A Walmart shopper was labeled a shoplifter when he was caught putting dozens of items in his bag without scanning at a self-checkout line — but he said he was doing his job as he responded to the charges.
Bill Astle faced intense online scrutiny when a shopper at the Green Mount Commons Walmart in Belleville, Illinois recorded him loading his shopping cart without paying for the items on May 12.
“This man is literally just stealing everything,” says a woman behind the camera in a 14 second video. “It’s not scanning st. So open about it, look at the screen, nothing sounds.”
The video has been posted on almost all social media sites, and has even garnered over 15.6 million views in just one post.
Many outraged users responded to comments about the man’s “brazen theft”, using the video to criticize the supermarket chain.
“This is why Walmart is getting rid of self-checkout. This idea failed miserably. The theft is through the roof,” said one.
“This is why the rest of us have to pay an arm and a leg for the little things,” another comment read.
Astle says the internet jumped to conclusions and got the story wrong.
“I am not a thief. I’m being photographed and painted as a thief online,” Astle told First Alert 4.
Astle had been at the Walmart location as part of his job working for Walmart’s delivery service, Spark.
Spark’s delivery drivers are given the items customers want via a phone app and scan the items in the app with their cameras as they shop.
“It’s all done over the phone, so when we get to the register, we’re not actually scanning a single item,” Astle told the media.
Instead of scanning each item at the kiosk, Spark employees scan a code from their phone and can then proceed to take the items — such as the viral moment Astle was filmed.
Astle was amazed at how quickly the video went viral with viewers even reaching out to St. Louis Battlehawks to punish the fan because he was seen wearing the team’s football jersey.
“Please check your fans,” one person wrote.
“Kaw isn’t that the law for him?” another added, a pun on the Battlehawks slogan “Kaw is law.”
Astle’s biggest hope is that he would like all the clips to be removed from the internet.
“Ideally trying to find a way to bring them down,” he added.
Astle is trying to clear his name as more people approach him as he shops asking if he was a thief.
“I’ve had clients say, ‘Hey, didn’t I see you online? You didn’t steal any stuff?’ And then I have to explain to people what I’m doing,” Astle said.
The Spark employee shared two receipts for work he did inside the store for further proof that he wasn’t stealing.
However, there was one item Astle scanned and paid for during his stop at the store, a bouquet of roses for his wife, but that moment happened right after the video ended.
“If they had continued the video for another 30 seconds, they would have seen when I was done with Spark’s delivery order, I scanned two dozen roses.”