"I am not a thief," Bill Astle tells Inside Edition. "I need to point out that what I was doing was my actual job."
A Walmart personal shopper, who says his reputation has been ruined by a woman who filmed him bagging items at checkout seemingly without scanning them, tells Inside Edition he is not a thief.
Bill Astle, 49, can be seen in the viral video putting items directly into his bag at a Walmart in Belleville, Illinois, without scanning any of them.
The video was posted on TikTok and within 24 hours, it was seen around the world.
"Just on Twitter alone, it was 16 million views," Astle says.
Many people think Astle is a shoplifter, including people in his small town where many people know him. He came to Inside Edition to set the record straight.
"I am not a thief," Astle says. "I was simply doing my job."
Astle is a personal shopper. To save time, he uses the Walmart app to scan each item on his phone as he took them off the shelves. Then, when he gets to checkout, Astle scans his phone for the entire purchase.
"In a lot of the comments, people were saying very negative things about me. They thought I was just a blatant thief," Astle says.
He says he was afraid the viral video would cost him his job. "I am being stopped by customers asking about the videos, I'm being stopped by employees of Walmart," Astle says.
Astle has a message for the young woman who posted the video without knowing the full story:
"Think twice before you just start recording people. You could be damaging someone's life and not even understanding what you are doing."
Although Astle says he did not lose his job, he says he has lost customers due to being falsely accused so he has GoFundMe page.
