sparkykev

From what i could work out, you put your basket down on the shelf to start scanning, and the machine weighs your basket, then you scan your items, and put them into the carrier bags that are sitting on hangers that might also measure the weight of the bag as you fill it, and the till makes a comparison of the two readings, and possibly the weight of each item too.
In our tesco there's always someone supervising the bank of four checkouts, watching everything on a monitor.

Chrisgr31

You will probably find that the till is under CCTV surveillance so if you were to query the transaction they could look at the tape and chack you was there at the time. I know our local Waitrose Self Scan machine is under CCTV surveillance for this reason. It takes a photo as you insert card!

Lum

I dont think that chavs avoid them for fear of looking stupid in front of their mates, I just think that most people are too dumb / ingraned into thinking that the till must be closed at it does not have a minimum wage shift worker sat at it trying not to look depressed.

That's why I like them, no queue and no forced conversation with someone who really couldn't give a **** about how I am and vice versa.

They installed them at one of the Tecsos in Liverpool, so I'm sure the security of the system has been throughly tested by now.

Diesel

PMSL

Always go wrong when I use them 'unexpected item in bagging area', and if you grab a reduced 'about to go off' bargain you're screwed (in Sainsb at least...)

D

ianc

They *do* ask for authentication at certain levels... use em for 10 or 20 and it's fine, but 50 or above and someone comes over and checks a signature....

I broke £100 once and it threw a message to wait for attendant, he could not complete transaction at that till, had to follow him to a terminal where he finished the billing.

They automaticallly light up \ request authentication for over18 items, but annoying don't trigger anything when you need staff to remove an alarmed box from a PS2 game or similar.

Overall, a great invention, saves queues and forced conversations.

(and home shopping, well tesco were great but some of their substitutions were questionable - notably "didn't have the brand of cat food you wanted, so brought dog food" <sigh> gave up with them after that!)

mikefyfe

The machines are called FastLane, built by NCR, see here:

http://www.ncr.com/products/pdf/hard...T_fastlane.pdf