You absolutely can’t trust technology blindly, especially when money is involved, and one shopper at Walmart recently proved that point after a quick moment of vigilance potentially saved her a whopping $85 at the self-checkout, as per BroBible. The shopper, who posts on TikTok as @nobrasallowed, shared what she called a “suspicious” experience in a trending video that showed how dramatically the total could change between the main screen and the payment terminal.
She had scanned all her items and was ready to pay when she noticed the problem. The main self-checkout screen displayed a total of $108. That sounds reasonable, right? But when she went to insert her debit card, the separate payment terminal, the “little reader” as she called it, displayed a completely different number. “I went and put my card in the little reader, and I noticed that the card reader said a $193,” she explained in her video.
She quickly pulled her card before the payment processed, preventing what could have been a painful overcharge. The shopper then had to flag down an employee. The worker couldn’t fix the issue on the spot, so they had to move the transaction to a different register to correct the price, eventually confirming her original $108 total.
It’s certainly unsettling, and the incident left the shopper wondering about the outcome if she hadn’t been paying close attention
“I don’t know if I would have ended up paying that if it actually would have gone through or not,” she noted, adding that shoppers should “just be careful going through checkout this year with things. It’s a little bit sketchy, might have just been a glitch, but just something to be aware of.” She emphasized her warning in the caption, telling other shoppers to be on the lookout and take extra care.
A company spokesperson noted that the average overcharge was relatively small, around 1.88% of the total basket size for affected customers. They also stated that they reimbursed over 80% of those who were overcharged. Still, that’s a lot of people being forced to trust that the computer got it right.
These glitches have also led to major legal headaches. In January 2024, the retailer agreed to pay $45 million to settle a major class-action lawsuit. This suit alleged that shoppers were being overcharged for items sold by weight, specifically things like bags of citrus fruit and various meat, poultry, and seafood products. While the company denied any wrongdoing in that case, the high volume of these incidents raises serious red flags about system reliability, especially as they track customer movements.
It’s easy to see why shoppers are getting suspicious. People online immediately reacted to the video with frustration, feeling that the system is rigged against them. One commenter pointed out the cynical reality: “You ever notice these ‘accidents’, ‘glitches’ never give us items for less or free.” Another person couldn’t believe the amount, commenting, “That’s such a huge difference!!!! I wonder how many people paid extra without realizing it.”
Clearly, the public feels this shouldn’t be the customer’s job to police the pricing. Notably, FTC ripped into Instacart over its AI pricing shenanigans. As one frustrated shopper wrote, “They’re robbing us blind if we don’t catch it !!!! That’s NOT our job!!!!” It’s definitely time to start checking that card reader screen before you tap to pay.
Published: Dec 30, 2025 07:00 pm