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The story
Yuji Sugiyama of the comedy trio “Waga Ya” was referred to prosecutors on suspicion of theft after allegedly shoplifting groceries from a supermarket in Meguro Ward, Tokyo. Reacting to the news on Fuji TV’s “Toretate!” on the 14th, Kaori Manabe brought up the psychology of self-checkout — suggesting some people might think, “maybe I’ll just slip it into the already-paid bag” when a barcode won’t scan — and remarked, “It is shoplifting, but psychologically it might feel like a notch lower.” On 5ch, a wave of pushback followed, with posts like “that thought would never even cross my mind,” and the discussion expanded into the broader reality of shoplifting prevention, touching on self-checkout surveillance and how overseas customers handle payment.
Kaori Manabe shares her take on self-checkout amid “theft allegation” against Waga Ya’s Yuji Sugiyama: “It’s shoplifting, but…” “Psychologically…”
TV personality Kaori Manabe appeared on “Toretate!” (weekdays, 1:50 PM), the Fuji TV network’s live information program produced by Osaka’s Kantele, broadcast on the 14th.
She commented on the news that the Metropolitan Police Department had referred Yuji Sugiyama of comedy trio “Waga Ya” to prosecutors on the 14th on suspicion of theft, over allegedly shoplifting groceries from a supermarket in Meguro Ward, Tokyo.
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
They just create criminals
She's done
In reality, most people pay properly — for store operators, it's basically a way to see how honest customers are. That's exactly why they can keep running it as a kind of community service
Do all you celebrities think like criminals?
I use self-checkout a lot, and I'm desperate not to make any move that looks suspicious
It never even occurred to me to just bag it without scanning just because it won't beep
That mindset is seriously messed up, that's criminal-in-training territory
Good to know
Was he caught in the act, or did they nab him on a later visit?
Sounds like they checked the footage right away, so maybe they're cross-referencing people's movements with register scans in real time
They could well be using AI for video-linked monitoring and alerts these days
At the store I go to, the self-checkout always announces the price when you scan a barcode, so I don't think you'd really forget
Though scanning the same item twice by mistake happens a lot
They didn't add the item for about a year after that, so it was a nice little loophole to get cheap chicken tempura
Doing nothing about it for a whole year — what a bunch of useless staff
And the excuse would definitely be "the machine's fault, blah blah"
If it's Re: #8, that's less "impatient" and more sociopath
And honestly, just entertaining the thought that "yeah, people like that exist" feels completely unnecessary…
I get it, it's because shoplifters exist, but it feels like I'm being suspected and I hate it
When there's a regular staffed register available, I always use that instead
Just standing there watching really is unpleasant. Makes me want to say "help me out instead"
Though for places like Daiso where you only buy a few items, self-checkout is fine
Full self-checkout is a pain when you're buying a lot of items
So when I have a lot: semi-self-checkout (staff scans, I pay)
When I have just a little: full self-checkout
I switch between the two depending
Background and Key Points of This Debate
“Scan-skipping” at self-checkout has long been considered one of the retail industry’s main shoplifting methods, which is part of why fraud-detection systems linking security cameras with POS data have increasingly been adopted. Suspect Sugiyama has only been referred to prosecutors on paper so far — whether he is actually indicted depends on prosecutors’ future judgment, and the allegation itself doesn’t mean guilt. Where opinions split in the thread was over how to take Manabe’s comment that shoplifting is “psychologically a notch lower” — reactions of “that thought would never even cross my mind” far outnumbered any sympathetic responses. As of this writing, neither Sugiyama himself nor his agency has issued any statement.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geisoku Sokuhou+) thread “[Entertainment] Kaori Manabe shares her take on self-checkout amid Waga Ya’s Yuji Sugiyama’s theft allegation: “It’s shoplifting, but psychologically it might feel like a notch lower, I think”“.
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