How to defeat a supermarket trolley/cart wheel lock?

[chrisj1968]

here where I live it's magnetic. when they cross the line, the magnet locks and then a special gun used by a manager or whoever pointed at the wheel releases the lock.

[Nicholas-c Veteran]

1) Go to the front of a row of trolleys, insert ?1 coin into the front trolley, voila! you have 20 trolleys for the price of 1:pp

2) You wont get out the supermarket car park;))

All you need to disengage it is some sort of magnet (-/+ not sure which:pp)

[MrChainsaw]

There's an easy step, bring a screw driver, take of the wheel, it usualy goes fine with 1 wheel missing. :D

[Sandor]

doesn't sound like anything a hammer wouldn't fix.

[PNWDweller]

Wow, I am really surprised, but not at the same time. I never figured that something as simple as a shopping cart/trolly would be a hot item anywhere in the world. Around here, it is usually the street transients who use them to push what they own around.

Most everywhere I have been, they are free range so to speak. Anyone can push them out of the store, parking lot etc with no problem. No locks, hence no issues. The most extreme I have seen them get is to weld poles onto the side of the cart. Paint it red or whatever the color they want and then it is taller than the door and will not allow the cart to escape the store at least w/o some attention being drawn to it.

I have researched shopping carts online and know they are not cheap at all, but I can only imagine ones with the brakes, electronics to be much more expensive.

Is this just in the UK or other parts of the world as well?

[shakey_snake]

they do this as most trollys are worth about ?500 each.

Humm....

http://www.premiercarts.com/Tech_6240.htm

$156US a piece when buying four of them. I imagine they're cheaper in larger quantities.

Unless there's some amazing shopping cart shortage in the UK that drives up the price ten times over...

[tuckerm]

Is that the locking one though?

[aussiefloyd_fan]

$14 an hour for a job like that? They'd make more along the lines of $8 an hour.

5.68hr here in ARKANSAS

[acnpt]

The reason they have the locks, is because teenagers would steal them to have fun with, or locals would use them to take their shopping home. Obviously neither would bother to return the trolleys, so they usually end up getting dumped in housing estates/rivers etc.

Iceland supermarkets still use the pole on trolley technique. Very useless, many times I had to help customers take shopping to their cars, when I worked for them.

[bokajinn]

They need to hire some young peopel to follow customers to the cars, if anyone starts to get to far away, they should drop kick them in the face then tip the cart over and take it back. leaving the groceries on the ground and the purpetrator in pain.