Photo: CBS 12
A case out of Palm Beach County highlights the risk facing the growing number of businesses using self-checkout systems.
A man was arrested for stealing from Target stores in Boynton Beach and Lantana, by swapping out barcodes and paying far less than the prices of what he was buying.
Police say 31-year old Richard Reppert primarily purchased Pokemon trading card sets priced at $50, but paying just five bucks.
Cory Lowe with the Loss Prevention Research Council tells CBS 12 News that this is an "enormous issue."
“Not only is there the risk of a shopper error, while using the systems. It's essentially putting customers on the honor system, which you can only imagine how bad that can go.”
The Council works with big-name retailers to help them find ways to prevent and detect theft.
“There are systems to track and ensure that when you when you're taking out on the self-checkout area have actually been paid for, some receipt checking at the self-checkout area, reducing the number of items that are allowed to be scanned at a self-checkout area, the self-checkout. Restricting self-checkouts to only people who have identified themselves so if I'm a loyalty card member - The idea behind that as we refer to as value exchange, it's a value exchange, right? I'm trading as personally identifiable information for reduced friction, shopping.”
Lowe says retailers lose billions of dollars every year.
Target says it will soon limit the number of items shoppers can ring up by themselves to ten.
The retail giant is also looking to implement a new technology aimed at tracking customers who are flagged for improper scanning.
Reppert faces more than two dozen counts of theft and fraud.