TikToker Bryan (@bryanthediamond) was at a Walmart with his grandma when the self-checkout machine started blaring sirens.
“Me and my grandma were literally at the self-checkout line, and we’re having a conversation, and out of nowhere, it sounds like there is a physical cop car inside the Walmart,” Bryan shares.
He then continues, “Do you know what it was? It was the self-checkout machine, and it was blinking orange. … I guess the lady must have, like, tried to steal something or not scan it, right? And it was blaring.”
He goes on to say that the girl was looking around alarmed by the blaring siren. “She’s like, looking around, and everyone’s looking at her like, we’re all like, ‘It’s you! It’s you, babe. … [It] caught you in 4K,’” he shares.
The self-checkout machine then begins to play footage of the woman not scanning the right item on a loop, he recalls. The siren continues. Eventually, Walmart workers come over to the scene to speak with her. “The attendants, like, talking to her while the sirens go on. And then she clicks, okay, and rescans the item for her,” Bryan recounts.
He continues, “The cop siren is crazy. I didn’t even know they had those. Like, I didn’t even know they had a speaker like that.”
The viral video has 888,000 views and hundreds of comments. Many viewers shared their own experiences with the Walmart self-checkout siren.
@bryanthediamond Siren blasting, and REPLAYING the video of her fake scanning the silence after was LOUD 💀💀 ##fyp##besties##bryanthediamond ♬ original sound – Bryan 💎
“When it clocked my wallet as stealing so it kept replaying me taking my card out of my wallet & the employee still made me open all the bags and count the items. Praying on her downfall to this day,” a viewer commented.
Another viewer also shared the self-checkout cameras wrongfully catching them. A viewer shared, “Happened to me the other day. Had 4 confetti eggs and I scanned one dozen 4 times. The camera came up showing me putting eggs I didn’t scan in a bag … the embarrassment!!! I’m going back to Target!”
Others shared what their reaction would be if they were caught by the Walmart self-checkout camera. “No cause I should sue for emotional distress it happened to me too when I scanned it,” one commented. Another added, “The way I would RUN FOR MY LIFE leave the groceries behind I don’t need to eat bye.”
Walmart’s self-checkouts are the most notorious self-checkouts online. Shoppers have documented an increase in security measures by the retail giant, like the addition of the playback camera that captures what a customer does—and doesn’t—scan. Now, Walmart seems to be moving away from self-checkouts altogether. Walmart spokesperson Joe Pennington told Business Insider that “based on several factors including customer and associate feedback, shopping patterns, and business needs, some locations are temporarily testing different checkout staffing options,” like only having human-run check-out stations open.
The Daily Dot reached out to Bryan and Walmart for comment via email.
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