Customers are fed up with anti-theft measures at stores. Retailers say organized crime is to blame

Susan Dennison recently had an unsettling experience at her local grocery store, a Loblaw-owned Fortinos in Burlington, Ont.

Just as she was leaving, the wheels on her shopping cart locked up — making it immobile. 

She said a store employee rushed over and demanded to see her receipt. 

"I felt like I was ambushed," said Dennison, who scrambled to find her bill. "She's badgering me, like, 'Is it in your wallet? Is it in your pocket?'"

She said she was finally cleared when the employee found the receipt — in one of her shopping bags.

"It seemed like [it took] forever, with people walking by. It was humiliating."

The carts are only meant to lock if a customer does something suspicious. But, in Dennison's case, it turned out there was a glitch. 

"Their methods need to catch the thieves, not honest customers," she said. 

Many shoppers have made similar complaints as several major retailers beef up their anti-theft tactics.

Along with wheel-locking shopping carts, other contentious measures include metal gates with designated entry and exit points, random receipt checks and tall plexiglass barriers, which recently popped up at many Loblaw stores. 

Major retailers like Canadian Tire and Walmart have implemented some of the measures; Loblaw has incorporated all of them. 

The Retail Council of Canada (RCC) says retailers need to better communicate to shoppers why the measures are necessary.