Viral Walmart \u201cthief\u201d hits back at claims he was stealing groceries YOUTUBE: KMOV St. LouisA Walmart shopper was accused of theft after a viral video showed him placing numerous items into his bag without scanning them at a self-checkout line. However, he has now hit back at those claims. Bill Astle faced backlash after a customer at the Green Mount Commons Walmart in Belleville, Illinois recorded him filling his shopping cart with groceries, seemingly without paying for them. \u201cThis man is literally just stealing everything,\u201d a woman behind the camera said in a short clip. \u201cHe ain\u2019t scanning sh*t. So open about it, look at the screen, nothing ringing up.\u201d The 14-second video was posted on various social media platforms, and went viral with over 15.6 million views on Twitter\/X. Many commenters slammed the man and accused him of theft. \u201cThis is why Walmart is getting rid of the self-checkout. This idea backfired hard on them. Theft is through the roof,\u201d one said. \u201cThis is why the rest of us have to pay an arm and leg for the small things,\u201d another wrote. But Astle, who revealed that he works for Spark, Walmart\u2019s delivery service, insists that he\u2019s innocent and was just doing his job. \u201cI\u2019m not a thief. I\u2019m being pictured and painted as a thief on the internet,\u201d he told First Alert 4. He shared that as a Walmart employee, he\u2019s able to scan products directly on his phone while picking them up. \u201cEverything is done off the phone, so when we get to the register, we\u2019re not actually scanning a single item,\u201d Astle told the outlet. When a Spark shopper reaches the register, he explained that they\u2019re required to scan their phone using the self-checkout machine and then bag the items. By scanning the products on their phones, there is no need to scan them again at the register. Astle is now trying to clear his name as more people approach him when he shops, asking if he was a thief. \u201cI\u2019ve had customers say, \u2018Hey, didn\u2019t I see you on the internet? Didn\u2019t you steal items?\u2019 And then I have to explain to people what I\u2019m doing,\u201d Astle shared. \u201cHad they continued the video for another 30 seconds, they would\u2019ve seen when I got done with the Spark delivery order, I scanned two dozen roses.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Viral Walmart \u201cthief\u201d hits back at claims he was stealing groceries YOUTUBE: KMOV St. LouisA Walmart shopper was accused of theft after a viral video showed him placing numerous items into his bag without scanning them at a self-checkout line. However, he has now hit back at those claims. Bill Astle faced backlash after a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}