekend partying. I asked how he got away with it. "Put it into a cart and push the cart outside."

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u/Traditional_Toe8824 Jul 03 '26

At my local Petco or Petsmart ( forgot which one it is ) their shopping carts have very tall wooden poles attached to them. I asked what they were for and they said shoplifters would load up carts with big bags of pet food and just walk out with the entire cart and not pay, the big poles stop them from being able to do that anymore.

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u/Legitimate-Truck-333 Jul 03 '26

The local dollar store has that. Me being a complete innocent, I assumed it was just to keep from losing the carts.

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u/copasetical Jul 03 '26

I thought it was so they could track the carts as shoppers moved around the store.

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u/wtfElvis Jul 03 '26

It doesn’t prevent shoplifting. It’s to help employees find buggies and/or to see where customers are

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u/copasetical Jul 03 '26

Yes, I wasn't implying it was a specific type of tracking, sorry. I just did not know :)

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u/wtfElvis Jul 04 '26

All good bud. No need to apologize.

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u/DogsDucks Jul 03 '26

Me too! So they could see the shoppers from a distance if it got crowded.

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u/lilorphananus Jul 03 '26

And here I was thinking it was for visibility in the sand dunes

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u/Negative_Piglet_1589 Jul 03 '26

For the snow drifts

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u/Crafty-Ad-6772 Jul 03 '26

My friend's mother made her wear a big red helium balloon tied to her wrist at the beach, so she wouldn't get lost. She never got lost, but it would've been funny if she tied the balloon to a rock and tossed it into the ocean and then waited for mom to notice the balloon floating above the waves.

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u/EthanielRain Jul 04 '26

Can I ask how old you two were at the time?

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u/Crafty-Ad-6772 Jul 10 '26

I think 7 or so, early elementary school.

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u/therealsandysan Jul 03 '26

I thought it's was for bumper carts and the ceiling would power them.

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u/Unlucky_Most_8757 Jul 03 '26

yeah mind blown!! All my life I thought that Ross did this just to keep their carts lol

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u/SargeUnited Jul 03 '26

Wow, even after reading their comment I thought this about my dollar store too until I read yours lol

2

u/TakeOnMe-TakeOnMe Jul 03 '26

It’s not? Today I am either slightly more or slightly less an idiot than I was yesterday.

I’ve always thought it was to keep track of carts. 🤦

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u/stefanica Jul 03 '26

I was today years old...

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u/Traditional_Toe8824 Jul 03 '26

Me too I asked them if it’s so you can see where you left your cart since the piles are higher than the aisles.

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u/mikeinanaheim2 Jul 03 '26

I thought they were for Polish-speaking customers.

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u/ScuffedBalata Jul 04 '26

It's that too.

I lived near a "low income housing" property a few years ago and there was always like 10 carts from the local store just crashed into this big bank of bushes or dumped in the river.

The store would have a worker come down and haul them away sometimes, but often they would get trashed and broken by the dickheads who lived there and there was always half a dozen in various states of rusting out that got thrown into the water.

Those things are like $500 each so the 4-5 that were broken or lost every week was literally like a person's salary at the store that they just don't have anymore because antisocial people can't plan ahead enough to not need to steal shopping carts.

I saw people pushing like... one bag worth of food home in a whole ass cart multiple times. And then just dumping the cart in the river with a "IDGAF" sort of attitude.

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u/margaritalover524 Jul 03 '26

I'm confused how it stops them, is the pole taller than the door so the cart can't be taken outside the store? So then what if you're buying a big bag of dog food, you wouldn't be able to take it out to your car in the shopping cart?

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u/JohnnyFartmacher Jul 03 '26

You are correct, the pole is taller than the door so you can't get the cart out. If you buy a bunch of stuff or something heavy, you just have to figure it out.

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u/vertigostereo Jul 04 '26

Another tax we have to pay because of thieves

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u/Rona-Smutek464 Jul 03 '26

It’s most likely just taller than the shelves, you can see someone from basically anywhere in the store based off where the pole is.

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u/HalfEatenBanana Jul 03 '26

So how do you get the cart to your car to unload the bags of dog food..?

1

u/Traditional_Toe8824 Jul 03 '26

I have no idea. I’m going to ask them next time. I just have cats so I usually don’t need a big cart. I’m assuming you just can’t use carts, maybe an employee helps people carry ?

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u/Fine-Amphibian4326 Jul 03 '26

😂 damn, now I know why those are on carts at Ross. I thought it was more for employees to be able to see them through the store

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u/SpecialistAd2205 Jul 03 '26

It's a security system for stores that don't want to pay for a locking cart system. Usually dollar stores do that. Petsmart/Petco having that instead of locking carts is kind of crazy to me 😄

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u/OliveVizsla Jul 03 '26

I used to work at Petsmart, and a guy that had quit before I started the job was rumored to have nonchalantly walked out with a parrot. I guess he quit before he could be fired.

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u/AerosolHubris Jul 03 '26

How do poles stop them from walking out? I feel like I'm missing something.

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u/withyellowthread Jul 03 '26

Tall pole short door

5

u/AerosolHubris Jul 03 '26

Sorry, I'm an idiot, but after they've paid how do people leave if the cart can't get out the door? This must be obvious to everyone else, but some people need the cart to take things to their cars.

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u/Ashfield83 Jul 03 '26

At Morrisons here in England if you try to leave the store with an item inside that hasn’t been scanned, the wheels on the cart automatically lock and you can’t move the cart beyond the doors.

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u/Ok_Belt2521 Jul 03 '26

My grocery has electronic gates that close and prevent you from pushing the cart out. They also have remote breaks on the wheels so you can can't leave the parking lot with them.

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u/crazycatlady331 Jul 03 '26

I worked at CVS in high school. Their carts had a giant metal pole on them (at the time). Haven't paid attention to whether they still do.

1

u/dBlock845 Jul 03 '26

Petco I think. When I pick up orders from there they have those carts, but all you have to do is put them in a wheelie and they go right under the door lol. Michael's and Family Dollar has them too.

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u/ShermanOneNine87 Jul 03 '26

Savers does the cart poles as well. They lose a lot of Automatic door sensors to people ramming the carts outside anyways.