By Mitchell Goodbar for Dailymail.Com
23:55 14 June 2024, updated 06:12 15 June 2024
A Missouri man who went viral after a video of him not scanning the items in his shopping cart at Walmart was posted online has denied being a shoplifter.
In the video, Bill Astle can be seen standing in front of a self-checkout machine, causally removing various products from the cart and placing them in bags without scanning them.
The woman who filmed the footage, which was filmed on Mother’s Day, says in disbelief: ‘This man literally steals everything.’
“It doesn’t scan s***,” the woman says as Astle continues to download items from the shopping cart without scanning.
Surprised at how blasé the alleged thief was, she joked: “Be frank about it. Look at the screen, nothing is ringing.”
Astle, who works for Spark, Walmart’s delivery service, said he was just doing his job and is innocent.
He even has receipts from the date to back up his claim.
“I’m not a thief. They portray and paint me as a thief on the Internet,” he lamented to FirstAlert4.
Astle explained that because he is a Walmart employee, he is able to scan products on his phone as he picks them up.
“Everything is done over the phone,” he said. “So when we get to the register, we’re not actually scanning a single item.
When a Spark customer arrives at the checkout, Astle said they are expected to scan their phone into the self-service checkout machine and then bag the items.
Scanning products on their phones eliminates the need to scan them at checkout.
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A Spark employee has performed this routine countless times and yet was recorded last month without knowing it.
The video took the internet by storm and was quickly shared on social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and X.com, with many viewers condemning Astle’s actions in the comments and calling him a thief.
The video has 15.6 million views on X.com alone and is captioned: “Man doesn’t scan a single item at Walmart checkout.”
A confused user commented: ‘The guy is so blatant about it!’
Astle was overwhelmed by the attention and viral notoriety. Speaking of the video, he expressed his disbelief at the number of people who watched it.
“Millions and millions of views,” he said in shock.
People even got to know Astle personally, harassing him when he tried to do business with Spark.
‘I’ve had customers say to me, ‘Hey, haven’t I seen you on the internet? Didn’t you steal things?”
Then a Walmart employee finds himself in the awkward position of trying to defend himself from strangers.
“I have to explain to people what I do.
Astle is now on a mission to clear his name and get his life back to normal. He said he was trying to find a way to get out [the videos] pulled mine down.’
Right after the person finished filming Astle, he said he completed his Spark order and bought an item with his own money — flowers for his wife for Mother’s Day.
“If they had continued the video for another thirty seconds they would have seen me get the Spark delivery order, scan two dozen roses and use my debit card to pay.