Those anti-theft things at stores...

[Rip The Jacker]

How the hell do they work? If you don't know what I'm talking about, its those things where... you go to a supermarket, buy stuff, and as you leave, you walk through those metal-detector like things at the exit.

Now lets say you go to a supermarket, buy a bag of chips, and leave, cool. Now lets say you go to a supermarket, and leave without paying for the chips, those anti-theft detectors go off, but HOW? Thats the question here. After you've payed for the bag of chips, nothing changes. The bag is left untouched, unmarked, and unchanged. So how do the detectors know if you've payed for the item???

Some clothing stores have those big tags stuck on the shirts, those are removed after you've payed for the clothing. But things at supermarkets and stuff don't have tags. If you go and pay for a basketball, nothing happens to the ball, nothing changes.

So how the hell do those things detect and know if your stealing an item???

[S!X]

Thats a good question They even go off when you pay for the stuff

[Keikan]

magic?

[RPerry]

There is a magnetized piece of metal on the item somewhere. When you pay for the groceries, right where they are scanned, or near where the bag is a demagnetizer. it looks like a black pad. thats what controls the anti-theft alarm

[Rip The Jacker]

There is a magnetized piece of metal on the item somewhere. When you pay for the groceries, right where they are scanned, or near where the bag is a demagnetizer. it looks like a black pad. thats what controls the anti-theft alarm

But that can't be right, most items have nothing of the sort.

Better example:
You go to a grocery store, where they have tomatoes, apples, watermelons, etc. You pick 3 or 4 apples, put them into the little bags provided, then pay for the apples and leave.

But lets say you don't pay for a bag of apples. Then what?

[RPerry]

I have never seen a scanner go off for that. Most expensive Items, or smaller items have the anti theft metal. Unless there is a newer technology being used, I guess its possible to embed metal into a bar-code. I mostly find the anti theft devices in dvd's, electronics and so forth.

[Rip The Jacker]

Oh, of course. It'd be easy to insert anti-theft metal into DVD's and bigger and expensive items, thats understandable. But those things go off, even for smaller and cheaper items. Like a bag of candy, or something you can't even put metal into. Its weird how those things work.

[RPerry]

well, I don't know if you have a Target store there, but for instance they use a small tag ( a small sticker really ) that says " we give $ to help the community...." its only about 2 square inches big ( if even that big ), but it has foil on the back side. Thats how they do it.

[Rip The Jacker]

Hmm... interesting. I can't remember the last time I was at a Target store. So all the items in the store have that tag? But what stops a person from removing it?

[Gripper]

They are sprayed with magic fairy dust that knows if your being naughty and tell the gremlins that live in the poles near the doors if you are stealing!