Class action against Walmart: shaking down minority shoppers

[Winehole23]

Cinthia Carolina Reyes Orellana had just finished trying on a set of shirts at Macy's Herald Square one evening last summer, when she carried the two she planned to buy out of the dressing room and down the escalator to the floor below to continue shopping.

But as soon as the 29-year-old stepped off the escalator, a Macy’s security guard grabbed her, seized her purse, accused her of planning to steal the shirts and forcibly escorted her to a holding cell in the basement, according to a lawsuit.


Over the next three hours, she was searched, questioned, denied access to her phone to contact a lawyer or her family and ordered to admit her guilt by signing legal papers and forced to pay a $100 fine in cash before the security staff turned her over to the NYPD, according to the suit.


Macy's then continued to harass her via mail, demanding additional fines even after the initial fee, in what her lawyer describes as a continuing policy by Macy's to shake down minority customers.


► NYPD Officer Says Macy's Racially Profiled Her in Black Friday Arrest

(http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20131118/midtown-south/nypd-officer-says-macys-racially-profiled-her-black-friday-arrest)

“This coercive collection practice or scheme has become so profitable that Macy’s … has dedicated an entire unit within its existing store, which operates like a typical jail, equipped with holding cells, where alleged shoplifters are held for hours on end, and are pressured, threatened, and often harassed until they find no reprieve but to make civil penalty payments to [Macy’s],” according to the lawsuit filed last month in Bronx Supreme Court, but which has since been transferred to Manhattan Supreme Court.


The class-action lawsuit estimates that thousands of customers have been targeted using a similar “money collection scheme” that lawyers say preys upon black, Hispanic and other minority customers using a “shopkeeper’s privilege” rule in New York's General Business Law that allows retailers to detain customers they believe tried to shoplift and ask them to pay a civil penalty without proving them guilty.

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20151203/midtown-south/macys-imprisons-minority-customers-extorts-them-for-bogus-fines-suit

[DarrinS]

Walmart?

[ElNono]

Walmart?

In the same article:

In November 2014, Wal-Mart Stores agreed to an undisclosed settlement with a customer named Timikia Pegues in Maryland federal court following similar allegations, according to court filings.

Pegues was cuffed and detained by Wal-Mart security guards after she tried to return a bassinet her mother bought, discovered her mother had given her the wrong receipt and attempted to leave with the already-purchased bassinet to get the correct receipt, according to her lawsuit against the store in March 2014.

[TeyshaBlue]

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20151203/midtown-south/macys-imprisons-minority-customers-extorts-them-for-bogus-fines-suit

Slam dunk lawsuit.

[boutons_deux]

Slam dunk lawsuit.

Macy's will hire some $M Wall st lawyers to lawyer for years any suit, like Exxon lawyering Exxon Valdez for 20 years.

[TeyshaBlue]

Macy's better settle the shit out of this.

[ElNono]

Macy's better settle the shit out of this.

Very likely. They apparently already settled 3-4 similar lawsuits... Makes you wonder if it's all worth it in the end, I doubt those settlements are cheap.

[Winehole23]

Walmart?Mini-brain fart -- Walmart has been sued and has settled out of court -- for doing the same thing. The article mentions this.

Don't you read anything? :rolleyes

[TeyshaBlue]

Very likely. They apparently already settled 3-4 similar lawsuits... Makes you wonder if it's all worth it in the end, I doubt those settlements are cheap.

I shudder to think what the jury awards would be. Settlement got to be cheaper.

[DarrinS]

Mini-brain fart -- Walmart has been sued -- and has settled out of court -- for doing the same thing. The article mentions this.

Don't you read anything? :rolleyes


I just kept seeing Macy's. I just skimmed it, tbh.

[Winehole23]

What is it you do when you skim? For me, it's very much akin to reading. Article ain't that long...

[DarrinS]

What is it you do when you skim? For me, it's very much akin to reading. Article ain't that long...



I'm sorry that I didn't notice the brief mention of Wal-Mart in your article about Macy's. GMAFB

[sickdsm]

Sounds like a way out if one is trying to scam and gets busted. F brick and mortar stores.

[Winehole23]

I'm sorry that I didn't notice the brief mention of Wal-Mart in your article about Macy's. GMAFBDon't be sorry for popping off without reading anything. You typically do.

[DarrinS]

Long time coming, tbh


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[boutons_deux]

Right-Wing Media Use Walmart "Bait-And-Switch" To Falsely Attack Minimum Wage

Minimum Wages Are Not The Reason Walmart Is Closing 154 Stores Nationwide

Walmart To Close 269 Stores This Year, Including 154 In the U.S. In January, it was widely reported that Walmart planned to close 269 stores worldwide in the upcoming year, 154 of them in the United States. According to The Washington Post, the contraction is the result of Walmart refocusing expansion efforts toward online shopping while it maintains established, profitable supercenters. According to Walmart's own press release, some of the domestic outlets slated to close this year happen to be in cities that recently increased their municipal minimum wage, but many are also in areas where the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour applies. [The Washington Post, 1/15/16 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2016/01/15/walmart-is-ending-its-express-concept-and-closing-269-stores/); Walmart, 1/15/16 (http://news.walmart.com/news-archive/2016/01/15/walmart-continues-sharpened-focus-on-portfolio-management)]

Time: Walmart Closing All Express Stores. On January 15, Time reported that Walmart was closing all 102 of its small Walmart Express stores as part of plans to close 154 stores across the country. Time stated that "what worked for XXL stores wouldn't necessarily work for mini-mart-type retail locations." Time reported that because Walmart was unable to provide the same low prices without the high volume its superstores offer, the retailer could not make express stores work. [Time, 1/15/16 (http://time.com/money/4182681/walmarts-express-stores-close/)]

Walmart Reportedly "Dogged" By Years Of Mismanagement, Long Lines, Poor Customer Service

Fortune: Walmart "Dogged By Criticism" Of Long Lines, Empty Shelves, Growth Outpacing Hiring. On November 20, 2015, Fortune reported that Walmart's hiring has not kept up with growth of the chain. Fortunecited analysis from Reuters that "store space per employee had increased to about 547 square feet from 407 square feet in 2005." Fortune reported that this inability or unwillingness to match the pace of hiring to growth may be the cause of low customer service ratings, as poor service "was hurting sales growth":

Walmart has been dogged by criticism of the standard of its stores in recent years, including long checkout lines and insufficient stocking of its shelves. A Reuters analysis of the giant discount retailer's growth and its employee numbers may help explain why.
Over the past decade, Walmart opened nearly 1,500 new stores in the United States, a 45% increase in space and equivalent to more than 4,000 American football fields, while its sales have grown by 50%. But based on rough headcount figures provided by the company, the expansion was in stark contrast to the growth in its U.S. workforce, which was only about 8% in that time. It means the store space per employee increased around 34%.

The disparity may help to explain why Walmart acknowledged earlier this year that its customer service needed to be improved significantly as it was hurting sales growth, and why it is now investing a lot more in its workforce and technology to improve the standard of the stores and how shoppers are treated there. [Fortune, 11/20/15 (http://fortune.com/2015/11/20/walmarts-growth-employee-hires/)]


Consumerist: Walmart Is "Understaffed And Mismanaged" Thanks To High Turnover Rate. On March 31, 2014, the consumer watchdog blog Consumerist reported that Walmart was working on resolving issues of understocked shelves. Consumerist reported that workers say stores had been "understaffed and mismanaged." The consumer blog did say the retailer was working to beef up hours and hiring, but it also noted that one Walmart worker said her store "has a way of overwhelming new part-time hires with too much work, leading to a high level of turnover":

For the past few years, a growing number of Walmart customers have complained about threadbare shelves, while Walmart workers say it's a result of being understaffed and mismanaged. Now the nation's largest retailer is admitting that it's losing billions of dollars by trying to be cheap.

According to a recent BusinessWeek story, Walmart execs announced at a company meeting earlier this month that improving the level of merchandise that is in-stock and available for customers to buy is a top priority.
[...]

At the company meeting, executives said they will add more hours in an effort to improve "in-store execution." If it fails to make a change for the positive, the company figures to lose $3 billion a year.

Whether or not that works will likely depend on who they hire and how they treat the new hires. One Walmart worker told Consumerist that her store has a way of overwhelming new part-time hires with too much work, leading to a high level of turnover, meaning time is wasted training people over and over again. [Consumerist, 3/31/14 (http://consumerist.com/2014/03/31/walmart-finally-admits-that-its-empty-shelves-are-a-big-problem/)]


Increased Minimum Wages Do Not Kill Jobs

Cornell University Study Debunks The Myth That Minimum Wage Hurts Jobs. In the December 2015 edition of the Cornell Hospitality Report, researchers at Cornell University found that over the past 20 years, raising the regular and tipped minimum wage for workers in the restaurant and hospitality industries has "not had large or reliable effects" on the number of people working in those industries. The research stands as yet another piece of evidence debunking claims that wage increases harm businesses and weaken the job market:

Although minimum wage increases almost certainly necessitate changes in restaurant prices or operations, those changes do not appear to dramatically affect overall demand or industry size. Furthermore, there is strong evidence that increases in the minimum wage reduce turnover, and good reason to believe that it may increase employee productivity as well. While prospective large increases in minimum wage mandates may have more noticeable effects, the evidence suggests that the restaurant industry should accept reasonable, modest increases in the minimum wage.
[...]

There is strong evidence that increases in the minimum wage reduce turnover, as mentioned previously. While no study has tested our belief that increasing the minimum wage will increase employee happiness and productivity as well, our reasoning is theoretically sound and consistent with more general research on compensation effects. Moreover, the research reviewed and reported here suggests that the industry has little to lose by acting on this belief. Thus, we contend that the restaurant industry should support rather than oppose reasonable increases in the minimum wage. [Cornell Hospitality Report, December 2015 (http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/chrreports/2/)]


CEPR: Increasing The Minimum Wage Has "No Discernable Effect" On Employment. In an exhaustive February 2013 report, the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) concluded that local, state, and federal minimum wage increases had a negligible effect on job creation:

Economists have conducted hundreds of studies of the employment impact of the minimum wage. Summarizing those studies is a daunting task, but two recent meta-studies analyzing the research conducted since the early 1990s concludes that the minimum wage has little or no discernible effect on the employment prospects of low-wage workers. [Center for Economic and Policy Research, February 2013 (http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/min-wage-2013-02.pdf#page=24)]


IRLE: Increased Minimum Wages Had Zero Effect On Employment. An April 2012 report by the University of California, Berkeley's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE) looked at the link between raising minimum wages and job creation. The IRLE found no change in job growth tied to raising minimum wages:

Summarizing to this point, we find that our border-discontinuity estimates find strong positive responses of earnings to a minimum wage increase. This rise in earnings is met with a change in the employment stock that is indistinguishable from zero. [University of California, Berkeley, Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, April 2012 (http://www.irle.berkeley.edu/workingpapers/122-12.pdf)]


http://mediamatters.org/research/2016/02/09/right-wing-media-use-walmart-bait-and-switch-to/208478

[Winehole23]

Long time coming, tbhcan't take the heat?

get out of the kitchen.

[TeyshaBlue]

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