Ex-store greeter says he never stopped moms trying to steal baby products, sparking debate

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on April 8, 2022. It has since been updated.

Raising babies is expensive. Buying necessities for a baby is a massive cost and while everyone wants to give their children the very best, many can't afford necessary items such as diapers, baby food and medicine. One former store greeter revealed that he never snitched on moms who took necessary items without paying for them. We are all guided by our own moral compass, but not everything is strictly black and white. The TikTok user explained that he never cared about moms taking stuff because, in his view, they only did it out of desperation and absolute need. The user @brandontamayo02 stitched a video from a fellow creator showing a shelf of locked baby formula while saying: “If you see anyone stealing — no, you didn’t.”

The person who claimed to have worked at Walmart explained that he never stopped moms because he was aware of the astonishing costs of raising a baby. "So, I worked at Walmart as a door greeter and basically, a door greeter is someone who says "hi" and "bye" and also checks the receipt before you leave the store," he said of his role. "And every time I saw a customer, mostly a woman, and I checked the receipt, and I saw Pampers or baby formula that was not on the receipt, I just said, 'Have a great day,'" he recalled.

"Why? Because they're expensive and kids are expensive, in general. In my store, and the company in general, we didn't really get a reward for the amount of stuff we caught people stealing," he said. "I mean, they would tell me like 'She's stealing, catch her,' like 'Check her receipt' and I'll check the receipt and I'm like, 'You're good. Have a great day.' And AP would be pissed. Did I care? No, because I was making $11.50 at the time," he concluded. Some questioned the ethics of it and even claimed that's why the prices were high, but an overwhelming majority in the comments supported his actions.

In a similar story posted on Reddit, an employee at a drugstore was faced with a dilemma when a mother of three kids couldn't afford cough syrup for her youngest child, who was crying from fever. She slipped the cough syrup into the lady's handbag without her noticing because she felt the drugstore had very little to lose while the woman had so much to gain. "A mom wrangling three crying sick kids enters my line and sets two types of children's medicine down, and says they're both on sale and thank god for that. I ring her up, and she gets very quiet, because she misread the sign, and her total is twice as high as she was expecting," they wrote, aware that she needed the medicine. "Her youngest screams in the cart, because she's burning up with fever. Her mother very quietly asks, please, she's so sorry, if I could please take the more expensive one-off her total."

The employee does what's requested of them. "I agree, I move the box below the counter, and when she's not looking, I slip it into her bag. I pray as hard as I can that if she notices the 'mistake' she says nothing because I so desperately want her to have that medicine." They then contemplate the cost of the action in terms of the company and the woman. "The store has lost profit at the cost of a child's health. I don't bat an eye. This is a terminable offense. If I'm presented with the same situation tonight, I'll do it in a heartbeat," they wrote.