The vast majority of shoplifting isn't even a crime. And maybe hit me up with some sources on the Swiss justice system or take Finland if you don't like Japan.
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I work retail and shoplifters bother me than they logically should...
- Thread starter Birdie
- Start date
I can't stand thieving.
There's this trend I've noticed of people excusing thieves for one reason or another.
No. just stop it. It's not fair to the people who follow the rules of the system for some people to, not be given things for free, but to take things for themselves at the expense of others.
There's this trend I've noticed of people excusing thieves for one reason or another.
No. just stop it. It's not fair to the people who follow the rules of the system for some people to, not be given things for free, but to take things for themselves at the expense of others.
Can't you just contact loss prevention and have them give the security feed to the cops? Seems like you don't have to actually stop the person directly to do the right thing, right?
I think it's natural that we have an aversion to dishonesty because their gain is usually somebody else's loss.
That said, why does your store allow returns without proof of purchase? Sounds like this isn't your problem, just deal with it according to store policy.
That said, why does your store allow returns without proof of purchase? Sounds like this isn't your problem, just deal with it according to store policy.
When I worked retail, it wasn't the usual shoplifters, but it was the repeat offenders. The people who'd come in, steal a stack of video games, and then came back to steal a laptop the next day, and then came back to steal a bunch of cameras the day after and managed to get past because I had to stop watching them on camera because I was interrupted by a customer trying to use my counter as a register even though they clearly see that I'm operating a goddamn camera and in spite of several departments not being busy, no one wanted to answer the fucking radio when I called out for some people to be watched several times in a row.
You can tell that Best Buy loss prevention made me bitter.
You can tell that Best Buy loss prevention made me bitter.
I disagree. Large corporations commit so much wage theft it's insane. Shoplifting losses are peanuts compared to what they steal from employees. So fuck em, they deserve whatever happens from people trying to survive.
When I worked at Costco I literally had a dude try and return a bunch of clothes I personally saw him swipe and ferry out the back door a day or two before.
One of the only times I ever got the authority to tell the customer to get bent; and even then we didn't get to call the cops and the dude more or less got away with it because he still got to fucking walk away with the clothes. I'm not sure if we even revoked his Costco Membership.
"People trying to survive" my ass. In my experience most shoplifters are of means and steal because they know they can get away with it. I can't tell you the number of times I saw kids shoplifting when they were wearing designer clothes.
Thieves suck, but nothing they steal is worth more than any minimum wage worker's safety. I worked for a shitty little video rental chain, and even as annoyingly assholeish as upper management were, they always emphasised that no member of staff should ever put themselves at risk to protect inventory or money in the till. It's just not worth the risk of getting stabbed over a tub of fucking Hagen Dazs. It sucks that not everyone follows the rules, but that's life, shit happens and it's not always worth it to step in.
Oh, and helping an old lady up who's fallen is in NO WAY the same league as putting yourself at risk to stop a shoplifter. Society won't collapse because a poor shelf stacker didn't feel like getting beaten up by a dude stealing a steak.
Oh, and helping an old lady up who's fallen is in NO WAY the same league as putting yourself at risk to stop a shoplifter. Society won't collapse because a poor shelf stacker didn't feel like getting beaten up by a dude stealing a steak.
Man, that shit is wild, the possibility that I could get fucking shot just for trying to stop someone from stealing a pair of shoes wouldn't even begin to cross my mind...
oh I'm not saying I support all of it. There are definitely assholes doing it who don't need to. I just don't care if corporations lose money to shoplifters since they deserve it and there ARE people stealing to survive.
I get what you are saying but the employee is the one who has to deal with the consequences and is the one impacted by the shoplifting and scamming. "He went to your register and used fake coupons, that is your fault." "You were working in electronics when he stole 5 pairs of earbuds, that is your fault." The regular employee is the one who suffers the most in these situations.
OP
OP
I think alongside the coronavirus we've been less strict about receipts as many folks go paperless.
We had a regular attempted thief that we liked to call Jack Sparrow because he looked like a punk rock pirate who always asked if we had The Lady With The Dragon Tattoo soundtrack in stock. Every other day, he'd come in, ask, get pointed to where it was by someone, and then try to steal it. I wasn't always at the door when he came in, but because of his shitty timing, he tended to be there when I worked.
Guy was a shitty thief. He'd walk in with some CD's he already had (likely stolen from the Target down the block) and try to shuffle the soundtrack in with his stuff, or tuck it under a book, or hold it underneath his armpit. And every time, if he wasn't stopped on the floor, he'd walk up to my counter and proclaim that he couldn't find what he was looking for. Like, if you're going to steal, don't stop and talk to loss prevention. Always got stuff back, because he was a shitty thief.
Then one day, I'm in on my day off because the night warehouse person called in sick and I used to work warehouse, and he comes in while chit chatting with one of my coworkers while we're buying candy, he asks for the CD again, my coworker shows him where it was, and we go back to our conversation while I buy my candy (the CD's were right in front of the register).
So I interject in our conversation to tell my coworker to watch the dude because he likes to try and steal. While I say it, I'm talking to my coworker face to face, but the guy is within my line of sight six feet away.
Now, in spite of us standing near the guy in earshot having a full on conversation, you'd think the dude would glance over every so often to check and see if either one of us, or someone in general, was looking at him or in his direction. But nope, he finds the CD's he wants, and without even looking up, just tucks them into his jackt, pivots, looks right at us, and says he couldn't find the CDs he wanted.
To say I laid into the dude would put it mildly. Not only over the fact that he came in damn near daily and tried to steal, but that he was stupid enough to try to steal literally in front of me like I wasn't going to notice. Grabbed the CDs and chased his ass out of the store. From that day on, every time he tried to come in, he'd turn around walk away anytime he saw something that resembled me. Just the blatant stupidity of the move pissed me off.
Like, at least check your surroundings before you try to steal! That's Criminal 101.
It's ok to take pride in whatever job you do. There is nothing wrong in that. Regardless if its a Mom and Pop store or a fortune 500 company.
Some guy threatened to stab me because I busted him trying to use a fake credit card. I would've gotten to my knife and stabbed him first, but still. Shoplifters are wild.
Had an old coworker get a gun in their face because a dude who wanted to steal a Macbook brought it up to the checkout counter, put it down on the counter like they were going to pay, and then tried to pick it back up and walk out the door, only to pull the gun out when the person at checkout put their hand on the box so they wouldn't take it.
Ah I didn't think about the paperless aspect - I'd have assumed an email receipt or screenshot or something would have been needed - but if returns without are the store's policy, I wouldn't worry about it.
With that, retail employees are damned one way or another. You get to be guilt-tripped by the thief that robs you.
So many times a person cover's there finger over the barcode of an item and slips it in the bag and just sits there until the self checkout w weight check is overridden
Jesus, that IS a shitty thief.
We had a few repeat offenders but most of them were pretty smart about it. One of the most common ways people used to steal at Costco was they'd park a truck or an SUV near the emergency exit towards the rear then go in and load up a big cart of stuff and run out the back before shoveling everything into their getaway car while the alarm was blaring. Impossible to sneak-away unseen but incredibly effective. The most common shit they'd steal would be clothing, huge hams/turkeys, high end electronics like air-conditioners/TV's, etc.
When I worked at Gamestop there was this one guy who kept stealing the empty cases off of the walls. Apparently my co-worker confronted him about it once and he got all indignant "It's not like there's anything in them, what's the problem?!" Which begs the question...why the fuck are you stealing these? We had a joke going that he was part of a huge bootlegging operation and he wanted real cases to make it seem legit.
When I worked retail, the store had security for a few years, then got rid of it. Their reasoning? It cost the company more to pay the security than the price of merchandise than was stolen. We would usually try to simply "discourage theft" when there was a suspicious customer the best we could without trying to tell them "hey, you're stealing that, stop!".
I've always been trained that the best way to discourage theft was to approach customers and ask them if they need help. People are much less likely to try something if they feel they are being observed.
Was in retail and management so understand the feeling. It's strange, but it feels like your store because you're there and it's like your house.
We had to train people not to get involved. The company policy absolutely was not to endanger yourself over merchandise.
We had to train people not to get involved. The company policy absolutely was not to endanger yourself over merchandise.
We ignored shoplifters at our store for a long time because corporate told us it wasn't worth it and the one thing I did notice was the amount of shady people stealing shot up so much it was actually pretty scary to work there.
It's a pretty terrible situation all around where ignoring it or stopping it don't really solve anything.
It's a pretty terrible situation all around where ignoring it or stopping it don't really solve anything.
I don't rly care but when it comes to returns it's diff bc i feel like i'm personally being finessed. I've also had ppl try to change raise me and they target specific people. I learned to spot it and check people as soon as they tried to run game on me when i was cashiering
Yeah, usually they are smart about it. Didn't have too many instances of cars parked by the emergency exit though. The most convenient exit was right next to the car install garage, and there were usually people back there most days. But there was an apartment complex right behind the building, so if they hit the exit, they just hopped the wall. People who went out the exits were the worst purely for the alarms.
I remember one thief who was pretty smart; she had a partner and they grabbed a basket to shop, and likely grabbed some stuff they really wanted to buy while the other shoved some $300 Beats headphones in her bigass bag. Only reason why i caught it was because I was adjusting the cameras to point at something else. The reason why I remember this one is because when the two of them were coming back up and her friend was walking over to the register, I walked up to bag lady and just said "Purple is my favorite color, too." And the look on her face was priceless. Then I just told her to give me the headphones back. Her friend bought the stuff and they left, and then came back a few days later to return the the things they didn't want.
That dude definitely was stealing cases for his bootleg scheme, though.
That was my job as loss prevention. We weren't supposed to stop people, we were supposed to discourage them via customer service. No one ever did, though. Anyone that some knew was stealing got told that we knew what they were trying to do and they'd leave. Or a few people would walk up to them and say some shit like "looked like you were having a hard time, here's a basket so you don't have to keep X item in your pants."
Electronics store theft really got to people once that shit started eating into bonuses. If you sold X percentage over whatever goal there was, you'd get a monthly and quarterly bonus, which theft counted against. So there'd be stretches where you'd absolutely hit the mark and max out the bonus, or you would've if the cost of items stolen wasn't so high.
When I worked as a Delic Clerk they didn't pay me nearly enough to care about them. Not going to potentially risk my own safety apprehending food thieves. The worst ones are the people that take a bite out of food and put it back as if nothing happened to them.
Jesus. Were you carrying the knife on you while working as an employee?
Yes, it's cool when working families grocery bill creeps up because anti-corporatist edgelords don't want to pay for their energy drinks.
The math with shoplifting was always skewed to make it sound worse than it really is. A retailer will lose much more to internal shrink than shopliftting, but that doesnt stop them from saying people shoplifting leads to higher prices and so on.
Reference:
All these posts in the thread that they aren't paid enough to care.
Checks out.
There is a much bigger theft occurring that should upset retail workers.
Breh you are being brainwashed by corporations if you think Brad and Chad stealing a case of Call of Duty branded Monsters is the reason working class families cannot afford groceries.
I don't like theft, just with my own morals. I wouldn't like my stuff to be taken and wouldn't take something from someone less. That sort of mutual respect. When it comes to stores, it botheted me when people stole. Food is one thing if you're hungry, but I worked in stores that had clothes and things mainly. What bugs me with store theft is I guess, just working retail for peanuts that I use to pay with, and someone comes in and just takes a bunch of stuff with little to no effort.
I worked somewhere that had an external loss prevention and they did NOT work the entire store hours (which is laughable, since most theft is early morning/late at night when fewer people work). I watched a guy come in, help himself to some plastic shopping bags, and helped himself to hundreds of dollars worth of Levis, stuffing the bags full. Loss prevention not there, so he got to just leave. And there I was making like, $30 that shift or whatever :/
Another time, 2 people came in and had fake gift card UPCs that essentially were bottomless. I told management etc. to say what was happening (you get in trouble taking in fake money, I did NOT want this on me) and they just let me ring it all through. Thousands. Of. Dollars. Worth of. Stuff. And they kept going back to get as much as possible until they were finally "done"! Management gave the a-ok, but watching them just get all that stuff that most people would never spend all at once... Like, I think it's that system-breaking mentality. It's not like anyone can just go out and do that. At least one of them kept coming in several times to get MORE stuff, until management finally said "no".
I couldn't care less about the store itself losing money, but something about how society couldn't function if we all just decided to go out and do that.
I worked somewhere that had an external loss prevention and they did NOT work the entire store hours (which is laughable, since most theft is early morning/late at night when fewer people work). I watched a guy come in, help himself to some plastic shopping bags, and helped himself to hundreds of dollars worth of Levis, stuffing the bags full. Loss prevention not there, so he got to just leave. And there I was making like, $30 that shift or whatever :/
Another time, 2 people came in and had fake gift card UPCs that essentially were bottomless. I told management etc. to say what was happening (you get in trouble taking in fake money, I did NOT want this on me) and they just let me ring it all through. Thousands. Of. Dollars. Worth of. Stuff. And they kept going back to get as much as possible until they were finally "done"! Management gave the a-ok, but watching them just get all that stuff that most people would never spend all at once... Like, I think it's that system-breaking mentality. It's not like anyone can just go out and do that. At least one of them kept coming in several times to get MORE stuff, until management finally said "no".
I couldn't care less about the store itself losing money, but something about how society couldn't function if we all just decided to go out and do that.
Yeah. Not for any sort of protection reason; mainly for its utility. I worked in the warehouse before I did loss prevention and they occasionally had me help out, and hunting for box cutters was a nuisance, and knives were far more everyday practical than a box cutter, so I had a knife. And since I sometimes had to open things, it came in handy.
I also ordered food from random places, so if I happened to order a steak for lunch (or dinner depending on the shift), I also had a perfectly functional steak knife!
I cleaned it, of course, lol.
Big business will survive. Likely by nickel and diming their underpaid employees for taking bathroom breaks.
To be clear, stealing is wrong. But from the perspective of an enormously wealthy company it's a victimless crime. It's far less revenue lost than if they were fairly taxed, for example.
Honestly the worst part was having to go through toys and having to look for all the stolen movie cases and stolen grab bag toys.
Just trying to dispel the myth that shoplifting is a means of denying CEOs or investors their ivory backscratchers. As shrink creeps up, retailers either cut costs elsewhere (like labor) or adjust margins.
I'm not trying to sympathize with corporations, just pointing out that there's no nobility in shoplifting, even if the "victim" is walmart.
I used to be the head of the automotive department at my store. Lots of phone cases and car knickknacks that people would always steal. Yes, we didn't have an electonics dept and they stuck the smartphone stuff in the auto dept lol.
My point is that I hated my job so much that half of me was thrilled that they ripped off the store, and half of me was annoyed I had to fill out loss prevention paperwork. No room for pride.
I guess I'm saying I don't relate to your story OP, but fuck did I hate that job. Maybe you hate it less.
My point is that I hated my job so much that half of me was thrilled that they ripped off the store, and half of me was annoyed I had to fill out loss prevention paperwork. No room for pride.
I guess I'm saying I don't relate to your story OP, but fuck did I hate that job. Maybe you hate it less.
Don't remind me about toys... parents used it as a daycare and tried to make sure that they never had to pay for the stuff that their kids went ahead and opened :x I remember having to throw out so much because pieces were everywhere and not something that could be priced down to sell :/ In this case it wasn't even really stealing, but opening up a bunch of crap with irresponsible parents...
I'll just quote my reply again because shoplifting isn't sticking it to big business.
That seems more an indictment of the way businesses unethically burden their already exploited employees.
I don't personally steal shit and I don't keep company with people who do, but I will say my disgust for unregulated capitalism greatly outweighs my concern about petty theft.
Recently quit a retail job and never gave a fuck about shoplifters. If I was working the till, I'd sometimes just let customers have shit for free if they were nice.
Oh, it definitely is.
But from my experience, return/exchange fraud would impact the retail employees a lot less than actual theft/shoplifting would since the former didn't hit store revenue/shrink numbers and impact bonuses.
So if you're going to steal, steal polite
It's a principle thing. Like, it's not hurting you or even your store that much, but it's still pretty scummy. Try not to jump to conclusions on the folk making returns; the security tags were still yanked off and in the floor, which does say somebody stole the things. It just sucks to see.