RF/RFID security gates

[Tywais]

My wife and I went to BigC to do some shopping and as we left with our loaded cart and passed through the security gates the alarm went off, 1st time this has happened to me. The security guy walked over and started going through the cart but was just pushing most items out of the way and was drilling down looking for something specific.

One small bag had my wife's cosmetics in it and my razor blades. The razor blades are always in a plastic security box that has to be physically removed by the cashier. He took the bag out and waved the razor blades across a point next to the security gate and no sound, took out my wife's lotion waved it and the alarm went off. He then went through our receipt, which was quite long, and quickly located the item on it and smiled and waved us through. Appears many of the larger ticket items in the cosmetic section are tagged.

Being a technically curious person wanted to see what technology was being used, RFID, electro acoustic, RF, etc. There was an extra, thicker bar code on the lotion bottle. Saw the same on my twin pack of deodorant. Couldn't get the one off the lotion but the one on the deodorant was stuck on the clear plastic wrap. And clearly saw a basic RF tag, not RFID though as it doesn't have any information stored on it.

Just posted for general interest.

The lotion bottle:

The tag front & back, which could not be read by any barcode reader I tried.

[Tywais]

How deactivation works, which in this case didn't.

[ubonjoe]

Ever noticed what they put on bottles of booze at Tesco and I assume other places. I had a problem because the cashier forgot to take it off a bottle. Had one heck of a time getting it off when I got home. Now I open the top of the box to be sure the cashier notices it.

[Chicog]

She puts the lotion in the basket....

[KittenKong]

There's one of those RF tags on a 50B shaving mirror I bought at Tesco.

Some people will steal anything.

[KittenKong]

Ever noticed what they put on bottles of booze at Tesco and I assume other places. I had a problem because the cashier forgot to take it off a bottle. Had one heck of a time getting it off when I got home. Now I open the top of the box to be sure the cashier notices it.

Not exactly hi-tech.

You can get those off with magnets.