Apple Retail Employees Alleged to be Treated as 'Criminals' in Bag Check Lawsuit

[0098386]

I owned a business and ran it myself for 5 years. I found that evven my most tursted employees stole from me. The part i dont like is that its done in front of customers.

It's like I asked in another post, I wonder if it's a US culture thing? I run two small businesses (game studio and restaurant), people don't steal from me. I treat them well, pay my employees well. My wife and a friend worked in high-end retail and never had their bags checked. I wonder if it's a pay thing, that the worker doesn't feel they're getting paid correctly?

 

[aristokrat]

When I worked there, I never had a problem with the bag checks themselves, but the time it took was annoying. This article misses some of the nuance. It SHOULD be just a minute or two to get your bag checked, but frequently managers are tied up in a CS issue and you could wind up waiting (already clocked out) for 15 minutes for someone to be able to check your bag. Note that this would also then include producing your "Personal Technology" card with all your registered serial numbers of your apple products and having the manager check each device (laptop, phone, etc). So non-trivial wait plus non-trivial process itself could add up. That could add up over the course of a year.

 

[mitchy_b]

Former Apple retail employee here (worked at the genius bar). Um I always thought bag checking was dumb, but I also thought those who complained were even dumber. In retreospect, with all the perks we used to get, that they still get, the employees have no business complaining about the 30 seconds they spent getting their bag checked. Let's be real here....60% off beats headphones and you are complaing about 30 seconds? Okay...

 

[iPhysicist]

No, that's not what I meant and South Africa had less crime during Apartheid. [...] Best not speak about something you don't understand and do you know about.

I just reply because of your comment is plain wrong and I don't want that others put any truth in your words. Please read the whole Article and go to a local Library to educate yourself about your countries history.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid

@ mods Sorry for the Offtopic but his comment needs to be corrected.

 

[Jacquesvw]

.

 

[DEXTERITY]

hmmm...
Although this is in the retail department - there is often a lot of leaks that come directly from apple employees...
There is also a lot of expensive items and you can't trust people at face value...

Granted back then they didn't have 24k gold watches in the building, but they certainly should do bag checks now...

And let's face it... if you have nothing to hide, what's the problem... Apple should be clear that bag checks is part of the job - that way if you don't want it, then don't work there...

By the sounds of it the people are suing for the time it took, not the fact it was happening... i would turn round and say "ok my great knowledgable people..." (who are not always that knowledgable -- I've seen people turn to other customers for answers instead...ive even had people come ask me instead...lol) "...we will pay you back for the time it took to search your bags - the whole 2mins each time - but all those extra bonuses, discounts, presents, gift cards we give you will stop... this will teach you for being so god darn ungrateful people...go work for Mcdonalds and then tell me if you feel more valued there than here."

It takes up to 30 minutes sometimes - not two minutes

 

[wirefire]

There are a few problems here both on the employer and employee side.

1) Are all of the security agents trained to follow the same protocols when checking an employee's bag and are they enforced? Or are some agents being "jerks" about it?

2) Employees should be made aware that all baggage will be checked as well as your person. This means that we highly encourage you to bring the least amount of material with you to the office.

3) There should be a standardized policy regarding personal items being brought into the store. 1 lunch bag, 1 purse/shoulderbag sized item, wallet, phone, ETC.

4) Since it is not the employee's time, as in they are not free to do as they choose. They need to be compensated for the time. I have a problem with this on both sides.
a) if there is a security checkpoint and i have to wait becuase 5 people are in line and that in turn makes me late for my shift, that is unacceptable.
b) if an employee decides to bring his luggage to work and it takes 20 minutes to examine his or her personal items, that also from the employers side is unacceptable.

 

[AtomicDusk]

if you have nothing to hide, what's the problem... Apple should be clear that bag checks is part of the job - that way if you don't want it, then don't work there...

By the sounds of it the people are suing for the time it took, not the fact it was happening... i would turn round and say "ok my great knowledgable people..." (who are not always that knowledgable -- I've seen people turn to other customers for answers instead...ive even had people come ask me instead...lol) "...we will pay you back for the time it took to search your bags - the whole 2mins each time - but all those extra bonuses, discounts, presents, gift cards we give you will stop... this will teach you for being so god darn ungrateful people...go work for Mcdonalds and then tell me if you feel more valued there than here."

I'm curious, why should people forsake a right to privacy? And what evidence exists that Apple employees get presents, gift cards, or bonuses.

Low wage high school kids working a near skill-less job, whining.
Meh. Lots of small valuable items, its a logical and reasonable policy common in retail junk jobs.

Clearly you have no concept of the requirements to work for Apple, even in a store. High School students are not hired. And where's your logical leap that it is a retail junk job? Starting wages north of $15/hr with full benefits, matched 401k, vacation, sick time and tuition reimbursement.

If anyone has actually worked there, like I did for quite some time, most theft is external on a per unit basis. Most internal theft is quite high in magnitude, but not for stealing physical product. Nine times out of ten it would be a case of falsifying returns or giving away services for free. The people most likely to steal physical product brazenly were managers, because their bags were not checked. And the people who found out about these issues were almost always the inventory control teams because the standards that were held for these teams are standards that do not exist in any other retail outlet.

 

[zorinlynx]

Nine times out of ten it would be a case of falsifying returns or giving away services for free.

I'm actually curious about this; I've heard of cases where a customer brings in an item they damaged accidentally and the employee replaced it without cost, even though technically the customer had to pay since the damage was their fault.

Is this considered theft through "giving away services for free"? I figured it was the company being nice, not the employee stealing for me.

 

[AtomicDusk]

I'm actually curious about this; I've heard of cases where a customer brings in an item they damaged accidentally and the employee replaced it without cost, even though technically the customer had to pay since the damage was their fault.

Is this considered theft through "giving away services for free"? I figured it was the company being nice, not the employee stealing for me.

I'd seen managers override prices on computers or services by nearly 95%. Overriding services can be done for the customer because it's the right thing to do, e.g. we had a customer drop their iphone immediately after opening it, and we replaced the screen (as opposed to going through the ENTIRE return and resell with contract mess).

In terms of returning defective items or damaged items, yes, I've seen that too. sometimes it's a 'surprise and delight' where we would give a new 30-pin connector, for example, because the old one was frayed beyond belief. Other times I've seen some pretty egregious cases.

 

[SusanK]

So, let me get this straight. Any person off the street can just waltz in, grab something off the shelf and walk out under the premise they checked themselves out (and they are trusted to do so) but Apple is searching their own employees? Seems backwards to me.

Agreed. Where is Social Worker Tim when this is a policy?

 

[ActionableMango]

It takes up to 30 minutes sometimes - not two minutes

I believe you, but I'm also curious why it take so long. Does everyone show up at the same time and so there is a line or something?

 

[Black Tiger]

And who checks the managers' bags? I would guess that most theft would occur by those who are most aware of the security measures in place.

 

[Dennison]

Oh man, I laughed hard at this.

Maybe they should give employees translucent designer bags crafted to perfection by Jony Ive himself, lol.

 

[SeaFox]

Low wage high school kids working a near skill-less job, whining.
Meh. Lots of small valuable items, its a logical and reasonable policy common in retail junk jobs.

I thought this was common for all retail jobs.. I used to get my bag checked every time when I used to work at the Gap 10 years ago

You can buy iPhones, iPads, and laptops at Wal-Mart and they don't check employee bags.

An important difference is the area where stock is kept is separate from where employee lockers are -- employees aren't allowed to bring their bags out to the sales floor, so they would have less opportunity to stick a high-dollar item into one to begin with.

Does Apple institute RFID tags in packaging? I notice none of the normal RFID scanning "gateways" at the doorways of their stores.

Sounds like a another case of Apple "aesthetics over function". Treat employees like criminals rather than take some "duh-level" security procedures that wont look as pretty.

Really this is not an Apple thing and more a U.S. labor race-to-the-bottom thing.
If they are worried about employee theft, they should be more choosy about who they hire... but higher quality employees will want higher wages.

 

[palmfox]

When I worked there, I never had a problem with the bag checks themselves, but the time it took was annoying. This article misses some of the nuance. It SHOULD be just a minute or two to get your bag checked, but frequently managers are tied up in a CS issue and you could wind up waiting (already clocked out) for 15 minutes for someone to be able to check your bag. Note that this would also then include producing your "Personal Technology" card with all your registered serial numbers of your apple products and having the manager check each device (laptop, phone, etc). So non-trivial wait plus non-trivial process itself could add up. That could add up over the course of a year.

If it took that long, then I can agree that you should be compensated, but in the two years I worked at my store, it rarely took even a minute. Most times there are multiple managers, around to take a bag and have them check. I also know that if it took longer then 2-3 minutes, my manager would not hesitate to adjust my time accordingly.

 

[palmfox]

I don't know many people , be it school or workplace, that do not need a bag to get to and from work/school. The idea that people have a decision in bringing a bag, and it's at their own risk is crazy to me. It's a necessity of our current society. Society has mandated we need a bag , be it for lunch, personal goods, hygiene goods , medication etc.

I sometimes carry a backpack, but rarely to the Apple Store, unless I was purchasing something. If I have to carry a lunch, it was a brown paper bag. Personal goods, hygiene goods, medications, shouldn't require large bags. Something small, is probably not going to get checked, as it wouldn't fit a serialized item. I also repeat the fact that MANY retailers forbid any personal items being brought in, and those employees make due just fine. If you have to tote a backpack wherever you go, then you understand that your bag will be searched.

It is in the Apple employee handbook. The handbook does not specify that you have a right to privacy when you are searched. How come those same people aren't filing suit against the TSA.(oh wait, they did.. and lost). They sure as heck get searched VERY publicly and it takes a heck of a lot longer to get through the line.

The people who filed this suit, signed the same agreement to work at the Apple store that I did. They also enjoyed the same benefits, stock options, health care, and discounts that I did. They are simply greedy, and sue happy. I personally hope that they lose, and be made to pay the legal fees of the winning side.

 

[Clix Pix]

Agreed. When I worked for Borders we were required to have our bag checked at the end of the day. We also had to check in if we brought in our own book, or a product the store sold, and get a sticker with a manager's initials to prove we didn't steal it. But I rarely did bag checks on the sale floor from what I remember (hey, it was almost 10 years ago). Mostly I tried to check employee's bags as they were clocking out, unless we were slamming busy and they had to find me to get the OK.

Also, we weren't actually allowed to touch anyone's stuff, it was just a "hey, here's whats in my bag, here's my special sticker that says I brought this book, ok, see ya later". It was a 10-second process.

Another former Borders employee here....and, yep, just as mentioned, if we brought in something which might be questioned later. we showed it immediately to a manager when arriving for work, and if we bought something while on shift and then wanted to take it out of the building to read or put into our car during our lunch period, we showed it to a manager before leaving for lunch..... And at the end of our our shift, we clocked out and had a manager quickly check our bag(s) as we were leaving, no big deal. There was never any huge time delay. At the end of shift, if it was the evening shift, we'd clean up the store and do other things, then clock out and the actual examination of our bags was very cursory and brief. Managers were always available at times of shift changes because they knew they'd need to do bag checks.

Of greater concern were the employees who tried to pull a fast one in one way or the other by manipulating employee discounts and such......One woman with whom I worked was fired for that -- she would purchase an item at employee discount and then attempt to return it at full price (not sure how she finagled that), but at any rate she was eventually caught out and accused, subsequently fired. (What was sad was that she was a law student finished with courses but still preparing for her bar exam....... Somehow, I don't think I would ever want her as an attorney since she seemed too free and easy with even simple, basic rules and requirements such as were established in that retail environment.) Me, I simply made sure that I had all the documentation if I'd bought something while at work and was able to show it along with the item before going out for lunch/dinner or before leaving at the end of my shift. I loved working at Borders, but eventually moved on to other things. I was very sad when they closed up shop for good.

At my local Apple store there have been a couple of times when mid-day I have seen employees leaving and having their bags checked but I don't think that to the general public, the normal range of customers, a glimpse of that really would mean much of anything -- I knew what was happening because of my own previous retail experience, but I doubt very much that most customers would have realized it or even noticed it. Usually it was a quick pause by the employee at the doorway between staff/employees only and the public sales floor area, opening his or her bag and the supervisor glancing in, clearing it and that was that -- no big drama. Aside from that, I have seen employees who work in some major department stores carrying plastic, clear see-through totes or bags, so that is how those stores apparently manage similar situations.

 

[dysamoria]

The main issue is that these checks take time and it isn't counted, so the employees suffer - there were other employees who said the time this took came out of their lunch break which to me is unacceptable.

I appreciate this is the norm for high-value item stores, though they shouldn't be doing checks in front of customers and Apple should be treating their employees with a little more respect. The Apple Stores do work hard, 7 days a week, and they're normally open 12-13 hours a day. Furthermore they do all the repairs in the evening so when they close up the doors it's not like they're twiddling their thumbs. I've had a call at 11:30PM to say that my MacBook was repaired (on the same day it was dropped off, may I add).

I think you should treat people in the customer service industry with a little more respect; what people don't often appreciate is all the BS/angry consumers that they have to put up with as well, which just piles onto these existing issues. It's not appropriate to brush these issues under the carpet and just put it down to 'whining high school kids'; at the very least it deserves a thorough investigation.

Best response, and it saves me the trouble of saying it all.

Plus: anyone saying "if you have nothing to hide, what's the problem" needs to get blamed for a crime they didn't commit, once or twice...

 

[kd5jos]

Does Apple institute RFID tags in packaging? I notice none of the normal RFID scanning "gateways" at the doorways of their stores.

Sounds like a another case of Apple "aesthetics over function". Treat employees like criminals rather than take some "duh-level" security procedures that wont look as pretty.

Really this is not an Apple thing and more a U.S. labor race-to-the-bottom thing.
If they are worried about employee theft, they should be more choosy about who they hire... but higher quality employees will want higher wages.

Wrong.

First, 80% of your security problems come from inside the business (second time this thread I have said this). This is a fact supported by multiple independent studies. I think Carnegie-Mellon University was responsible for the most recent one (GIYF).

It costs little to check bags, and deals with the lions share of the problem.

What you describe costs money and treats the customer like a thief. The customer is what brings you your income. Walmart does it the wrong way "can I see your receipt please mr. customer?"

I don't shop at stores that treat me like a thief.

Apple wants my business, so they focus on the 80%, not the 20%. And they aren't stupid enough to PAY to focus on the 20% AND chase many of them off. Make sense now?

 

[ottawaguy01]

In the Ottawa stores, there's always uniformed security at the doors especially during busy times to keep an eye on customers, (and I'd be surprised if they didn't have plainclothes loss prevention people as well.) Unfortunately at least 40-50% of theft in retail is internal, and bag checks take what, less than 30 seconds, unless you are bringing in super large bags.

 

[jdoll021]

Erm, mugging people is a criminal offence, searching employees bags as a deterrent against theft isn't, so no, that wouldn't be ok too, would it?

Apologies for the late response, but I would call the unwarranted search of someones personal belongings a criminal offense even if the law does not recognize it as such. Just because it's not illegal doesn't make it right (and really, the 4th amendment SHOULD make it illegal). As for the security of the company, there are larger more systemic reasons that lead to theft in the first place, but without addressing those (because it would take too long) and as has been said previously, the easiest approach would be to require that personal belongings be locked up in a locker while at work. I had to do that when I took the Professional Engineers exam and I liked that a heck of a lot better than having my stuff searched when I left the exam room.

 

[jdoll021]

Strawman. It is expected that businesses which deal with high-value merchandise (among other sectors) are likely to have in place one or more forms of security checks, whether it's background investigation as a contingent of employment, bag checks, etc. But that isn't the question at hand here - it is whether performing those checks and mistreating the employees in the process is unlawful.

Maybe that is the question from the article, however, I was specifically addressing those commenters who used the idiotic argument of "everyone does it so it must be ok" or the other idiotic argument of "if you have nothing to hide, then what's the problem?" Incidentally, I don't care what is "expected." What I care about is what is morally right even when the law fails to recognize it as such. Unless you work for a clandestine organization such as the CIA, FBI, NSA or some other governmental entity who SHOULD be the only entities that have legitimate reasons for waving your constitutional rights (and barely so), there is no reason for any company ever to engage in unwarranted search and seizure of your personal property.

If you want to talk about addressing things like theft, then companies should actively engage in solving the systemic problems that cause theft in the first place rather than taking the weed whacking approach. This is no different than a teacher punishing the whole class because a few idiot kids were misbehaving. The intended effect is to turn the class against the idiot kids but the actual effect is to turn the class against the teacher.

 

[TheAppleFairy]

Apologies for the late response, but I would call the unwarranted search of someones personal belongings a criminal offense even if the law does not recognize it as such. Just because it's not illegal doesn't make it right (and really, the 4th amendment SHOULD make it illegal). As for the security of the company, there are larger more systemic reasons that lead to theft in the first place, but without addressing those (because it would take too long) and as has been said previously, the easiest approach would be to require that personal belongings be locked up in a locker while at work. I had to do that when I took the Professional Engineers exam and I liked that a heck of a lot better than having my stuff searched when I left the exam room.

This is not your home and the government isn't doing an unwarranted search. If you wish to work for Apple in "their" store, and they make it part of their employment rules how does that have anything to do with the 4th amendment? You have a right to refuse the "unwarranted" search, but Apple then has the right to refuse to keep you as an employee. Just because you have rights, doesn't forget Apple has rights too. If you have stuff in your bags that embarrass you don't bring them to work. Leave it in your house or car.

 

[skottichan]

No, that's not what I meant and South Africa had less crime during Apartheid. I'm not saying Apartheid was better or right, but it's long gone and cant be blamed today anymore. It's still blamed due to good marketing by the politicians in South Africa and the rest of the world is falling for their lies.

Best not speak about something you don't understand and do you know about.

19 years isn't "long gone"
And we in the US pretty much did exactly the same thing, so we kinda know what we're talking about when it comes to systematic oppression.