Anyone visit the new Home Depot in Clear Lake? Security Q

[CHLSteve]

I have, several times over the last week. Each time I leave, the security alarm goes off. You know, the one for people stealing things. I've set this thing off like 8 times in the last 7 days. I don't stop. I just keep on walking because I haven't stolen anything, and I find those things incredibly annoying. Tonight it dawned on me that my gun might be what is setting it off. That, or they are burying security tags in a $3.00 tub of joint compound.

[kirock7]

If they didn't come chase you down... they must have thought it was bogus and ignored it.

[CHLSteve]

Sure, but more than a half-dozen times?

I am not 100% sure, but I don't think the employees are allowed/supposed to chase people down for that anyway. There are liability issues and such that Home Depot would rather not deal with. e.g. what if an employee gets hurt by attempting to get someone, what if someone sues Home Depot for being grabbed by an employee, etc...

[troglodyte]

RFID security won't pick up a gun or anything else unless it has a still active chip. The system couldn't distinguish a firearm from a staple gun if it had to.

http://www.explainthatstuff.com/rfid.html

Basically RFID security involves radio waves from the unit by the door hitting a "antenna" in the security tag. This generates an electrical current in the tag that powers a chip which "wakes up" and sends a signal to the receiver by the door. This sets off the alarm.

When the checker rubs your item across the diactivator it somehow destroys the chip's electronics and you can pass through without the annoying alarm.

Maybe your wife has implanted a Home Depot chip it you to keep track of your whereabouts

[shootthesheet]

Do you wear the same shoes or pants or holster or hat that may have a tag in it that was never deactivated? This has come up before and the people usually find that they have one of the tags in their wallet or something they never think of. I had one once that had fallen off a package or something and stuck to the bottom of my shoe. I didn't find it until I took off my shoes.

[jimlongley]

I work at a Home Depot, and we are not allowed to "chase down" people stealing things, even if we absolutely positively see them doing it. I have taken pictures of a couple of them though.

We are also not supposed to carry firearms on company property. A while back I was told by another employee, who should have been in a position to know, that our Home Depot was not on property owned by HD, that the property was leased, and thus that person felt ok having a gun in the car. I have found out, since, that HD does own the property.

We get false alarms a lot at all of the entrances. There are multiple things that could cause falses, cell phones, other electronics, not just RFID tags, and we are taught to be observant so that we know the difference between someone absconding with something and a false.

A couple of weeks back I set the alarm off, so I walked back and forth shedding different things until the alarm stopped going off, it appeared to be my USB stick, but when I walked back through with it, and then with everything else, the alarm didn't go off again. Another time all I did was move my harmonica to a different pocket and the alarms stopped.

We have also been known to have a little fun with our coworkers by planting tags on them.

[CHLSteve]

Well the wife planting a chip on me is certainly a funny thought!

I do carry a USB key, but I've had different clothing and shoes on at different times. The only constant is the USB key and the gun. Hrm...

Maybe next time I'm in the store with nothing better to do, I can shed keys, clothing, etc...to see what makes it go "ding!", but I'd hate to get tied up with their security and my gun and all that nonsense.

[NuBer92]

check your clothes or shoes. sometimes at the mall stores they sew the sensors on the inside seam so it is harder to steal. I used to work at the gap and we had to remind people to take it off.
Also it happened to my wife when she bought a new purse. it kept going off all day long.

[DoubleJ]

yeah, well, unless your Gat is emitting RF, I wouldn't worry about it, as it should stay concealed and it's presence left unknown.

the USB "key" is the most likely source. As the illustrious Mr Longley said, cell phones will do it too. basically, anything that can emit RF, such as your CrackBerry, or it's attached BlueTooth as well.

[HankB]

Each time I leave, the security alarm goes off.

Does it go off when you enter?

[smyrna]

shootthesheet and NuBer92 most likely nailed it. I had a similar incident but before I started carrying. I finally realized that it was a new pair of shoes. Pulled the insoles out, and there beneath one of them was some type of wafer with a circuit or two on it. Peeled it off and tossed it away and never another problem.

[psycho_bob42]

Any type of electronic device has the potential set it off. There are a lot of different factors that are involved though. It could depend on what type of device you have, how fast you walk, how close you walk to the sensor, how old they are, etc... My cell phone sets off my local walmart every so often. I used to carry a police scanner that would always set them off at the mall. I used to just hand the scanner to the cashier so they could pass it around the alarm. After a while they got used to me handing it to them

[KD5NRH]

I had one once that had fallen off a package or something and stuck to the bottom of my shoe. I didn't find it until I took off my shoes.

It's a good thing nobody would ever do something like, I dunno...maybe smuggle a couple dozen active tags into Frys and leave them sticky-side-up on the floor in various places around the store.

I mean, that would be as bad as sprinkling gunpowder around parking lots that get dog-searched for guns.

...or sprinkling bong water on the canine handler's web gear...

[jimlongley]

I had one once that had fallen off a package or something and stuck to the bottom of my shoe. I didn't find it until I took off my shoes.

It's a good thing nobody would ever do something like, I dunno...maybe smuggle a couple dozen active tags into Frys and leave them sticky-side-up on the floor in various places around the store.

I mean, that would be as bad as sprinkling gunpowder around parking lots that get dog-searched for guns.

...or sprinkling bong water on the canine handler's web gear...

Bong Water???

The other day a couple of fellow HD employees and I went to a community event at a Plano church and set up to entertain the kids, building little kits. On the way out we set off the alarm a bunch of times, and of course nobody paid any attention because we were HD employees doing things that looked like things we should be doing.

One of the things we took was a coupls of stacks of the orange 5 gallon "Homer" buckets and boy were we surprised when we started taking them apart at the church. Inside several of the buckets were pieces of merchandise with rf tags on them, some kind of expensive.

What we think was happening, after discussing the situation with "Loss Prevention" later in the day, is someone was pre-positioning merchandise to steal, inside a stack of buckets. The scenario presented was that the person secreting the items was doing so in an area that is not very well populated on a Saturday morning, counting on the buckets to be there for a while.

After some shopping, with a legitimate cart full of items, the last thing they would pick up would be a stack of buckets and then get into a crowded check out line and count on the cashier to not want to hold the line up by going through the buckets in the stack. When the person then set the alarm off, the head cashier would look for the signal from the cashier, and would either wave the person through, or if he was just moving on, would just ignore the alarm.

And out the door goes a couple of spare Lithium batteries, an electric screwdriver, and a few other things.

Of course a sharp cashier is supposed to: Check inside all containers; and observe if weights, sizes, and package markings don't match.

We set the alarm off coming back into the store.