Alabama woman falsely accused of shoplifting awarded $2.1 million in Walmart settlement

CBS affiliate WKRG-TV's Bill Riales reports on a case revealing the retail giant's pattern of false accusations followed by attempts to collect money from victims.

[kingjames]

Imagine trying to extort $200 and end up paying $2.1M. Way to go Walmart, keep it up!

[FlyGuy]

They made $314 million and only had to pay out $2.1 million, sounds like they have zero incentive to change.

[thomaskillian]

That’s the best ad for walmart ever.
“If you shop at walmart, you may win $2.1M”

[TeeCeesMillerTime]

My sister was falsely accused of stealing from Target 🎯 and it has truly damaged her image and name in so many ways. I have watched you tell what happened to you at Walmart. You deserve what you got from them because they are quick to say someone is stealing from their company.

[sleepy]

This woman deserves every dollar, I don't think these companies realize how serious criminal charges affect our everyday lives as normal law abiding citizens.

[mamamcfreeman]

I was accused of stealing a bottle of water once at a Macy's. I asked them to provide evidence which they said they had but could not produce so they dropped it and let me go. It still pisses me off almost 15 years later that I was accused of something I did not do. I'm glad this woman got justice.

[fbiagentfrank]

To anyone reading this: Wal mart employees cannot physically detain you. If you are in the right, just keep walking. They legally have no right to touch you. They are not the police. If the police show up, obviously cooperate, but I've read too many comments on this video about Wal mart not allowing people to leave that haven't done anything wrong. You don't have to listen to them when they tell you to go into that theft room. They aren't your parents, the police, or anyone with any authority over you.

[Leanne-offb]

I remember being accused of shoplifting when I was 19 years old in 2014. I was at the mall with my friends, I was looking around at things and wasn’t planning on buying anything because I was waiting on my friends to finish up. This employee was following me around and I saw she was just steering at me and just watching my every move. I continued to look around and see what they had. I told my friends that the employee is following me around for some reason and they said just ignore her because you are not doing anything wrong. After a while I finally went up to her and I asked her, is there a problem ma’am and her response was ya you are the problem and I said what did I do wrong, I am just walking around looking at your store that’s all.
She said I know you stole and I said why would I ever steal. She just kept saying that I will call the police on you for stealing items here and I emptied out my purse and pockets. I said this is everything that is in my purse and pockets. Her response was ok you can go, I asked her don’t you owe me something and she said have a nice day. I told her that aren’t you going to apologize to me for accusing me of stealing and she said No goodbye.
I had a crowd around me because I yelled out that the woman accused me of stealing and she won’t apologize to me for that. The manager came out and asked what’s the problem and I explained to him what happened and I demanded that the employee should be fired from her position because you don’t just accuse someone of shoplifting just of how they look. I never got an apology from the manager of the store and I never went back there again.
There’s a lot of rude people out there that will accuse you of stealing and it’s just so frustrating and wrong.

[MuricaTurkey]

Geez, they got a whole scam going on, don't they? They never thought she really stole anything. They just wanted to put her in a position to extort her. Disgusting. I'm glad she fought it and won.

[charminbutterfly]

Glad she fought it and received a great reward for the harassment.
A few years back, went to Walmart and bought groceries. Mind you, I checked out at the register, right by the door. As I was leaving, greeter asked for receipt. I was thinking really, you seen me at register and cashier rung me up. I had bought a hair clipper and supposibly wasn't on receipt. I told her it was and to check. Long story short, I made her take my bags to the register, take everything out and check it off one by one. She said " she didn't have to".
I told her " you insinuating I took something, so YOU ARE going to check off everything ". She did and everything was on my receipt.
Two can play their game.

[blackspiderman]

That woman had such a peaceful demeanor

[DDW_Q]

Thank you for posting this story and a huge THANK YOU! to Mrs. Nurse for choosing to fight it and holding WalMart accountable for their actions. It's time that the $3.14Mil "stolen" by WalMart be returned to all of the individuals who also suffered such abusive tactics.

[sloane.]

There’s just something so satisfying about seeing corporate giants be forced to give millions of their wages to hardworking middle class citizens. Glad justice was served.

[pat]

So she was arrested and had to go to court over a measly $40 worth of groceries and no one representing Walmart even showed up? 🤯 AND THEN they tried to get her to pay them $200 for them to basically stop harassing her with letters?! Damn…no wonder walmart attracts all the crazy people 😭 you are who you attract 🤡

[svbarr]

F WALMART. Their BS self checkout SUCKS.

[ianbattles]

Walmart has a lot of nerve to send these demand letters AFTER they caused the case to be dismissed by failing to appear in court.

[jerricakral]

I'm so glad she fought this. Walmart really needs to stop harassing innocent people. Quick story time for anyone who cares: once I was at walmart, It was pretty late, maybe around 8:30pm. I was there with my husband and we were shopping for back to school items. I had lots of pencils, paper, and backpacks and such. I also grabbed a few groceries and some dog food. Needless to say, my cart was full. I went to the registers and tried to find one that was open with a person at the register. But there wasn't anyone working registers. It was only self checkout options. My husband walked over to customer service and asked if anyone would be able to open the register to help us out because there wasn't enough room on the side of the self checkouts to place our items after scanning them. The manager yelled at him instantly! Like for no reason! He was very kind when asking, just curious if anyone could help us out. But she was so angry that he even asked. She said no, if you want to shop here you need to go through self checkout. Well my husband wasn't happy about that, but bit his tongue because we needed to get home. All of a sudden as we're scanning each and every individual item, we run out of room on the side of the register. So instead we started putting items into the top of the basket area. Well that was a red flag because then the worker kept telling us we were missing items. Needless to say it was a huge mess. I hated every bit of it. I wanted to put it back but my kids needed it very soon. I wanted to grab another basket, but they were out in the parking lot, and I wanted to use bags but they were out in the whole store. I just hated how I felt like i was working there and doing their jobs temporarily. Workers standing around everywhere! I hate walmart. 😒 anyways thanks for reading! Lol

[quinlozano]

it’s the “when no one from Walmart showed up to court” for me

[Macamomo]

One time I was in Walmart and was basically forced to use self check out, though I had hundreds of dollars of groceries. My wife was home and I was with my one-year old. As I am ringing each individual item, my one-year old kept grabbing the bags and crying as I placed them back in the cart. I had to double check twice as I was so scared that I missed an item in confusion and distress. If I was able to go to an actual cashier, this transaction would’ve been so much easier.

[glendaspann]

Every time I go to Walmart, when I am at self check out, the employees always swarm to where I’m checking out and they always watch me like a dang hawk 😡 I’ve spent thousands and thousands of dollars in that place and I have NEVER stolen one thing from them!!! They need to get their cashiers back in there and do the checking out process if they are going to accuse and insinuate!!! I despise Walmart, I really do!!!