Shoplifter stories

In My Humble Opinion
1

One of my jobs is at Safeway, in a decent area downtown. Shoplifters are caught every day, either by our uniformed security, or by the “undercover” security on that is in plain clothes and pretends to shop. They can’t bust someone on suspicion, they must actually see the person take the item, not lose sight of them, an have them head out the doors before they can stop and arrest them.

The latest trend seems to be to just waltz out the front doors with a full cart. The lady busted yesterday had $480 worth that she tried to walk out with. This happens, oh, once a week or so. Either the cart, or they fill a couple of hand baskets and run like hell.

Someone also tried to steal a turkey by tucking it into a stroller with a blanket around it, and claimed their “baby was sleeping” so no one could peek at it. Lots of people with strollers try to steal. (Not everyone with a stroller, just to be clear, but it’s frequent.) They use the stroller as their shopping cart, and somehow “forget” that under the diaper bag (or under the baby himself) is a 30 dollar pack of t-bones. Or they shove packs of batteries into the baby’s diapers or under their clothes. One lady had her 4-year-old’s clothes so stuffed with merchandise that he couldn’t even put his arms down. When they nabbed her, she claimed that they should arrest the kid, because nothing was actually on her person. Poor kid. Yes, Mom got busted.

The shoplifters are not who you would expect sometimes. It’s not generally the homeless guys, although they do try to steal mouthwash or Lysol because we can’t sell it to them if they’re inebriated already. It’s the moms with strollers, the seniors with their big purses, the rich professional who steals for a thrill. Oh and the staff most of all. Those ones always surprise me, though I’m sure it happens daily, whether merchandise or money from the tills. “Did you hear Jane got busted? She’s up in the office, they’re waiting for the cops.”

2

In high school I had a retarded friend (okay, she was a friend because once she attached herself to you you had to be really, really rude to get rid of her) who was an expert shoplifter.

I think it was her body language or lack of guilt. There was nothing furtive about her.

In retrospect I think she had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (or whatever is the worst manifestation of alcohol intoxication in the womb) and an IQ below normal, but not low enough to put her in special ed. When she finally was taken out of regular school and put into a special training program she was in 9th grade and was 17 years old. But, oddly, she could spell very well.

But anyway. She would walk into a store, pick up what she wanted–and it was usually something she would give somebody as a gift–and walk out. As far as I know she was never caught. One day at lunch I complained that my alarm clock had broken (I’m hard on them since I hate waking up) and before school was out she had presented me with a brand new one, in the box. Which of course I didn’t take. I have no idea where she got it, but I know she didn’t pay for it.

I had another friend who was much more furtive, and so good at it that even if you were next to her you couldn’t tell. She honed her skills at a store owned by…her dad. (Where, I guess, if she got caught, she could have gotten out of it.) I got to where I wouldn’t go shopping with her at all.

3

I used to work night shift at a 24-hour Eckerds. At least once a week (and especially after 2 a.m. Sunday morning), the college kids would dash out with the beer. We weren’t allowed to do anything about it, and I didn’t want to get knocked down anyway, so I’d stand at the door, feebly flapping my hands and politely saying, “No. Please stop. Oh well…”

Another time, two people came in together and asked the manager to take a camera out of the packaging so they could look at it. As she struggled, the woman grabbed another camera and ran out the door, setting off the alarm. The man ran to the door and stopped there, holding out his arms and saying, “I ain’t got nothing”, effectively blocking us from chasing, (which we weren’t allowed to do anyway). When the woman had a good head start, he left as well.

I was there one night when we were held up for Oxycontin, but as the pharmacy was in back of the store, we didn’t know a thing till it was over. The guy pulled a gun on the pharmacist, got his stuff, and calmly jogged out. I saw him go, and recall thinking that he must have forgotten his wallet.

4

We get shoplifters all the time at my store. I usually find ~$100 in empty boxes a day from my department alone-- someone with a bad cold hit my pharmacy during my lunch break last night, we lost a half dozen expensive cold remedies. The rules make it difficult to actually nab anyone, so I’ve begun to just confront folks that I see pocketing things, in a way that doesn’t accuse them of stealing (the so-called “Aggressive Hospitality” stuff we’re always told to do). It has to be done within seconds of seeing them pocket the item, lest they claim to have dropped the product in another aisle. I’ll say something like:

“You know, it’s a bad idea to put something in your pocket/purse/stroller unless it’s paid for, since you might forget you have it. Did you want me to take that merchandise up to the cashier for you, or do you want me to put it back on the shelf?”

That way, they know they’ve been seen, and I give them alternatives that relieve them of the product with no accusations whatsoever. 80% just hand over the product then and there, usually claiming “oh, I didn’t realize I’d put that in my pocket! Ha ha!” Occasionally, I’ll get someone who just says they don’t have anything, and they usually don’t like my follow-up: “Great! Mind if I come along with you and help you with the rest of your shopping?” Even if I don’t recover the original item, I prevent them from getting anything else from the store-- they usually get the creeps, buy a candy bar, and take off.

I’m a little more direct when I see someone drop an empty package somewhere, I just grab the empty box the second it’s dropped, hold it up and do the not-an-accusation bit: “Hi! You dropped this, and it’s going to be awfully hard to pay for XXX without the box and UPC, so would you like to go up to the registers with me and pay for it now so you don’t forget?” Aboult half go ahead and pay; most of the rest just hand back the product “Yeah, I decided I don’t want to buy this.” We take a bit of a bottom line hit on returns/damages in the latter case (thus my approach is meant to encourage a sale rather than just recovering the product), but it’s less of a hit than losing the product entirely.

There are a few who will just immediately say “Oh, I put it down in another aisle, I don’t have it…,” so I answer “Great! Show me where, since I want to be able to put it back!” It’s fun to watch shoplifters try to do a little stage magic and produce the item from a pocket while making it look like they’re picking it up from a shelf.

5

The other night I was paying at the grocery store and out of the corner of my eye I saw a woman walk out with a couple of huge party trays. The cashier had a better view and really saw it, but by the time they got someone out to the parking lot she was gone. I was stunned by the sheer blatancy of the shoplifting, but I guess it isn’t really uncommon.

6

Sometimes shoplifters just don’t realize how obvious they are. Like when they fill up a cart to the brim with beef, booze and cigarettes and then go through the store in the “wrong” direction and begin browsing in the produce section that just happens to be closest to the farther exit. When I’d spot someone like that, I’d tell the manager and he’d stand between them and the door sort of innocently, but definately in the way. Some of them would then “realize that they’d forgotten their wallet and had to go get it.” Others would get defensive and accuse us of racism because of they were not white. This always resulted in them huffing off without said items.

I learned how shoplifters would make hidey holes in their cart by stacking cheap or non suspicious stuff around the inside, leaving a hole that could be filled with the good stuff without it drawing attention. Then they could take their time and find an unwatched place to secret the items in their clothes.

I remember a coworker who had just gotten off work coming back in and telling us about a car that had parked in the lot. But it had gone out of its way to park four rows away from the store when there were plenty of open spots nearer. One of the four men inside went into the store while the car turned off its lights but left the engine running. So I told the manager and we kept an eye on the guy. Sure enough, he headed straight to the meat case. Not just to the meat case, but to the expensive cuts, steaks and such. The guy saw that we were watching and left quickly. Passing the manager, he spat, “I wasn’t stealin’ nuthin’!” That may be, buddy. But the odds were on our side that you were.

I remember seeing a little kid, like 3 or 4, trying to jimmy the soda machine with a bent wire hanger. I walked up behind him and looked straight down at him. He didn’t notice me at first which was better since it let me see him doing it clearly. And it meant that he didn’t know how long I’d been watching. But when he looked straight up and saw me he just ran off to his mom. I let it go.

I was blocking and facing the shampoo section and there was a girl browsing there. In the corner of my eye I could see her looking at me a lot. I was feeling a little full of myself because hey a girl was totally checking me out. So I got done with that bit and started doing the end cap around the corner. I saw that she’d gone so I went back to fill whatever gap she’d left. That’s when I saw her leaving briskly and I realized that she just stole something. She was casing the joint, not checking me out.

7

I also have to mention the people who come through my line and hand be a couple of banana peels to throw out because the “kids got hungry”. Um, they’re sold by weight, people. I just charge them $1 per peel…I don’t have time to leave a big lineup to grab more fruit to weigh. I guess I should be happy that they’re paying for it at all, considering the amount of empty packages/chicken bones/empty milk cartons etc. that the grocery guys find on the shelves every day. It really doesn’t matter if you eat stuff in the store, just try to find something that I can charge you properly for. And no grazing in the bulk bins and produce section! A sample is a sample, but taking a pocketful of pistachios or a bunch of grapes to munch on is stealing.

I work the self-checkouts a lot, and people try to cheat there as well. One girl entered “6 buns” and hit “skip bagging” and set her bag off to the side so the extra weight wouldn’t be detected. I could see her from where I was, and she had a half-dozen bagels, a couple of cinnamon buns, and some danishes. I halted her order and “fixed” it for her. Ooops, sorry ma’am, you seem to have miscounted your items. Most of the time I think it’s an honest mistake…the person ran two cans of soup over the scanner, and it only scanned one. Stuff happens, no big deal.

One funny one: I asked a fellow how many bagels he was purchasing (brown paper bagel bag) and he said “4”. When I lifted the bag, it was a bit heavy and made a clinking sound. Hmm. When I peeked in, yes, he had four bagels, but he also had the tongs from all the bins in there, and had no idea how they had mysteriously gotten in his bag.

I don’t mean to sound like I dislike my job or my customers…I certainly don’t. Most people are honest. The bad ones are the ones you remember best, though. :slight_smile:

8

These are interesting stories. I’m fascinated by people who have the nerve to do the kind of things you describe.

Have you guys ever falsely accused someone of shoplifting? I don’t shoplift, and have never been accused, but sometimes when I leave a store without making a purchase I feel weird, like somebody might suspect me, particularly since I often carry a big purse.

9

The company that does our security has the policy of having to see the person take the item, follow them around and not lose sight of them, and have them exit the doors before they can be arrested. I think they could potentially be sued for a false arrest, but I’m not sure, I could ask. The undercover guys make more arrests than the uniformed ones, obviously, and they rotate them from store to store so they don’t get recognized. Even employees don’t generally know who they are. Once I informed security about a “creepy” looking guy who’d been hanging around the store for a strangely long time. Tuned out it was our loss prevention officer.:smack:

10

Not really, but when I was a teen-ager, it was hard to shop the jewelry or cosmetic counter with out sensing several uncomfortably attentive pairs of eyes on you.

I was initially insulted by this, and then I came to realize exactly how many of my peers were actually guilty. I lost a couple of friends when I wouldn’t join in. The biggest eye-opener was on a trip to Washington DC when I was about 14. There were a couple of girls who came away with so much loot from gift shops and drug stores they almost needed a separate bus to carry it. I didn’t actually realize what was going on until one of the girls tried to get me to “hold” a can of hair color for her. I just put it back on one of the shelves and left.

These were Girl Scouts, by the way.

11

While in college I worked at a Macy’s type department store over the holidays. We were instructed not to confront shoplifters but to call security. Security was two guys that could have passed for high school aged, dressed as slackers, wandering the store most of the time.

One day they caught a woman red handed, and when they tried to apprehend her, she threw herself on the floor and thrashed and wailed and carried on something fierce. It was an entertaining show that could be heard through the whole store.

My all time favorite, though, was related to me by a friend who was working at a similar store in Ohio that began with a D. My friend said that the management actively encouraged racial profiling as a means to prevent shoplifting. While working in the women’s clothing department, she saw a group of managers hiding behind a merchandise rack together. They were watching a black woman intently. She quietly asked the managers what was going on. They told her they were watching the woman because she was behaving suspiciously. She was lingering in the department, picking blue jeans off the shelf and putting them back, and they were certain she was about to shoplift if she hadn’t already.

My friend had to explain to the managers that the woman in question was a fellow employee of the store who was straightening and sorting the jeans.

12

A few years ago, I had a co-worker who admitted to me in casual conversation that the earrings she was wearing were swiped, by her, from some or another store. When my jaw dropped, she said, “Oh yeah. This nail polish, too. I take stuff like that all the time.” I really didn’t know what to say, so I think I just stared at her with my mouth hanging open. She was in her early 30’s and had two little kids. I remember wondering how ashamed she would have been had she gotten caught shoplifting with her kids in tow. I’ll never know.

Now, I have a friend who works evenings and weekends at a dollar store, and she was recently telling me of a woman who tried to walk out wearing a whole new wardrobe: new shirt, new jacket, etc. When my friend called her on it, the woman tried to deny it, of course. I don’t know the outcome of that confrontation, but my friend later found this woman’s old clothes, including the ratty old house shoes she came in with, just laying there in the clothes aisle.

13

My mother used to be a manager at a big retail store. Her worst story was a lady wearing a dress sitting in a wheelchair that tried to steal a small color TV by carrying it between her knees.

14

I have shoplifted 2 trimes in the last 20 years, only one intentionally, once I was the victim of deceptive forced shoplifting…

I was at Home Depot and needed a bolt to fix my car seat on a saturday afternoon in Summer. I found the bolt, it was 8 cents. I walked to the front of the store to check out and noticed that the shortest line was at least 15 minutes. Having spent around 8 Grand at that Home Depot over the last two years I decided they owed me 8 cents and just five fingered it out.

The other time I was buying a Direct TV system at an electronics store. The salesman was a pushy ass who kept trying to upsell me on stuff. I almost got pissed of and left, but it was such a good sale I didn’t. At one point he started helping me get stuff and put an 80 dollar installation kit in my cart. I took a look at it, 45 feet of RG-8, crimpers, various hooks and tools and keeprs for cable stringing. I told him no thanks, and put it back on the shelf. He said it was required. I took at the ad and pointed out that nothing said I was required to purchase that overpriced kit. He changed and said “No, I mean it’s required to install the dish, it wont work without it”. I :rolleyes: him and said no thanks again. He kept insisting that the offical intsall guys can’t even get it to work without the ‘Kit’. I started to ignore him and kept looking around at stuff.

Finally I checked out and went to my car trunk to throw the stuff in. The Bastard had put it back in my cart under the dish(which is a freakin huge box) We didn’t bother to lift it up at check out. He thought that somehow I would pay for it and not notice that I never wanted it. I was so pissed then I threw everything in my car roared off and vowed never to go back to that rip shop, but didn’t even think about the fact I was stealing, because I felt like the victim.

15

Many years ago I worked in a cutlery store. We had a corner spot in a mall with two entrances. Theives would dash through, grabbing boxes of pocket knives kept on the sales ledge on their way through.

Of course the boxes were empty.

Of course it was not uncommon for them to dash back through, tossing the boxes at me. One lad was quite upset, called it false advertising. I told him we could discuss the concept of false advertising with the securty guards. He left.

This store was in the ‘ghetto’ mall here in the Twin Cities. I also worked at the ‘ritzy’ location where theft was also upscale. One Black Friday a guy tried to walk out with a full set of Wusthof’s under his sweater. The box it came in was 12"x8"x30" and it weighed at least 10 pounds. No, sir, I we didn’t see that. sigh

Barbers would come in and try to walk off with $200 shears, claiming they came in with them. If you’re going to try and steal, at least rip the tag off?

Only once did I have to chase after a guy. He decided he really needed 10 pairs of binoculars. I slammed down the gates and dashed after. Security, who had been loitering nearby, joined in the chase. Once the guards got involved, I went back to the store. Security caught him leaving the mall, we got all of our stuff back.

Teens would often come in and half-joke about stealing. I would half-joke back about how nicely balanced some of our knives were for throwing while flipping my knife-of-the-day around. Usually that broke the ice enough where a rapport would start and many of them would come hang out and be ‘store security’. A chick who plays with knives? keeewwwwwlllll.

16

I worked at a Ross in college. We’d get people who would switch tags, but if you knew the clothing code you could tell that um, no, this suit is not $15.00, it has a jeans price tag on it.

We had plainclothes security, and one day our stock boy chased after some kids who stole some shoes. We called the cops and they were arrested. But I think the best was when a family came in, stuffed everything under jackets and in the stroller, and then when they got caught, fled the store, leaving their baby behind. I remember the husband calling the store asking if he could come back and get the baby. I think the police had already called DCF at that point and the baby was in their custody.

17

Oh my goodness, I could’ve been ‘busted’ by Student Driver’s method just the other day, simply for not paying attention to what I was doing.

See, I had gone shopping for my Secret Santa gift and was looking at some really small items. I couldn’t figure out which one of the three similar things was best, so I’d keep picking them up for closer inspection, then putting them back down in exchange for the next.

Well at one point I realized that I’d been out a lot longer than I planned and needed to get back home. Of course, this meant that I should hurry up and get the rest of my shopping done first. So that translated into me checking my list to see what was left to get. Of course, the list was in my pocket. And the last trinket I’d picked up was still in my hand.

Then there I was digging around forever looking for the list, completely oblivious to what this could look like, when it dawned on me. Eeee! I almost totally freaked the hell out and dropped everything on the floor. I’m sure if there’d been anyone observing my behavior, they’d have thought not only was I a really inept thief who chose ridiculous stuff to lift, but crazy as well.

Yup, that was a fun trip. :slight_smile:

Other than that, I’ve only seen blatant tag changes. As ivylass points out, it’s not hard to tell that a typically new and expensive piece does not sell for $2.

18

Interesting stories. Not much to add but…

Am I the only one who’s been in a store and got the sense that all the employees were devoting all their time to catching thieves rather than helping paying customers? Am I the only one who has being sorely tempted to grab some large item, and very obviously jam it in my coat just to get an employee to materialize and actually help me instead of ducking around aisles avoiding helping anyone?

19

I worked for a short time as store security for a drug store chain that is no longer in business. Most of my busts were kids from the nearby junior high, the boys were stealing candy, the girls make up. Towards the end of each month diapers and baby formula were the popular items to steal, it was always someone that relied on welfare and they didn’t have any money till the first of the month. Vick’s Nyquil was a fairly new on the market at the time and was popular among those looking for a quick buzz. My most memorable was an older woman with a large bag. She dropped in some costume jewelry, some expensive canned meats, vitamins and batteries. When I stopped her attempting to walk out, she began to holler that I was trying to rob her. I let those nearby know that I was store security and began walking her to the back of the store. The store manager met me half way, when she saw him she dropped to the floor and refused to cooperate. We picked her up and carried her to the manager’s office. The police officer showed up a few minutes later, she began to claim she had stolen nothing. He went through her bag, besides the stuff from the drug store, she had a bunch of stuff from a grocery store next door. She was well known to the police and was taken to jail, she was on probation from other thefts. I quit the job, I was tired of having to appear in court for the store but not paid for my time.

20

I’ve been once, because some detector beeped as I left the CD/tapes section in a store. I began to try figuring out what was making it beep, by moving my bag, my coat, in front of the detector, but the security guy stopped me and asked me to follow him in an office where he searched me. He found nothing, apologized and let me go, but he seemed still suspicious and unconvinced. I was in my early 20s, long hair, poorly dressed. It probably didn’t help.

Probably roughly at the same time, I often began to eat things like chocolate or candies while still in the store. Often put things in whatever was convenient too: a plastic bag, my pocket, etc… I can only assume that many a time some security guy followed me all around the store to no avail.