They’re mild and sweet when raw, so they’re ideal to cut into thick slices for your burger or to dice and garnish your chili.
My SO and I were once stopped while leaving a KMart. We’d finished shopping, and triggered the alarm when we walked out the door. Security was polite, and even after looking through the bag, we couldn’t figure out what tripped the alarm. Finally we discovered that it was my SO’s shoes. It seems that there was a security strip build INTO the shoes. You couldn’t take it out, and it had never been deactivated. Security tried to help us deactivate the shoes, but it still didn’t happen. Got to the point where if he thought about it, my SO would warn store security before he got to the door on the way out. We later figured this would be a good scam. Get a pair of shoes that do this, and use it as a cover to hide the stuff you have hidden in your pockets.
I just thought of an employee theft story. This person I knew worked at a grocery store and was in the computer department where they update the prices of things throughout the store so the cash registers read the barcodes correctly.
The theft worked like this: when your friends have just gotten off their shift, they go do some grocery shopping. They select some nice expensive steaks, etc, then when they approach a register, the accomplice in the computer department temporarily changes the price on those items to something really low, then quickly changes the prices back once their friends are through. The cashier is usually in on it too.
We used to enjoy sticking the adhesive anti-theft tags to the manager’s back, under the pretense of clapping him on the shoulder. 
Thanks for the clarification Student Driver. Now I don’t feel so outlawish. 
[Technicality] “False arrest” [/Technicality]
It can’t get you into trouble as such, but it can expose you to civil liability, which can be compounded (e.g. by defamation if you tell anyone that you’re arresting someone for theft, assault if you use more than necessary force to detain them, theft if you try to confiscate something, robbery if you take a receipt from them without their permission).
All of which can get your arse sued off. You can then try to drag your employer into court as a co-defendant, but they’ll spend all their time trying to point out that they never told you to do any of this stuff and that when you did this you were acting as a lone nut rather than an employee.
This is SO easy to catch if the software was written right. In software like this that I have written, a log is kept of every change – date, time, user code, terminal number, transaction details, etc. – basically the entire record before & after every change and the “fingerprints” of the doer. Someone with access to the log could really burn your ass without half trying. And a typical user has no way of knowing that such a log exists.
Or you might have lousy programmers and burn the store until they get suspicious.
I thought of something like a shoplifting story.
I worked at a fast food restaurant when I was in high school. The drive-thru had two windows: you paid at the first one and picked up your food at the second one.
One very busy evening somebody who had ordered an ice cream cone pulled out of line between ordering and paying, and the cashier working the back window didn’t notice it. So when the next car drove up to her window, the cashier announced the total, which was something around $1.
Later on the cashier recalled that the driver hesitated, then selected $1 from a handful of bills they were holding.
Of course at the food window, when offered the ice cream cone the driver told the employee (honestly) that it wasn’t their order. So the confused employee handed over their actual order, which was two big bags full of food.
We realized what had happened a few seconds after they drove away.
I have a friend who works for a state food and drug safety department, and she got to work with the federal FDA on a sting for a baby formula ring.
Yup. Baby formula ring.
The way she explained it to me was that some criminal mastermind would hire people to shoplift cans of baby formula for him. Then, he could:
- try to return the formula without a receipt and get cash
- sell the formula to someone for less than the retail price
- set up a fictional wholesaler and sell the formula as a bulk purchase to retailers
- set up a fictional WIC storefront, claim the formula as an asset, hire someone new to steal it, file a claim with WIC and insurance, and sell the formula again.
The permutations were amazing, and because the criminal masterminds rarely stored the formula properly, the FDA was called in to keep bad formula off the shelves.
Most of all, my friend was impressed that some of the federal agents she worked with got to carry guns.
I was setting off the alarm in a variety of stores for a while. Not buying anything, certainly not stealing anything. The last time, I was the only customer in a shop with two nervous women at the counter, and I was fed up. So I emptied my purse out in front of them and went through it, and found there was part of an empty ink cartridge box, complete with security strip, that my husband had stuck in there to remind me to buy a new box sometime.
Our local TV news station broadcasts ‘Caught On Tape’, shoplifters and purse stealers caught on a video camera, making a leisurely exit after snatching something, often looking directly into the camera. One would think that word would get around, ‘hey, thieves, you will be featured on candid camera’, but maybe they don’t watch the news.
Working at a Save-A-Lot, there were lots of shoplifters that we had to keep an eye on. Most would go for meat.
Kind of shop-lifting related, during the summer I worked there it seems like more things were stolen by the employees rather than the patrons. One stock boy stole used bottle receipts and gave them out to all of his friends, who would then try to come in and reuse them. We finally caught on when we noticed the staple holes in all of the receipts. I myself caught a guy, called out the manager and confronted him only to hear his “Oh wow, really? I didn’t know!” story.
So you mean to say that you don’t remember depositing the cans/bottles into our ONLY machine, in front of the store? Uh-huh. :rolleyes: Luckily the stock boy was soon fired.
Another quirk with Save A Lot is that people didn’t need receipts to get their money back on an item. Hell, they didn’t even have to return the item. Of course during the dull times I thought of ways I could exploit this using an elaborate plan but in reality I wouldn’t dream of it. It turns out that one of the managers did something even simpler than my plan by just typing their code into the register and taking the cash! She stole thousands of dollars but got caught. I don’t know what happened to her as I left before it happened.
It wasn’t uncommon for the cashiers to help their friends shoplift by doing things like ringing up one case of pop but loading two into the cart. There were no cameras as far as I could see and the manager’s office was always closed.
The case that established the precedent is Myer Stores v Soo, in which someone accused of shoplifting was detained in the manager’s office and not told they were not under arrest and could therefore walk out the door anytime they liked. The decision was, IIRC from my Law studies, that this constituted False Imprisonment (as the defendant was led to believe they could not leave the office, therefore they were being detained unlawfully).
At any rate, the fact remains that it’s basically not worth the hassle to go after shoplifters in Australia unless they’ve nicked something really expensive.
Last year at Christmas time, my sister-in-law and I were at the mall. We watched as a youngish, preppy-looking woman left a clothing store with a couple of big bags. I don’t know if they were from that store or another one in the mall. She was about ten steps out of the store when two employees came out and asked her to stop. They looked through her bags, took some stuff out, went back to the store, and she went on her way. We were amazed that they just let her walk like that. We were talking about it in another store, and the salesperson told us that especially at holiday time, the stores do not want to spend all their time and personnel detaining the person, waiting for law enforcement, reporting it, et cetera, when they could be using their time and personnel on actual paying customers. Their main concern is just getting their merchandise back. Wow. So I guess now is the time to steal stuff? (Not that I ever would.) Bizarrely (but really not, because that was probably part of her “nonchalant, non-suspicious-looking shopper” strategy) the shoplifter we saw was on her cell phone the entire time.
That would have been in Victoria? I was referring to the Brash’s Music case (remember them?) in NSW - a friend of mine was peripherally involved in the prosecution. The security guy followed store procedure and told the shopper that he was arresting him, then told the store manager and a couple of passers-by. False arrest was pretty obvious, but he also got compensation for defamation.
I don’t remember whether Brash’s was successful in arguing that the guard wasn’t acting as an employee when he did it, though.
I’m not familiar with the Brash’s case (the store is before my time, anyway- I only moved here in 2000. ;))
We covered Myer Stores Ltd v Soo (1991) 2 VR 597 (just in case anyone feels like looking it up) when I was studying law; as you say it’s a Victorian case but the principle has been upheld pretty much everywhere AFAIK. I don’t recall the Brash’s Music case but the principle is certainly sound so I don’t doubt that it also forms one of the many legal precedents that have led to the current situation regarding shoplifting here in Australia.
Wonder if they had dealt with her before? Most stores have a certain set of customers, both good and bad that they regularly deal with.
For getting the song Elvira stuck in your head? 
When I worked in medical repair we kept track of all the medical equipment in the hospital. Lots of little stuff disappeared, but the worst was ultrasound probes. The probes cost several thousand dollars each, and several are attached to each US machine. You usually also have several specialty probes, but not enough for every machine, so these are moved from machine to machine.
Patients are left alone with the machines all the time, and often the machines are just parked in a hallway or empty room, completely unattended. The probes are super easy to remove, usually just a simple twist connector. The real surprise is that more aren’t stolen.
It can take some time before the staff realizes that they are missing probes. There are a fair number of used probe resellers, some of whom are less than scrupulous about where they get their probe, as long as it works. So the secondary market is full of stolen probes.
There are also documented cases of people backing a truck up to the loading dock, rolling a $250,000 US machine or a $75,000 portable x-ray into it, and driving off. If you’re carrying a clipboard, you can get away with just about anything.
I got a nail polish along with a bunch of groceries, and like they often do with small items, the cashier asked me if I wanted it in the bag or with me. I just said “with me,” took it, and left. It wasn’t until several days later when I was sorting through receipts that I noticed that she hadn’t scanned it before she gave it to me, or she scanned it and it didn’t “take,” but nobody noticed.
The only other times I’ve gotten stopped is in places like Target where the CDs/DVDs, and sometimes jewelry have to be specially scanned to deactivate the sensors, and that didn’t get done. It’s never been a problem.
My work ID badge used to set off the sensor at the library. Didn’t take me long to learn to take it off!
When I was 14 a friend swiped a can of chewing tobacco (hard to believe someone could get it right off the shelf back then as it was not kept behind a counter) while we were in Payless Drug, which was later bought out by Rite-Aid. I had no idea he had done anything. Imagine my surprise as I nonchalantly exited the store only to be stopped by security and taken into the back room of the store along with my friend. When they asked me questions I told them I knew nothing about what my friend had done. They had me empty my pockets and determined I hadn’t taken anything and had nothing at all to do with my friend’s act of pilferage. They let me go when they determined I was cleared of any suspicion of shoplifting or aiding and abetting, but my friend was detained until his mother arrived. His mother was a volunteer ski patroller who worked on Wednesday nights at the ski area located about 45 minutes and 16 miles away from town. I’m sure she was mighty pissed when she had to come down from the mountain and deal with her son’s thievery for something he should not have even had in his possession in the first place. His mom was a bitch and she yelled at him (and me) for every little thing, so I can only imagine how much shouting she did. Needless to say, I was a bit miffed at my friend.
When I worked in retail (OfficeMax) we were told to stay close to customers, not just because it was for good customer service, but it was also for theft deterrent. This worked in theory, but given the fact that the store was often short-staffed, especially in the early morning and late evening hours, this wasn’t possible or practical. A common ploy would be for person A to detain me and pretend to be interested in buying a printer or computer and ask me a bunch of questions about it so as to distract me and divert my attention, while his accomplice, person B, would go down the software aisle and do the deed. The store I worked in had absolutely no security cameras in place, no mercury tags, nothing! The only security measure the store relied on was employee vigilance, and most of the low-wage-earning drones who worked there didn’t give two shits and were often the ones doing the stealing in the first place. It was no surprise that between the lack of security and the fact that employees were paid just a cut above minimum wage, our shrink numbers were always too high, Every time we had a store meeting they’d constantly harp on us about controlling shrink (which means “theft” in retailese) by watching customers and fellow employees. Not once in all the time I worked there did I ever witness anyone, customer or employee, steal anything.
A side note to Student Driver: The person who was stealing the cold remedies probably didn’t have a cold but was using the medicine for the manufacture of methamphetamine. Since most stores only allow a customer to buy one or maybe two packages at a time I suspect this person was driven to steal it.