From Walmart to Chipotle, Raging Customers Are Becoming a Concern

“You’re not going to call me a liar!” “Don’t touch my personal property!” And “This is not customer service!”

Those are some of the hostile words that increasingly angry and uncivil shoppers are yelling at employees in retail outlets from Walmart to Burger King, according to recent videos shared on social media. 

Last month, an enraged Chipotle customer flung her burrito bowl into a counter server's face, a Twitter video shows.

At a Walmart in Arkansas, one employee recalled in a conversation with Insider on Friday how several irate shoppers had hurled their merchandise at her in the checkout line.

Acting out by frustrated consumers is on the rise, with 78% of retail workers reporting that bad behavior from customers towards staff is more common than it was five years ago, according to a report last November by Harvard Business Review. Hashtags for "angry customer" and "retail worker problems" have soared TikTok, with 293 million and 151 million views on the app, respectively.

More than 68% of retail employees regularly face "frustrated and angry customers," according to a March report by Waitwhile, a firm that tracks how long consumers stand in line — one of the biggest frustrations for shoppers.

The uncivil behavior by American consumers intersects with a rise in retail theft that has prompted many national chains to adopt policies of not confronting thieves who may be armed. In some cases, including that of Target, retailers are closing stores. The National Retail Federation last month called levels of violence and theft “unprecedented.”

But at Walmart, a technology tool used to detect shoplifting at self-checkout machines may itself create a dangerous situation for workers.

“It’s really uncomfortable, and it becomes, like, a safety issue,” one employee told Insider.

Theft is five times more likely to happen at self-checkout than during a traditional checkout, software company Gitnux says, noting that retailers have reported a 50% higher loss rate when customers ring themselves up.

Walmart's self-checkout tool is used to prevent what's known in retail as "the banana-trick," in which customers weigh a more expensive product, such as a steak, but use a code for a cheaper product, such as a banana. The anti-theft technology is designed to stem "shrinkage," or loss due to shoplifting, according to Querysprout, a consumer advocacy group.

Last year, a self-identified former Walmart employee discussed on TikTok the retail giant's process of identifying self-checkout shoplifters, in a viral video that has garnered more than 5 million views.

“On these Walmart devices . . . we have the option to pause your self-checkout at any point and pretend like there's something wrong with the machine if we suspect that you are stealing,” a move that will pause the transaction, the former employee said. 

Her video showed how the checkout screen will either freeze a transaction or show an error message, giving the customer “no choice but to call for help.” The TikToker said a Walmart employee then “pretends something is wrong with the machine.” The worker then escorts the customer to a traditional check out line to ring their purchases up manually. 

Walmart did not immediately respond to The Messenger's request for comment.