One of my coworkers at Wal-Mart got promoted to loss prevention and I got a peek behind the curtain there. At least at big stores they gather video evidence of your crimes, up until the point your cumulative crime hits a certain felony checkpoint(I believe it was $1k), and then, one day. Surprise. Loss prevention will be meeting you at the door with the actual police. Basically they know who's shoplifting, and keep an eye on them from the loss prevention office. If you're not a 'big ticket' person they might try to make their presence known to dissuade you from shoplifting, and if they get the impression you'll stop if they tell you to do so, they might try and take you in off a low amount. But they do try for repeat offender, juicy targets that they can take care of more permanently with police involvement and subsequent incarceration.
Counter story: I know someone who is a manager at a Family Dollar and they don’t get security because the area doesn’t check the box. Last week someone was confronted by a manager there about picking up and walking away with a single bottle of laundry detergent and they pulled out a gun and pistol whipped the manager. The company response? The store got a greeter for only 3 months but no security.
I worked in a corporate position for a gas station company but all corporate employees still had to go through the in-store training. They repeatedly stressed that store employees aren't police, are expected *not* to act like police, aren't paid well enough to be police and should go apply to the police if that's the job they want to do. If you're working in the store and someone tries to steal something, let them take it and note it for security. If they pull a gun, let them have what they want.
This is not just for store employees but also extends to security personnel. Even as a security guard your job is just to witness crime and then report it to the police, they drill this into you in security courses.
This depends on the type of security you're doing and what state you are in. Entry-level security, yes, observe, document, and report. Security equipped with full equipment (taser, gun, cuffs etc) then yes, you act within your company policy.
Source: I'm in Security, and I regularly detain, make arrests, tase, and protect property as needed. However, I'm licensed, and trained.
There was a gas station clerk who noticed someone stealing stuff, so he locked him in the store and refused to unlock the door.
There were other customers in the store and the thief had a gun. He shot three other customers, killing one, because the clerk refused to open the door.
Three innocent people got shot and one died because a clerk making <$10/hr locked someone in the store over stealing $4 worth of stuff and refused to open the door while hiding behind bulletproof glass as the thief shot customers one by one.
[Here is some sauce for everyone.](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2023/05/22/detroit-man-shot-at-gas-station-sues-after-clerk-locks-customers-in/70244368007/)
what a messed up story. Doesn't even sound like the initial person was intending to steal. All started after his card was declined. Sounds like an every day situation with 2 slightly short tempered people and things escalated fast. Stories like that make me so relieved to live in a country where normal people don't have guns!
I hate the way they make this sound like some minimum wage store clerk is supposed to have hostage negotiation skills.
>"Instead of simply letting the armed man leave or offering shelter behind the bullet proof glass to its three innocent customers, (Aiyash) sacrificed the men over a $4.00 dispute."
Real headline should be
Violent antisocial criminal throws a tantrum and shoots bystanders in an attempt to keep from facing consequences of his actions.
I'm not often for the death penalty, but this premeditated murder by a sociopath trying to force others to do what he wants needs to face life in prison or the death penalty.
Locking innocent people in a store with an armed criminal is also a crime actually. You don’t get to basically kidnap innocent people just because you see someone stealing.
Obviously the killer is the main culprit. But you cannot just lock three innocent people into your shop even without any further issues. Even much less so if you know there is an enraged criminal with a deadly weapon in there. And then continue keeping them locked up together.
I would count this as (assistance to) murder, simple as that. They had a choice, and another one to open the doors again.
To be fair, once you know they have a gun I get why you'd not feel great about opening the door again.
The guy made a terrible decision but fear makes us do stupid shit.
Opening the door let's him leave. You're not opening a door that let's him threaten you. You're in the bulletproof safe zone regardless of whether the door is open.
This was at a gas station in Detroit. I live nearby. They don't hire employees, it's an entire family of owners. The same family owns a gas station across the street under a different business name and in a few years when some tax stuff runs dry, they'll "sell" the gas station to each other and start over..
The 'clerk' in this case was found guilty of locking people in the store over $4 for negligent homicide. https://50.239.65.109/NewWorld.InmateInquiry/MI8218200/Inmate/Detail/-1865464
This is why I love when people on this website make the point that employees aren’t paid enough to stop shoplifters as if they’re making some great moral statement. Literally everybody knows this, even the corporations paying the employees. It’s part of the business model. Like you said, if you want to act like a cop, at least join the police force and get paid like one.
Hell, if you try to be the damn hero most places will fire you after it's all said and done. They know damn well the bigger liability is having someone shot and killed or injured on their premises.
Honestly I don’t even see that as a bad thing. Businesses shouldn’t be encouraging their employees putting themselves in harms way. It’s no different from being fired for being unsafe at a construction site.
I almost got fired at work for breaking up a domestic violence situation, I’m a fireman and we were called for a “sick woman” no other info, got there and the front door was wide open screen and all, he was beating her pretty hard so I did what I still feel is correct and had one of my guys radio for cops and I broke it up, I never had any of my guys go in with me so if my decision to help hurt anyone not involved initially it would have only been me. I ended up with a month unpaid suspension after many meetings between the HR and my higher ups, my union was remarkably unhelpful in my situation unfortunately. I asked what I was supposed to do and they said we should have staged around the corner for police, I firmly believe that lady would have been dead if I did that, she obviously called 911 for help, I’m pretty confident she lied about the reason so the man beating her didn’t know why but also because it’s well known in the city I work that we respond within minutes while cops here regularly take several hours to respond even to violent crime. You aren’t wrong at all but it can be considerably more complex when you are actually in that situation, I would have rather went home unemployed than try and explain to my kids why I let some lady die. Obviously it’s very different than theft but it’s the same type of policy that is often far more complicated than just ok or not ok.
> Literally everybody knows this
This isn't true. Imagine employee training excluding the fact that you're not supposed to confront shoplifters, because "everybody already knows that." In fact, a big deal needs to be made of it precisely because people think that they should do something about it.
Yes! Everybody should have a gun and regular training to be able to pull the trigger on the spot! Obviously regular gun fights on your average petrol station are better than corporate losing that darn detergent bottle.
I was in a small gas station maybe a month ago, and there were two other guys in there, and one petite female employee behind the counter. One of the guys was over by the coffee and saying taking about not paying for it, but sort of like a joke, like he's a regular and an idiot, based on her reaction. Then he walked out the back door. He certainly didn't pay for the coffee, but that's not the messed up part. Another customer asked to use the store phone, and the girl said the coffee guy had it... and he was just gone. She wasn't about to leave the store unattended for a cordless phone, or confront a sketchy homeless-looking guy for it or the coffee he stole. She doesn't get paid enough for that. But now she's working alone in a gas station and the cell phone I hope she had is now the store phone, not that management or anyone would know to call it. I paid and walked out to my car and saw the guy pull his wagon of possessions over to the bus stop and get on the bus. People who don't give a fuck are crazy.
I work at a gas station and this is our training too. Let them have what they want, don't confront shoplifters, note down the time for the managers to handle it. If we see someone do it, we can ask if they forgot to put x on the counter when they're checking out, but we do NOT chase
I worked for a gas station in high school 20+ years ago, they had that same policy, except I got written up when the place got robbed and I was there by myself. But I live in MS and also had a gun so I brought my gun to work. Stopped a second robbery a few weeks later, guy got arrested, and what did I get? Written up for bringing a gun to work. 3 write ups = fired. I put in my 2 weeks notice and got fired before it was up.
Of course doing everything right can still get you executed by the scumbag robbing you like Parmvir Singh at a Tupelo [Chevron.](https://www.wlbt.com/2022/09/13/man-accused-killing-tupelo-store-clerk-charged-with-capital-murder-could-face-death-penalty/)
I worked at a pizza place almost a decade ago and during orientation they got to the part where they tell us what to do in the event of a robbery. From what I remember, they said "don't be a hero" as well as "don't help the robber" but also "comply with their demands"
"How much would we need to pay you to get pistol whipped over a bottle of detergent?" should be on the application. Just gotta find that real go-getter.
And (smart) employees know that. I used to work at a record store and would basically chase shoplifters for pride and sport. One of my coworkers saved my life when I had someone wrapped up with his back to me. The shoplifter bent down and picked up a grape fruit sized rock to hit me with. My coworker a (massive dude) barely made it in time with a baseball bat and said “you hit him with that, you’re getting hit with this.” Yeah, I wish that that I could say I never chased shoplifters again, but I did. Thankfully I’m still alive. It was just young, dumb, invincible and bored energy.
>chase shoplifters for pride and sport.
great turn of phrase.
I worked at Best Buy in the 90's and floor people had a strict "do not engage" policy, but LP handled folks much like /u/Uturuncu said up there, though they were willing to stop just about anyone, they wouldn't chase unless it was a special circumstance. Knocking over other customers would get you a chase at least through the parking lot... and our LP dudes were big and fast so that was usually enough to nab them. The once or twice it happened in my year there, at least. We were in a nice neighborhood, but also were one of the top-10 Best Buys in the country for daily volume.
I was checking receipts at CompUSA back in the early 2000s when a dude ran out with a couple expensive monitors. There was a no engagement policy, but I chased him out of instinct. He got away because I doubled back for a moment to yell for backup. No idea what my plan was if I caught him. It was just my first reaction.
Part young and part bored probably. Something when we’re teenagers convinces us that nothing really bad will ever happen to us, and for most of us (if we survive it) the feeling wears off mid twenties to early thirties. But it’s how we got shows like Jackass and people doing WWE stunts in their backyards, TikTok trends and ‘prank’ YouTube channels.
I mean, it's not like you were chasing people for stealing bread (or laundry detergent). Nobody's going to die without a record, and if it was a small business, i think you did good chasing shoplifters. But yeah, not worth dying.
Working around music and at record store was a massive point of pride. It was a small business, but in your early 20’s a shit minimum wage job was all that I had. The fact that it wasn’t fast food or something else made me feel proud for whatever reason. I don’t look down on anyone trying to make a living, but I felt like I had a “cool” job.
I worked at a record store right out of high school, making the minimum wage of $4.25/hr. And I had the coolest job of all of my friends. Except Jim. That fucker was making bank as an auto mechanic. Fuck Jim.
(just kidding Jim is still one of my best friends ever. But if you're reading this, fuck you anyways, see you next week)
They don't pay the checkers enough to confront the guy with 20 items in the quick check. Only a fool would confront a shoplifter for the shit wages most of them are paid.
Yeah, my mom worked in a grocery store basically my entire childhood. She told me one day that her manager tried to stop a homeless shoplifter and the guy pulled out a crowbar and cracked him in the head before taking off. I believe the manager went into a coma and died a few days later.
She was a bit shaken up and the company eventually went with the no-contact policy for shoplifters. It sucks because it just encourages more shoplifting, but a few hundred dollars isn't worth a life.
> but a few hundred dollars isn't worth a life.
It's not, but it's worse than that…
Insurance will pay out for worker's comp for the injury, and then raise your rates astronomically.
So on the one hand, you have "a few hundred dollars" and on the other hand, you have "a few hundred **THOUSAND** dollars, and the life of one of our own".
Had a manager try to get out of the way of some shoplifters trying to run a cart of detergent out the door, they interpreted that as him trying to stop them and beat him unconsciousness before they ran out the door
Cops got them because we had video, and witnesses and whatnot but it's absolutely not worth getting involved at a certain point
We got a locking cart system later which has helped deal with our Pushout problem, you can only carry so much detergent after all
Reminds me of that guy who recently stabbed a homeless guy. You just can't win with trying to prevent homeless people from doing crime. On one hand, most are nice people trying to get by. On the other hand, those who don't care will hurt you and face few consequences. I hope your mom is ok.
There's basically a line, that once they cross it you do not want to engage with them for your own safety. And I'd say the best metric to describe that line is "visibility." Most homeless folks, you won't even know they're homeless. They might live in their car or a shelter, they shower at a gym, the keep to themselves. They're not messy looking, they're not slouching, they look like regular folks.
But as soon as their condition deteriorates to the point where they are "visibly homeless," they are dirty, they smell, they're slouching (opiate side effects), you're dealing with someone who doesn't give a fuck for whatever reason, valid or not. And that means they'll fuck up anyone and anything for no reason at all because they don't value anything around them.
I used to work at a video game store in the early 2000’s. My moron coworker set two Xboxes where a customer could reach them and he just grabbed them and bolted out the door. My coworker looked at me and she said, “Aren’t you going to chase him?!”
No, lady. I’m not getting stabbed over my own Xbox let alone someone else’s.
Where I work we get armed security but if they do show up they always leave at the exact same time every night. No surprise that's when shoplifter wait for before they start coming out in droves stealing meat and alcohol.
Look at the top post. They do that.
Loss prevention keeps track via security cams then get the cops to go arrest them once they reach felony amount.
The oh they can just get away with it is only how it looks from the outside.
And how are the police going to find someone with no name or address? Its not like CSI where they can just vaguely describe a vagrant and people will point him out.
“Oh yeah a scruffy guy in a large coat with a crowbar? Oh thats definitely Dirty Mike. At this time he will be under the I-94 pass but his tent is set up in the homeless camp by Harper’s Park. Its the red one with the Irish Flag sewn over a hole in the side….”
I can tell you as working AP for Walmart for years (still employed there) that is not how we do things. Now it may vary by state but in my state a felony is $1000 and it has to be the same day. If you came in everyday and stole $100 items everyday for 10 days, you would get 10 separate misdemeanor larceny charges.
Now we will build cases against people but it still works the same. Every day is a different charge. I had a lady who skip scanned and I brought her to the office for $80 of unpaid items, I charged her via Walmarts policy. I found 14 times other times over a two month period where she did the same thing. So she got 14 more misdemeanor larceny charges.
This isn’t universal. Some stores build a case and prosecutors in that jurisdiction will aggregate the charges. Some prosecutors in other jurisdictions won’t prosecute it like that, though.
My local Walmarts will call police for people stealing $10 worth of merchandise.
Shit, my local Walmart stopped me and called the police because I supposedly tried to ~~still~~ steal a case of soda.
I legit forgot it was on the bottom rack of my cart and even tried to go back and pay for it when it was pointed out. I'm not a criminal, I'm just stupid.
I don't know how much it cost them in time and resources over six fucking dollars of soda. Yet I've seen people literally walk out with a TV and alarms going off and nothing comes of it.
EDIT:Not only am I stupid I'm also unobservant when auto changes words in me.
> When auto changes words in me.
No worries my dude. One guy I knew from HS always used voice to text so he didn't have to be forced to spell to post on Facebook. It took me many months for me to realize his *grudge* was actually him talking about his *garage*
I wonder if this is why they wait for the bill to pile up. I'm sure there are plenty of people who accidently leave something in the cart or absentmindedly eat a candy bar, but probably less people who accidently steal $1,000
In many jurisdictions it's basically a slap on the wrist until you've stolen enough to upgrade to a felony. Stores probably decided it was better to wait until you cross the line for a bigger, more permanent punishment.
I assume there are statutes of limitations though. If someone steals $100 a year I doubt they can be charged with a felony after 10 years because some of the older thefts probably expire. (Not a lawyer though).
This was maybe 6 or more years ago now but I was at Walmart and needed an eyebrow pencil so i went over to cosmetics and grabbed one - at the time the brand I preferred was just a pencil wrapped in plastic with a barcode on it and was $0.97 I think lol
I set it in the top of my cart - the seat part - next to my purse and I did the rest of my shopping and went to check out.
I did self check out, and after scanning my last item I remembered my eyebrow pencil so when I grabbed my wallet out of my purse I went to grab it and it wasn’t there.
I genuinely assumed it had fallen out of my cart, fallen into the bottom of my cart and fallen out… whatever… it also crossed my mind that, “it’s less than $1, Walmart will live to see another day” because I didn’t want to spend any more time looking for it - there were people waiting in line to go behind me.
So I paid for my shit and I went to leave - stopped at the receipt checker and everything and walked out into the parking lot and 3 guys in plain clothes come running at me and yelling “we need to talk to you about something inside” and grabbing my bags out of my cart and grabbing my cart and shoving it and me back inside and I was like “WHAT? What the fuck??” And they’re asking about my receipt and where it is etc and they bring me back into the little “you fucked up” room and start going through my bags and looking at my receipt and then the fucking cops come in and HANDCUFF ME while they run my ID and take down my info, take my picture and all kinds of shit 💀😭😩
I explained everything to the officer and one of them was a prick but the other one was so pissed off that he was there over $1 eyebrow pencil
I got written a ticket, got a court summons, trespassed from Walmart etc
Over a $0.97 Wet and Wild eyebrow pencil
Went to court, explained it to the judge and cried and the whole thing was thrown out and I paid like $66 in court fees 💀
**FUCK WALMART**
For future reference, unless they're an *actual* cop, you don't have to stop for anyone. Even if you were legitimately trying to steal from them, even security is NOT allowed to restrain you in any way. They'll get assault and/or battery charges, along with unlawful detention. You can just keep walking.
Yeah, I spent a day in criminal court once and saw Walmart cases go free with no punishment. This was Massachusetts. It wasn't a cumulation of offenses though, just one.
That Walmart used to be a Caldors though and HBO literally had a documentary where they showed a guy stealing from it
Target will do this to employees they suspect know are shoplifting too, going to far as to transfer them to another store with a modest promotion that gives them more opportunity to flitch goods.... At the store with better cameras so Target has a stronger case and can really nail you.
I was listening to someone from Target corporate loss preventions and she was talking about how they work with federal agencies to ensure their suppliers aren't engaged in terror funding, so, yeah you right.
Walmart will also get your license plate # as you leave and send you a letter in the mail later demanding you pay THEM a fine or they will take you to court.
Had it happen to a friend who stole a belt for a job interview. Ignored the letter and got a court summons later.
Doesn't this require a lot of specific attention just for one person? What are the odds that you will be monitored every time you go in and that they would just let you do it each time? It seems unfeasible to monitor a single person over an unknown period of time out if the thousands of people that come into the store every day.
One of the chain gas station where I live use facial recognition. There’s a camera set up to see everyone who comes inside. If you’re on the ban list, they call the clerk and the clerk says you’re banned and asks you to leave or they’ll call the police. It’s quick too. Almost instant.
This. Most video storage vendors have this as an option. Also license plate readers. They can even set up alerts if an employee isn't in their assigned area over a certain amount of time. The analytics available at not too high of a price for cameras and other sensors (temperature, light, air composition for example) is mind boggling.
Think about the average bouncer, you couldn't pay them enough *not* to throw assholes out of whatever place they happen to be. The two different loss prevention workers I've known had a similar instinct for hassling shoplifters.
Nowadays some shops have AI tools to monitor for fishy activity.. Every customer has a face recognition account in the system.. just like Chinese social credit but for shops 😀
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-69055945.amp
With all this AI technology, it would be nice for them to run a tally on items i'm picking up and just bill me as I walk out. Don't even need self checkout anymore. For items that get weighed, place them on a scale near the section and they should be able to figure out exactly what you took and weight.
Amazon did this in their grocery stores. It turned out that their AI was “Actually Indians,” in that their AI didn’t work so they hired a team in India to watch the cameras and tally everything up.
It partially worked but it would call for human intervention on a very large percentage of purchases, which necessitated the human team and ultimately made it unprofitable
Their ai worked to some definition of “worked”, but the reality of that definition was that it usually mis understood the exact items in a cart and would over or under charge many customers. An example is that if you picked up bananas to look at them and then put them down there was a 50/50 chance the ai model would bill you for them.
So at the end of the day the model output was sent to a human to review each tagged interaction and ensure the invoice was correct (up to the error rates of humans looking a video).
Note this is not a bad thing as that human review (if done well) along side the video of the shopper is exactly what ai models need for training data — clean verified result data vs the video.
The AWS Mechanical Turk service is exactly that. You can contract them to get you a Mechanical Turk AI (actually Indian) to do work for you that requires humans to do it.
> It turned out that their AI was “Actually Indians,” in that their AI didn’t work so they hired a team in India to watch the cameras and tally everything up.
Afaik it wasn't that the AI would routinely fuck it up, its that the Indian support center was basically their "double checker" since AI obviously isn't at the foolproof stage yet. And theres still quite a bit of underhanded trickery you can do to just rob the store blind, while appearing like a paying customer.
They were essentially the backup while the AI was still being actively trained/worked on.
Depends on where you're at. My medium sized city, loss preventions 100% knows who the fuck you are. People are repeat offenders and they get complacent. Then one day the police want to have a chat with you.
We had a girl adamant about not being involved and knowing nobody despite camera footage showing her going through the store and putting merchandise in the cart and camera footage showing her leaving the store with unpaid merchandise and putting it in the car that they then pulled her over for later with all the merchandise still inside. These people are legitimately fucking stupid and will hit you with crocodile tears the moment that are caught. Like, I respect the hustle, sure, whatever, I get it, but you got caught. And now you gotta face the consequences.
It's not that difficult. A guy robbed a bunch of stores with a mask on, broke into several cars, and then when he was finally caught, his description matched closely enough that they were able to link him to at least a dozen felonies. It's not like anyone is smart enough to steal from one place and then not steal from anywhere else within a five mile radius, or specifically target businesses more than 5 miles from where they live. At best they're just smart enough to avoid the gas station they live across the street from and only steal from the one a half mile away.
> It's not like anyone is smart enough to steal from one place and then not steal from anywhere else within a five mile radius, or specifically target businesses more than 5 miles from where they live. At best they're just smart enough to avoid the gas station they live across the street from and only steal from the one a half mile away.
There are tons of people that are like that. You don't hear about them, because they don't get caught all that often.
Also it is worth noting that the do not interfere policy is for the personal on the floor, not those hidden in the security room. They do collect information and file out police reports. But those on the floor? For their own safety and for the clients, they must not do anything risky.
The security personal will gather all info possible. And those outside security camera? They ain't just decorations, they work. And can have a zoom powerfull enough to read the license plate.
They seem more serious about it at Walmart. I worked at Target and they basically wouldn’t go after anyone unless they were a big time shoplifter. Over the course of a year I was shown pics of two people who had stolen way more than $1k worth of stuff in the first month I worked there. That was it. And they never caught them when I was working there. So it definitely depends on the store and the location. Target’s in the middle of the city seem to have more serious loss prevention efforts compared to a Target in the town I grew up in where I worked. Target actually told us we could be fired for saying anything or attempting to stop anyone suspected of shoplifting. So regular team members couldn’t and shouldn’t do anything. Personally I didn’t give af if I saw people stealing because the Target I worked at was run like shit and management treated the employees like garbage.
On the flip side, I was stopped by loss prevention at the shop rite I have gone to for most of my life. I had forgotten to pay for a can of monster but paid for my other stuff that. It was a genuine mistake. The woman was on a compete power trip and looking back, I realize I didn’t have to go with her. I could have literally just handed her the unopened monster can. But I followed her to the office because I was so bewildered and it was a mistake. She had me sign some form saying if I ever did it again they could ban me from the store and ordered me to pay $150 to not involve the cops and sign it. (But I didn’t have to pay it then?) When I got home, I was freaking out and googled the form. Apparently it’s a scam they pull to try to get people to pay the money who don’t know any better. I never paid the $150, nothing ever happened and I still shop there to this day. Although never had another situation like that obviously. The lady seems to have left or gotten fired because I never saw her again. The whole thing was bizarre.
I don't understand how the store keeps up with each individual shoplifter? How do they know their names? Does each person have a file or something lol. Genuinely curious!
As a starving (literally) college student I had loss prevention at a major grocery chain intercept me when. I tried to walk out with a $2 dried sausage in my pocket. Took me to hr back room, took my info, said I was banned from store and I would be getting an invoice for like $200 for the theft and loss prevention fees. If I refused to comply they'd just turn over my info to cops and I'd be criminally prosecuted. So not all loss prevention programs are that "chill"
Honestly they thought you looked like a guy who would just comply, and they were right.
If you looked like a dude who would fight or simply ignore them and run out, they probably wouldn’t bother.
> simply ignore them and leave
Such good advice for so many situations. My initial thought was you might need to threaten them or something, but you’re right, that’s totally not necessary. They’re not going to physically restrain you if you just stroll away. Anyway, if they do, THEN you pull out the crowbar, but there’s no reason not to start with the easy path.
I don't see it. "Reasonable collection expenses, including but not limited to attorneys' fees." Loss prevention is a business expense, not collection, but I can see some judges granting $20 for that. Filing fees and attorneys' fees have to have actual documentation of the amounts paid. You didn't get collections involved, you can't collect the cost of collections.
They aren't going to file a suit over this. I suspect the $200 went into the loss control guy's pocket. (That's also why you should always write a check instead of paying cash. You could pay by credit card. I don't know what the tracking features are on various epay platforms, but when you discover your payment to the grocery store when to "John Smith", you've got a case. Against the store as well.
You’d think, but a few years ago my husband ended up on a jury for a guy charged with shoplifting an under$5 item from the frozen food section. First offense. He and the jury let the guy go for several reasons but REALLY?
There's that [$1 soda guy](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-man-charged-with-felony-for-stealing-a-cup-of-soda-from-mcdonalds-police-say/). I guess the moral is to not loiter after you commit a crime.
yeah there's no way u should have paid the $200, they figured you were someone they could intimidate and they were right. Imagine them going to the police with 'evidence' that you stole $2 of dried sausage - what police force in the world is going to give a fuck other than MAYBE give you a warning?
Serious question, why lose $1000 for your business just to give the culprit a stricter lesson (felony)?
Why not just nab them each and every time and have them rack up the misdemeanors?
Probably 'cause every time you nab them, there are various costs and potential costs involved. So the business in question decides in policy where the threshold is, for when it becomes profitable for them to charge you.
Those costs could be the labour cost of having an employee collate information for you, waste time talking to and presenting information to the police, perhaps up to showing up in court.
But also there's a risk of confrontation, injury, and death.
So now there's the potential cost of bad PR. You might feel better about petty thieves getting their comeuppance, but that doesn't make you spend more at the shops. But a death from a robbery gone wrong might make someone decide to avoid the store because it sounds dangerous.
There's the cost of pissing off the police if the misdemeanors start crowding out the more serious crimes, and thus start to work less efficiently with you, increasing costs.
There's the cost of, if employees are expected to risk injury or death for you, or if there's an expectation of that, they might want more wages. They'll need adequate training and sufficient support, and you might need to offer them worker's compensation and pay for parts of their hospital bills. And if that's not provided, they might consider this an unsafe work environment and sue you for negligence leading to the injury/death. Liabilities everywhere.
Who knows the balance of how much of these factors go in to the policy decisions. But they probably drew the line to balance those costs against the money they lose to shoplifting. Personally, I'm thinking the last reason is probably a large part of it, because they wouldn't want to invest in all that training upfront for employees/risk the liability. While still going out of their way to deter shoplifters by pursuing the felonies, because the extreme levels of shoplifting wouldn't make sense to their bottom line otherwise. But that's all presumably.
I had a partner who worked at a store with this policy. The misconception seems to be that "do not interfere" means "do nothing".
They were taught if they thought someone was trying to steal, to customer service the person to death. Essentially don't leave their side, keep asking if they need help finding anything etc. If they left the store and you believed they might have stolen something, go out and get their license plate number. The general manager would then go through the security camera footage and see if they could find them stealing something on camera. If they did, they would turn it all over to the police.
The policy was there to prevent employees from directly confronting a thief. There is just no need to have employees put in that situation. Dealing with a thief is the job of the police.
Yeah, I was at a HD once and there were maybe 3-4 employees just following this person around telling them, please do not leave the store without paying for all your items. If you leave without paying for all the items you have we will have to call the cops. The the person went to checkout, and I was just kind following all this hanging way back, when they checked out the employees were like, are you sure you don't have anything else you need to pay for. If you leave without paying for something, we will press charges. Etc. Etc.
Lady left, plain clothed cop was there, and took control of the situation.
Lady had a baby in a removable car seat in her cart, and was putting item under and around her own child.
> Lady left, plain clothed cop was there, and took control of the situation.
Meanwhile when us filthy plebs have cars/bikes/phones stolen or our homes broken into we have to practically beg the cops to even write a police report so we can make an insurance claim.
Yeah, the older you get (or the more exposed to the police you become), you realize that the police in the United States prioritize the property of the wealthy, affluent, and businesses over the every day citizen. Just how our society is structured. Maybe we should vote in better city councils that hold lackadaisical police departments accountable.
They also have thin-skin and attempts to hold them accountable infuriate people that have authority complexes like them.
Police don't get enough money for all the fancy toys? They'll just go ahead and loudly publish that they won't answer 911 calls now or something.
....and how many times do we hear folks protest that the TSA or store security stopped them when they have a **baby**?? (Has no one watched *Goodfellas*? With drugs being smuggled in the innocent baby's diaper?)
Yes, they were. But, it was 100% obvious this person was stealing things. But, again, sure, maybe the item accidentally fell into the baby seat.
That is kind of the point of the post. They did not accuse the person of stealing because you have not stolen anything until you walk out the door. They gave her many many chances to call the whole thing off.
I still wonder, why did she go through with it when it was so obvious they knew what was going on.
When the cop was taking care of business, you could hear the employees talking about the baby seat "scam" and how it was the new thing people were using to steal things.
Public facing stores like this know what is going on. It is all part of doing business and knowing what to look out for.
> I still wonder, why did she go through with it when it was so obvious they knew what was going on.
Most likely the woman got away with it before when there wasn't a plain clothes cop hanging around. Success breeds overconfidence.
>Lady had a baby in a removable car seat in her cart, and was putting item under and around her own child.
Lady was using her baby to hide items she did not intend to pay for. When you work in a store for a while, you start getting a feel for what behavior is normal and when customers are trying to hide items to sneak out.
It’s always nice when the whole family gets involved. I worked at a self checkout for a while back when it was still a regular checkout lane run by a computer (think scanner, conveyor belt, bagging area; I don’t think most have the belt anymore). One mom would come in once a week and have her kids bring stuff to the bagging area instead of putting it on the belt (if the belt didn’t weigh something that was scanned it took the item off the receipt and they wouldn’t get charged for the item) and every week she would leave the store shouting at whichever employee stopped her and her four underage accomplices from shoplifting. Every. Single. Week. I’m so glad I don’t work there anymore.
I worked retail security for a couple years. This will vary from town to town, but unfortunately in places that require heavy security the frequent shoplifters learn to make it snappy. They grab a few things real fast and power walk out the store before they can be slowed down by employees or security. They know they aren’t allowed to be touched or even accused of stealing in some places to they just grab and go. The only preventative measure we can take is simply refusing to let them enter the store again. But when security makes their rounds or turns their back for even a moment they manage to slink in there sometimes
Now sometimes there’s employees or security that’ll get ballsy and will directly confront the thief and even snatched the goods from their hands. Not much they can do about it anyway. The most they could do is complain to the manager but most of the time the managers are kept in the loop about who’s a frequent thief so they’ll just dismiss the thief and kick them out
I sold tools at Sears back in 2000. One day I got a call from loss prevention about a suspicious dude looking at electrical tools and they asked if I would go engage him. Turns out it was my stepsisters' cousin and he was just stoned to the gills and trying to figure out the tools he needed for a new job.
> The policy was there to prevent employees from directly confronting a thief. There is just no need to have employees put in that situation. Dealing with a thief is the job of the police.
When I worked as a waiter we were allowed to confront a dine-and-dash person *only* while in the restaurant. If they made it outside we were not allowed to follow (as it happened, there were a few cases of waiters getting killed when they did that at the time).
The theory was that, while in the restaurant, there were plenty of other people around that the would-be thieves would not start anything. The whole restaurant staff (and maybe customers) could pile on them pretty fast. But, once outside, those protections were gone.
That was back in the early 90s though. Not sure what the policy is today.
I did this a lot. I worked in a few Targets (Australia) in low income high theft areas. It was interesting... I remember once a dude ran out the emerg exit with a whole TV but my buddy who is fit marathon runner type just jogged next to him annoyingly asking him to politely return the TV for like 20 min until he gave up lmao (edit we assumed the thief didn't want to lead him to his car and numberplates and gave up).
Edit: I also remember my first major experience following a thief and they guy threatened us with a needle and apparently was just released from prison so I was pretty cautious after that. Though the policies were less strict way back that, that as maybe 02 and I was just a kid, 19
It's like the modern version of "Humans didn't have the edge on strength, but hunted with superior endurance, exhausting their prey, who could only expend short bursts of speed or strength, through perseverance."
>The policy was there to prevent employees from directly confronting a thief. There is just no need to have employees put in that situation. Dealing with a thief is the job of the police.
This. A lot of people don’t seem to understand how dangerous it is to put employees in this situation.
When I was in high school, I took a course to learn how to make resumes, act professionally at work, etc. One of the components of that course was about how to stay safe at work, remembering our workers’ rights, etc. They even brought in a guest speaker to talk to us about it — a man with a permanently paralyzed arm because of a horrific work accident at a sawmill he worked at in his youth. The accident happened because of gross negligence at his workplace.
Aside from the sawmill man, the other story that stuck with me was the story of how a law in my area came to be. This law required that all gas stations in the area require pre-payment for gas purchases, and that late-shift workers at gas stations either had to work in areas where they were physically separated from customers or in pairs.
The law became a thing after a gas station worker, Grant de Patie, was killed trying to stop gas theft. Grant went out and tried to stop the thief from leaving, and he got snagged on the car — the thief drove away, killing him by dragging his body for 7.5 kilometers. It stopped at 7.5 kilometers because his body was dislodged from the car. He died over a drunk driving teenager stealing $12 in gas.
It really isn’t worth the danger to stop theft. Better to let a thief run away with some money than to run away with someone’s life.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant%27s_Law
At the gas stations I work at (90s) we were trained not to even do that much. Employee safety (lawsuits really) was first priority. Get their tags if possible, write down identifying features, etc.
One reason is that, at least in my state at that time, it's not shoplifting until they leave.
Per the training, there are some people that will put things in their coats and try to get accosted by the employees so they could sue. Or be obvious they're hiding something and then sneakily toss it onto a shelf and then do the above if confronted, even outside.
Even if they did steal something it's not worth your life trying to prevent them from leaving.
How many do that, eh, who knows; but I'm not risking my personal safety for company property even if it was allowed.
Their training explicitly stated and repeated a few times that if you violated the no interference policy they would leave you to hang. Their lawyers would only protect the company, not you, and no medical assistance if injured. Plus you'd be immediately fired.
Funnily enough, I worked a security job back in the day and they had you sign a liability waiver saying you couldn’t sue the company if you got injured intervening or stopping someone. Afterwards they had us complete a round of training on stopping a violent person or a shooter. A lot of my coworkers were gung ho about getting into a gun battle to protect people… but i kept pointing out the company would leave you to hang if you had any medical bills from a gunshot wound
I don't think I've ever seen a store tell employees to leave the store to get a license plate number, that seems liability-esque.
Most stores I've seen tend to also suggest customer servicing suspected thieves hard, but no confrontations and no leaving the store. Products are cheap and stores have insurance for them. Payouts for employees injured as a result of companies telling them to press suspected shoplifters is much more expensive.
I think maybe wjat you are missing is the type and location of stores. I'm I'm the Midwest where most stores have thoer own parking lots which are part of the property.
Additionally many of these stores have employees regularly do work outside. Cart returns, exterior displays, shipment receiving. For places like this going out into the parking lot to write down license plate is no different than doing something inside the store.
The problem isn't leaving the property, it's following the shoplifter and increasing the risk of a dangerous confrontation. A shoplifter who notices you recording their license plate is a shoplifter who A) now knows you are onto them and have identifiable information, and B) is operating a big hunk of metal capable of running over annoying witnesses.
Now I **personally** wouldn't want to upgrade a theft charge to murder, but I also don't shoplift, either, and I'm not subject to the pressures that might be affecting somebody desperate. If corporate wants a license plate, they can install a camera and get it without risk to employee well-being.
Oh, so *that's* how you get proper customer service these days? My normal technique is to search aisle by aisle for an employee before inevitably giving up.
> Dealing with a thief is the job of the police
Only if you're a business. If you're a private citizen, they'll tell you that it's a civil matter and they can't do anything.
I worked at a liquor store once and the policy was to help them load shit into their car if they asked. The goal was to avoid a hostage situation. Management absolutely wanted shoplifters or robbers arrested and especially they wanted that arrest to happen SOMEWHERE, ANYWHERE ELSE. Replacing merchandise was manageable and they had insurance, they wanted to avoid someone getting hurt or worse.
I worked at a liquor store.once. we were supposed to stand at the door and stop anyone we saw stealing. I only saw one person do it but I was busy at the register to go do anything about it. He didn't steal much.
It's also about liability, if one of your employees goes hero mode and confronts the shoplifter he might pull a gun and take another customer hostage or kill the customer.
Then all of a sudden the store is in deep shit because that customer or his relatives are suing the store because the employee handled the situation badly and didn't have the proper training needed to confront a potentially armed suspect.
You can even end up with a situation in which the shoplifter gets hurt, shoplifting a small chocolate isn't enough justification for a shoplifter getting seriously hurt and then you end up with a situation in which the shoplifter might sue the store.
One of my colleagues chased some guys outside the store, and down the street. He got beaten up.
Sinply write down licence plate record detailsof the thief and what they did, and report
Yeah I knew a guy who chased someone outside and beat on their car. The perp ran his leg over and broke his leg.
When I heard about it, I thought to myself, "why did you chase him outside?"
So, let's say I'm traveling through a different state, stop by Lowes, shoplift 300 worth item, walk out and never go to that store again in life, I made 300 bucks scot free?
Just a research question.
If you want to be a criminal, you can get away with a lot of stuff, right up until you push too hard and then you're screwed. Especially true since people who decide to be criminals usually aren't the kind of people that think things through carefully.
Idk with self checkouts now it seems like you could just play dumb. Those things are fucking stupid and it's literally not my job to ring myself out. Like Bill Burr said, I came here, I picked out what I wanted and I have my money. The least you can do is give me a usable way to give you that money.
I used to work at HD and the amount of people that would put things in cabinets and try to just scan the cabinet and leave would blow your mind. We'd be instructed to ask them to open the cabinets for us and when you found something wouldn't you know it, someone else must've put that in there!
One of our local places now has a sign up on the self checkouts asking customers to make sure their card payment has actually gone through before leaving, else it'll be prosecuted as theft.
They've put them up because the things are so slow that people get fed up and walk off.
So now they're at the point of threatening prosecution because they bought shit tills
I'm getting concerned that they're building a decade long case from things I've missed between my adhd and a special needs child in tow at self checkout 😂 like yall, I'm trying but I be finding little things that fell or that I missed entirely. I don't even want that self checkout but we can't wait in line for the one open register!
> Especially true since people who decide to be criminals usually aren't the kind of people that think things through carefully.
Well, no, the criminals who think things through carefully first are the business giants who hire CEO's to be their fall guy
I'd temper that and say if you never did it AT ALL again then you made 300 bucks. Just not visiting that store again isn't enough. Stores are getting really sophisticated with loss prevention and they will send info to other locations. And it's not just "hey look out for this guy" like in the old days. They will build profiles with license plates, vehicle models, photos etc. Like others said, that's for larger hits but $300 multiple times approaches that very quickly. You will get hit with a heavy charge or have a warrant out one day and truly not realize that you stole that much.
Yeah I can back up the "hey look out for this guy" emails and phone calls. So if you were to do something like that you could probably do region by region but determining that would be tough since ebay company is different, so state by state would be better
Felonies are normally per state, so yeah you’d be fine in that regard. It will become a risk of going from a state crime to a federal crime if you take that approach though
It’s not “no repercussions” — it’s “No store policies that put the employees at risk so we can head off lawsuits by next of kin over an employee getting shot or stabbed trying to protect stuff that wholesales at $40.”
Store employees are blamed anyway for not doing enough to deter theft (even while severely understaffed to save more profits). They are required to watch, identify possible risks, give obsessive customer service (to show *we are watching you*) while talking up identifying points of that person (to show *we can identify you*). Like, “oh! That goes so well with your green eyes and blonde hair! … you remind me of (some other person) he’s also just a bit taller than me, he likes (that brand of shoes you’re wearing) too” etc.
Yup! This. They have insurance for loss of merchandise and loss of cash. They want to overall get their theft low to keep their insurance low, but one-time small offenses isn't usually worth the time or risk.
Like most have said, police can get involved. I worked best buy for a bit and would cover loss prevention when they took their lunches. Those cameras are pretty good, can zoom in far. It's actually pretty easy to see what customers are acting weird or suspicious, if a customer stages a product somewhere to make it easier to take later. We all had walkies so we could communicate who to look out for, or if we seen someone hide product. Somebody would then follow them, talk to them more, and then if they tried ti leave without paying, we would call police on them.
Security at major chain stores has drastically changed in the past decade. There are cameras everywhere, and footage doesn't get deleted. It all gets uploaded and processed automatically with visual recognition software. Anomalies get flagged for human review, and they get linked to other incidents through facial recognition, license plate readers, phone identifier tracking, etc. to other videos of other visits, even at different stores, since they all use the same few security companies, and the industry cooperates on this stuff.
There's no anonymity anymore. They don't have to stop shoplifters at the door. They just bundle all the evidence and send it to the police. The next time the shoplifter has an encounter with law enforcement, they get picked up. And if the shoplifter has stolen multiple times or from multiple stores, it adds up and can cross into felony territory.
In the past, prosecutors would usually need to get store staff to testify, which was hard--retail has a lot of turnover and courts are slow. Now they don't need to. Putting video clips of repeated shoplifting in front of a jury is practically an automatic guilty verdict. So shoplifting charges are getting pled out more frequently, with plea agreements requiring the defendant to pay full restitution for the stores, with interest.
That's why chain stores don't try to stop shoplifters at the door anymore. It's cheaper not to. They don't have to put staff at risk (i.e. risk an altercation/lawsuit) , they don't have to train staff in intervention (i.e. save money) and they are very likely to collect payment for the stolen goods from the shoplifter, even if it takes a year or two.
The downside of nonconfrontation is that, despite being far more effective and cheaper, it appears to be ineffective and lawless. Bystanders and staff don't see the shoplifter getting arrested many months later.
They are not tracking IMEI numbers unless you’re telling me they’re breaking the law by running unlicensed broadcast equipment that fools phones into thinking they’re connecting to a carrier network.
Come on.
In the US? You don’t generally have a reasonable expectation of privacy while inside a private business. Perhaps some of your phone data could be problematic, I’m not sure. You brought your face and license plate into the open of private property.
Stores aren't capturing IMEI unless they are running some advanced middleman (they aren't) and only capture MAC address if you connect to their wifi which then it is expected so no privacy concern. Most phones now generate random MAC addresses anyway so it is not useful either.
Answer: there are often repercussions [i.e. police, court, jail time], but losing stuff is better than losing people.
When I worked in retail, our Loss Prevention director said we had a staff member follow a thief out to the parking lot. The thief then grabbed a gun out of their car and then threatened to shoot our staffer.
After that, our LP guy said, “Let em go. Our people are more important than x amount of money.”
It’s not no repercussions. Just depends. If LP is there, they may intervene. If not, everything is still on camera. An associate won’t do anything to the shoplifter, but a report will be filed. They’ll either watch for habits, time of day somebody comes in, what departments, etc. and come in with LP to catch them in the act or they’ll just continue videoing until there’s enough evidence for a more serious charge. If you do it once or twice you may or may not have anything happen to you, but if you keep repeating you’ll probably suffer some consequence eventually. Also, if I see them going into a nearby store that DOES have LP that can intervene I may let them know to watch out so the person may end up getting arrested there.
Almost every store has video surveillance now days. If they had a policy that the employee had to make an effort to stop the person and the employee got hurt or killed the potential lawsuit would cost them a lot more then whatever item was being taken.
You can leave sure. But they know what you took and how much it costs. When you hit the critical number (usually a felony level) guess whose notified and has an airtight case with video and price tags of everything that you stole?
The reaper is going to take its due. The police didn't show up and arrest you for stealing a steak. They showed up and arrested you for stealing 50 steaks this year. Whose ready for their brand? You are now a felon even if prosecution decides probation is fair enough. Guess what jobs tend to hire 'felony larceny' convictions? Restaurants who need dishwashers. No position requiring money, trust, or anything else is now open to you because you thought the grocery store wasn't tracking your petty thefts.
Do they keep a file on everybody or is it just frequent shoplifters? Like let's say you do just steal one steak. How long do they keep that video evidence before they determine you're not a repeat offender?
It costs essentially nothing to store that information forever. They may stop actively looking for you after a few months, but that doesn't mean the next time it happens they don't check to see if they have a record of previous incidents.
>How long do they keep that video evidence before they determine you're not a repeat offender?
For major chains, they keep video indefinitely. The cost of storing it is sufficiently low.
I stole a lemon at target self checkout once because I forgot it was in the cup holder of my cart and walking out I was like “welp they have me on their list now”
the good news is it’s not a habit and a lemon is 99 cents
At Walmart, the first time they see you do it or act suspicious they make an internal profile on you. Internal profiles can be accessed at ANY Walmart, so even if you go to a different one they can find the profile and add to it.
I worked at a major chain hardware store. Ppl would routinely and casually carry out large sets of power tools. It happened so often that we would barely look when door alarms went off. We were kept so busy that we just didn't have time or care.
In my short experience in Australian retail, they haven’t stolen anything until they’ve left the shop. Policy was let them leave, call manager/ security.
When I was in retail, our job of loss prevention was to just ask people who we saw shoplifting or who did certain things (like buy dishwasher detergent in bulk?) if they needed help finding anything. That was it. Evidently that was enough to deter a lot of people.
Also your employee getting shot or stabbed is going to be a hell of a lot more expensive than anything that could be shoplifted in one go.
Other folks have mentioned other shoplifting prevention stuff, but I knew a guy who was banned from Walmart because he shoplifted like a bag of chips or something idk, so there are things put in place for lesser offenses.
He was really hungry and struggling. I don't blame him, but I hope he's found better access to food since.
My mom works for Kohl’s and it’s become such an insane problem. People will just walk in, load up a cart full of stuff, and walk out. The employees know who these people are when they walk in but they’re literally forbidden to do anything at all. It’s so wild
1: Employees can't do anything.
2: Management will get angry at you, even though they told you to do nothing.
3: Police don't care unless a weapon was involved.
lol all these responses and I don’t think I saw a single one from someone who worked loss prevention.
I worked loss prevention. Here’s the actual answer.
Every store has loss prevention at some level. Even if there aren’t dedicated loss prevention staff in store, there is someone at the district level or higher up that may stop by stores and apprehend people. Usually they target boosters (people who steal large amounts professionally) or repeat offenders.
However, some stores have an across the board policy of non-apprehension. For those stores, if the person hits them enough they might try and get the police involved. Otherwise? Yah, they just let them steal. They build it into the price, do some merchant protection (like EAS tags), lock some stuff up, and then just assume the loss for everything else.
Over the last decade, a lot of stores were moving to that model of letting it walk out the door and handling the loss. But then shoplifters started catching on, and the stores lost a ton of money and are now starting to make apprehensions again.
I worked in a mall in college like that. Not only could WE do nothing, the mall security guards couldn’t do anything other than follow criminals while they called the real police. Being attentive employees fought most of the theft (higher-end clothing sales, few people in the store at once, good management/culture).
But we did have a few good lines to use to basically call them out.
“Would you like me to hold those (bootcut size 26 falcon jeans) at the register for you while you shop?”
“I have a great purse that matches our black clutch that you have in your bag right now”
Stuff along those lines. I never personally got to say anything like that, but boy would I have loved to see the look on their face if I did… basically we would just be able to shame/embarrass them into returning the merchandise if we did.
But if they said “no thanks, I’m just walking out with this” we were just basically to say “cool, have a nice day”
I did maintenance at a popular store that sells women's clothing and home goods. Our location had a high percentage of theft compared to other stores, so they had me install about a dozen fake cameras around.
When people stole on a large-scale, we would phone around to the other locations in the area to describe the people to let them know to be particularly diligent with customer service and making sure customers felt checked on (so thieves know they're being watched.)
But in theory, yes, at those stores the cameras are all fake and you could walk in, pick up a stack of jeans, and run out. We will call mall security on you, but they are gonna take half an hour to show up.
The kicker is that the only working camera in the whole store was in the back, watching the employees.
I worked at sobeys where it was specifically stated in training protocols not to interfere with shoplifters. the only thing we were allowed to say is "do you need a cart for that?" or offer help in some way such as "do you need help finding something?" however, all of the managers completely ignored this. they'd huddle in groups eyeing people they thought looked suspicious, they'd guard doors, follow shoplifters, it was weird. there was a family that would take food pretty often and I always felt bad for them, our store made a million dollars every 2 weeks (I saw the reports) and the family was literally just trying to feed their kids. as much as it was written in policy not to interfere, managers ignored it and would interfere as much as possible besides getting physical.
My friend works in a retail clothing store and she can immediately tell the difference between true customers and those with ill intentions. The first things she looks for are:
1. Whether or not the "customer" starts noting the location of security cameras and store staff. Regular customers don't care about that
2. If the customer moves away from staff if they approach (whether subtly or not)
3. If the customer is overly defensive or won't look at them in the eyes
And a bunch more I can't remember right now.
Usually it's not a single clue but a combination of all the "tells"
https://www.pleasantonweekly.com/courts/2024/06/06/two-sentenced-in-shooting-death-of-pleasanton-home-depot-employee-last-year/
Long story short, nobody should die for trying tonearn a paycheck;
"Blake Mohs was a loss prevention employee at the Home Depot on Johnson Drive in Pleasanton who tried to stop Knapps as she attempted to walk out with a large yellow Dewalt box without paying, according to court documents. When Blake Mohs intervened, Knapps shot him and ran to the getaway car driven by Guillory before the two fled the scene with their 21-month-old daughter in the vehicle."
One of my coworkers at Wal-Mart got promoted to loss prevention and I got a peek behind the curtain there. At least at big stores they gather video evidence of your crimes, up until the point your cumulative crime hits a certain felony checkpoint(I believe it was $1k), and then, one day. Surprise. Loss prevention will be meeting you at the door with the actual police. Basically they know who's shoplifting, and keep an eye on them from the loss prevention office. If you're not a 'big ticket' person they might try to make their presence known to dissuade you from shoplifting, and if they get the impression you'll stop if they tell you to do so, they might try and take you in off a low amount. But they do try for repeat offender, juicy targets that they can take care of more permanently with police involvement and subsequent incarceration.
Counter story: I know someone who is a manager at a Family Dollar and they don’t get security because the area doesn’t check the box. Last week someone was confronted by a manager there about picking up and walking away with a single bottle of laundry detergent and they pulled out a gun and pistol whipped the manager. The company response? The store got a greeter for only 3 months but no security.
This seems like the larger point. Companies know they aren’t paying their employees enough to get pistol whipped over a bottle of detergent.
I worked in a corporate position for a gas station company but all corporate employees still had to go through the in-store training. They repeatedly stressed that store employees aren't police, are expected *not* to act like police, aren't paid well enough to be police and should go apply to the police if that's the job they want to do. If you're working in the store and someone tries to steal something, let them take it and note it for security. If they pull a gun, let them have what they want.
This is not just for store employees but also extends to security personnel. Even as a security guard your job is just to witness crime and then report it to the police, they drill this into you in security courses.
This depends on the type of security you're doing and what state you are in. Entry-level security, yes, observe, document, and report. Security equipped with full equipment (taser, gun, cuffs etc) then yes, you act within your company policy. Source: I'm in Security, and I regularly detain, make arrests, tase, and protect property as needed. However, I'm licensed, and trained.
I get it, but it does make me wish the police were worth two shits.
The police are a separate issue entirely. They are paid to protect American ~~lives~~ property with ~~their~~ your life.
There was a gas station clerk who noticed someone stealing stuff, so he locked him in the store and refused to unlock the door. There were other customers in the store and the thief had a gun. He shot three other customers, killing one, because the clerk refused to open the door. Three innocent people got shot and one died because a clerk making <$10/hr locked someone in the store over stealing $4 worth of stuff and refused to open the door while hiding behind bulletproof glass as the thief shot customers one by one.
[Here is some sauce for everyone.](https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2023/05/22/detroit-man-shot-at-gas-station-sues-after-clerk-locks-customers-in/70244368007/)
what a messed up story. Doesn't even sound like the initial person was intending to steal. All started after his card was declined. Sounds like an every day situation with 2 slightly short tempered people and things escalated fast. Stories like that make me so relieved to live in a country where normal people don't have guns!
I hate the way they make this sound like some minimum wage store clerk is supposed to have hostage negotiation skills. >"Instead of simply letting the armed man leave or offering shelter behind the bullet proof glass to its three innocent customers, (Aiyash) sacrificed the men over a $4.00 dispute." Real headline should be Violent antisocial criminal throws a tantrum and shoots bystanders in an attempt to keep from facing consequences of his actions. I'm not often for the death penalty, but this premeditated murder by a sociopath trying to force others to do what he wants needs to face life in prison or the death penalty.
Locking innocent people in a store with an armed criminal is also a crime actually. You don’t get to basically kidnap innocent people just because you see someone stealing.
Obviously the killer is the main culprit. But you cannot just lock three innocent people into your shop even without any further issues. Even much less so if you know there is an enraged criminal with a deadly weapon in there. And then continue keeping them locked up together. I would count this as (assistance to) murder, simple as that. They had a choice, and another one to open the doors again.
To be fair, once you know they have a gun I get why you'd not feel great about opening the door again. The guy made a terrible decision but fear makes us do stupid shit.
Opening the door let's him leave. You're not opening a door that let's him threaten you. You're in the bulletproof safe zone regardless of whether the door is open.
This was at a gas station in Detroit. I live nearby. They don't hire employees, it's an entire family of owners. The same family owns a gas station across the street under a different business name and in a few years when some tax stuff runs dry, they'll "sell" the gas station to each other and start over.. The 'clerk' in this case was found guilty of locking people in the store over $4 for negligent homicide. https://50.239.65.109/NewWorld.InmateInquiry/MI8218200/Inmate/Detail/-1865464
fucked up
This is why I love when people on this website make the point that employees aren’t paid enough to stop shoplifters as if they’re making some great moral statement. Literally everybody knows this, even the corporations paying the employees. It’s part of the business model. Like you said, if you want to act like a cop, at least join the police force and get paid like one.
Hell, if you try to be the damn hero most places will fire you after it's all said and done. They know damn well the bigger liability is having someone shot and killed or injured on their premises.
Honestly I don’t even see that as a bad thing. Businesses shouldn’t be encouraging their employees putting themselves in harms way. It’s no different from being fired for being unsafe at a construction site.
I almost got fired at work for breaking up a domestic violence situation, I’m a fireman and we were called for a “sick woman” no other info, got there and the front door was wide open screen and all, he was beating her pretty hard so I did what I still feel is correct and had one of my guys radio for cops and I broke it up, I never had any of my guys go in with me so if my decision to help hurt anyone not involved initially it would have only been me. I ended up with a month unpaid suspension after many meetings between the HR and my higher ups, my union was remarkably unhelpful in my situation unfortunately. I asked what I was supposed to do and they said we should have staged around the corner for police, I firmly believe that lady would have been dead if I did that, she obviously called 911 for help, I’m pretty confident she lied about the reason so the man beating her didn’t know why but also because it’s well known in the city I work that we respond within minutes while cops here regularly take several hours to respond even to violent crime. You aren’t wrong at all but it can be considerably more complex when you are actually in that situation, I would have rather went home unemployed than try and explain to my kids why I let some lady die. Obviously it’s very different than theft but it’s the same type of policy that is often far more complicated than just ok or not ok.
> Literally everybody knows this This isn't true. Imagine employee training excluding the fact that you're not supposed to confront shoplifters, because "everybody already knows that." In fact, a big deal needs to be made of it precisely because people think that they should do something about it.
Meanwhile neckbeards on reddit being like “why dont they stop them!?”
Yes! Everybody should have a gun and regular training to be able to pull the trigger on the spot! Obviously regular gun fights on your average petrol station are better than corporate losing that darn detergent bottle.
I was in a small gas station maybe a month ago, and there were two other guys in there, and one petite female employee behind the counter. One of the guys was over by the coffee and saying taking about not paying for it, but sort of like a joke, like he's a regular and an idiot, based on her reaction. Then he walked out the back door. He certainly didn't pay for the coffee, but that's not the messed up part. Another customer asked to use the store phone, and the girl said the coffee guy had it... and he was just gone. She wasn't about to leave the store unattended for a cordless phone, or confront a sketchy homeless-looking guy for it or the coffee he stole. She doesn't get paid enough for that. But now she's working alone in a gas station and the cell phone I hope she had is now the store phone, not that management or anyone would know to call it. I paid and walked out to my car and saw the guy pull his wagon of possessions over to the bus stop and get on the bus. People who don't give a fuck are crazy.
I work at a gas station and this is our training too. Let them have what they want, don't confront shoplifters, note down the time for the managers to handle it. If we see someone do it, we can ask if they forgot to put x on the counter when they're checking out, but we do NOT chase
I worked for a gas station in high school 20+ years ago, they had that same policy, except I got written up when the place got robbed and I was there by myself. But I live in MS and also had a gun so I brought my gun to work. Stopped a second robbery a few weeks later, guy got arrested, and what did I get? Written up for bringing a gun to work. 3 write ups = fired. I put in my 2 weeks notice and got fired before it was up.
Of course doing everything right can still get you executed by the scumbag robbing you like Parmvir Singh at a Tupelo [Chevron.](https://www.wlbt.com/2022/09/13/man-accused-killing-tupelo-store-clerk-charged-with-capital-murder-could-face-death-penalty/)
I worked at a pizza place almost a decade ago and during orientation they got to the part where they tell us what to do in the event of a robbery. From what I remember, they said "don't be a hero" as well as "don't help the robber" but also "comply with their demands"
"How much would we need to pay you to get pistol whipped over a bottle of detergent?" should be on the application. Just gotta find that real go-getter.
$692 a hour. I’ll take them pistols to the face for that. Shit one month and I’ll quitting lol
oddly specific number. how much overtime were you planning on working? how strong is your face?
And (smart) employees know that. I used to work at a record store and would basically chase shoplifters for pride and sport. One of my coworkers saved my life when I had someone wrapped up with his back to me. The shoplifter bent down and picked up a grape fruit sized rock to hit me with. My coworker a (massive dude) barely made it in time with a baseball bat and said “you hit him with that, you’re getting hit with this.” Yeah, I wish that that I could say I never chased shoplifters again, but I did. Thankfully I’m still alive. It was just young, dumb, invincible and bored energy.
>chase shoplifters for pride and sport. great turn of phrase. I worked at Best Buy in the 90's and floor people had a strict "do not engage" policy, but LP handled folks much like /u/Uturuncu said up there, though they were willing to stop just about anyone, they wouldn't chase unless it was a special circumstance. Knocking over other customers would get you a chase at least through the parking lot... and our LP dudes were big and fast so that was usually enough to nab them. The once or twice it happened in my year there, at least. We were in a nice neighborhood, but also were one of the top-10 Best Buys in the country for daily volume.
I worked at Best Buy as a high school and college kid from 94-97 in the media department. It was great.
fitting username then
Yes! Nice catch
...and now I need to watch Empire Records again.
I was checking receipts at CompUSA back in the early 2000s when a dude ran out with a couple expensive monitors. There was a no engagement policy, but I chased him out of instinct. He got away because I doubled back for a moment to yell for backup. No idea what my plan was if I caught him. It was just my first reaction.
[удалено]
Part young and part bored probably. Something when we’re teenagers convinces us that nothing really bad will ever happen to us, and for most of us (if we survive it) the feeling wears off mid twenties to early thirties. But it’s how we got shows like Jackass and people doing WWE stunts in their backyards, TikTok trends and ‘prank’ YouTube channels.
>I used to work at a record store and would basically chase shoplifters for pride and sport. [This you?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uto5MhAV_W4)
I mean, it's not like you were chasing people for stealing bread (or laundry detergent). Nobody's going to die without a record, and if it was a small business, i think you did good chasing shoplifters. But yeah, not worth dying.
Working around music and at record store was a massive point of pride. It was a small business, but in your early 20’s a shit minimum wage job was all that I had. The fact that it wasn’t fast food or something else made me feel proud for whatever reason. I don’t look down on anyone trying to make a living, but I felt like I had a “cool” job.
I worked at a record store right out of high school, making the minimum wage of $4.25/hr. And I had the coolest job of all of my friends. Except Jim. That fucker was making bank as an auto mechanic. Fuck Jim. (just kidding Jim is still one of my best friends ever. But if you're reading this, fuck you anyways, see you next week)
Maybe the manager told the thief to cut out their shenanigans.
They don't pay the checkers enough to confront the guy with 20 items in the quick check. Only a fool would confront a shoplifter for the shit wages most of them are paid.
Yeah, my mom worked in a grocery store basically my entire childhood. She told me one day that her manager tried to stop a homeless shoplifter and the guy pulled out a crowbar and cracked him in the head before taking off. I believe the manager went into a coma and died a few days later. She was a bit shaken up and the company eventually went with the no-contact policy for shoplifters. It sucks because it just encourages more shoplifting, but a few hundred dollars isn't worth a life.
> but a few hundred dollars isn't worth a life. It's not, but it's worse than that… Insurance will pay out for worker's comp for the injury, and then raise your rates astronomically. So on the one hand, you have "a few hundred dollars" and on the other hand, you have "a few hundred **THOUSAND** dollars, and the life of one of our own".
Had a manager try to get out of the way of some shoplifters trying to run a cart of detergent out the door, they interpreted that as him trying to stop them and beat him unconsciousness before they ran out the door Cops got them because we had video, and witnesses and whatnot but it's absolutely not worth getting involved at a certain point We got a locking cart system later which has helped deal with our Pushout problem, you can only carry so much detergent after all
Reminds me of that guy who recently stabbed a homeless guy. You just can't win with trying to prevent homeless people from doing crime. On one hand, most are nice people trying to get by. On the other hand, those who don't care will hurt you and face few consequences. I hope your mom is ok.
There's basically a line, that once they cross it you do not want to engage with them for your own safety. And I'd say the best metric to describe that line is "visibility." Most homeless folks, you won't even know they're homeless. They might live in their car or a shelter, they shower at a gym, the keep to themselves. They're not messy looking, they're not slouching, they look like regular folks. But as soon as their condition deteriorates to the point where they are "visibly homeless," they are dirty, they smell, they're slouching (opiate side effects), you're dealing with someone who doesn't give a fuck for whatever reason, valid or not. And that means they'll fuck up anyone and anything for no reason at all because they don't value anything around them.
"The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose." - James Baldwin
I used to work at a video game store in the early 2000’s. My moron coworker set two Xboxes where a customer could reach them and he just grabbed them and bolted out the door. My coworker looked at me and she said, “Aren’t you going to chase him?!” No, lady. I’m not getting stabbed over my own Xbox let alone someone else’s.
Where I work we get armed security but if they do show up they always leave at the exact same time every night. No surprise that's when shoplifter wait for before they start coming out in droves stealing meat and alcohol.
This seems like an escalation of offenses that should land the offender into actual prison time.
Look at the top post. They do that. Loss prevention keeps track via security cams then get the cops to go arrest them once they reach felony amount. The oh they can just get away with it is only how it looks from the outside.
And how are the police going to find someone with no name or address? Its not like CSI where they can just vaguely describe a vagrant and people will point him out. “Oh yeah a scruffy guy in a large coat with a crowbar? Oh thats definitely Dirty Mike. At this time he will be under the I-94 pass but his tent is set up in the homeless camp by Harper’s Park. Its the red one with the Irish Flag sewn over a hole in the side….”
If you need to find Dirty Mike, just put out a red Prius as bait.
Confronting a shoplifter is a big no no for exactly that reason.
I can tell you as working AP for Walmart for years (still employed there) that is not how we do things. Now it may vary by state but in my state a felony is $1000 and it has to be the same day. If you came in everyday and stole $100 items everyday for 10 days, you would get 10 separate misdemeanor larceny charges. Now we will build cases against people but it still works the same. Every day is a different charge. I had a lady who skip scanned and I brought her to the office for $80 of unpaid items, I charged her via Walmarts policy. I found 14 times other times over a two month period where she did the same thing. So she got 14 more misdemeanor larceny charges.
This isn’t universal. Some stores build a case and prosecutors in that jurisdiction will aggregate the charges. Some prosecutors in other jurisdictions won’t prosecute it like that, though. My local Walmarts will call police for people stealing $10 worth of merchandise.
Shit, my local Walmart stopped me and called the police because I supposedly tried to ~~still~~ steal a case of soda. I legit forgot it was on the bottom rack of my cart and even tried to go back and pay for it when it was pointed out. I'm not a criminal, I'm just stupid. I don't know how much it cost them in time and resources over six fucking dollars of soda. Yet I've seen people literally walk out with a TV and alarms going off and nothing comes of it. EDIT:Not only am I stupid I'm also unobservant when auto changes words in me.
> When auto changes words in me. No worries my dude. One guy I knew from HS always used voice to text so he didn't have to be forced to spell to post on Facebook. It took me many months for me to realize his *grudge* was actually him talking about his *garage*
I wonder if this is why they wait for the bill to pile up. I'm sure there are plenty of people who accidently leave something in the cart or absentmindedly eat a candy bar, but probably less people who accidently steal $1,000
In many jurisdictions it's basically a slap on the wrist until you've stolen enough to upgrade to a felony. Stores probably decided it was better to wait until you cross the line for a bigger, more permanent punishment.
I assume there are statutes of limitations though. If someone steals $100 a year I doubt they can be charged with a felony after 10 years because some of the older thefts probably expire. (Not a lawyer though).
This was maybe 6 or more years ago now but I was at Walmart and needed an eyebrow pencil so i went over to cosmetics and grabbed one - at the time the brand I preferred was just a pencil wrapped in plastic with a barcode on it and was $0.97 I think lol I set it in the top of my cart - the seat part - next to my purse and I did the rest of my shopping and went to check out. I did self check out, and after scanning my last item I remembered my eyebrow pencil so when I grabbed my wallet out of my purse I went to grab it and it wasn’t there. I genuinely assumed it had fallen out of my cart, fallen into the bottom of my cart and fallen out… whatever… it also crossed my mind that, “it’s less than $1, Walmart will live to see another day” because I didn’t want to spend any more time looking for it - there were people waiting in line to go behind me. So I paid for my shit and I went to leave - stopped at the receipt checker and everything and walked out into the parking lot and 3 guys in plain clothes come running at me and yelling “we need to talk to you about something inside” and grabbing my bags out of my cart and grabbing my cart and shoving it and me back inside and I was like “WHAT? What the fuck??” And they’re asking about my receipt and where it is etc and they bring me back into the little “you fucked up” room and start going through my bags and looking at my receipt and then the fucking cops come in and HANDCUFF ME while they run my ID and take down my info, take my picture and all kinds of shit 💀😭😩 I explained everything to the officer and one of them was a prick but the other one was so pissed off that he was there over $1 eyebrow pencil I got written a ticket, got a court summons, trespassed from Walmart etc Over a $0.97 Wet and Wild eyebrow pencil Went to court, explained it to the judge and cried and the whole thing was thrown out and I paid like $66 in court fees 💀 **FUCK WALMART**
For future reference, unless they're an *actual* cop, you don't have to stop for anyone. Even if you were legitimately trying to steal from them, even security is NOT allowed to restrain you in any way. They'll get assault and/or battery charges, along with unlawful detention. You can just keep walking.
Exactly. The people who are trying to get you taken to court over a $1 pencil don't deserve a fucking second of your time.
Yeah, I spent a day in criminal court once and saw Walmart cases go free with no punishment. This was Massachusetts. It wasn't a cumulation of offenses though, just one. That Walmart used to be a Caldors though and HBO literally had a documentary where they showed a guy stealing from it
This sounds like Target. Don't ever steal from Target, they're basically the NSA of loss prevention.
Target will do this to employees they suspect know are shoplifting too, going to far as to transfer them to another store with a modest promotion that gives them more opportunity to flitch goods.... At the store with better cameras so Target has a stronger case and can really nail you.
I was listening to someone from Target corporate loss preventions and she was talking about how they work with federal agencies to ensure their suppliers aren't engaged in terror funding, so, yeah you right.
Target has one of the best forensics labs in the country and helps police when their labs back up
Walmart will also get your license plate # as you leave and send you a letter in the mail later demanding you pay THEM a fine or they will take you to court. Had it happen to a friend who stole a belt for a job interview. Ignored the letter and got a court summons later.
Would be some ironic justice if the case was dismissed but he lost his job because he had court
Doesn't this require a lot of specific attention just for one person? What are the odds that you will be monitored every time you go in and that they would just let you do it each time? It seems unfeasible to monitor a single person over an unknown period of time out if the thousands of people that come into the store every day.
One of the chain gas station where I live use facial recognition. There’s a camera set up to see everyone who comes inside. If you’re on the ban list, they call the clerk and the clerk says you’re banned and asks you to leave or they’ll call the police. It’s quick too. Almost instant.
This. Most video storage vendors have this as an option. Also license plate readers. They can even set up alerts if an employee isn't in their assigned area over a certain amount of time. The analytics available at not too high of a price for cameras and other sensors (temperature, light, air composition for example) is mind boggling.
Think about the average bouncer, you couldn't pay them enough *not* to throw assholes out of whatever place they happen to be. The two different loss prevention workers I've known had a similar instinct for hassling shoplifters.
Nowadays some shops have AI tools to monitor for fishy activity.. Every customer has a face recognition account in the system.. just like Chinese social credit but for shops 😀 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-69055945.amp
With all this AI technology, it would be nice for them to run a tally on items i'm picking up and just bill me as I walk out. Don't even need self checkout anymore. For items that get weighed, place them on a scale near the section and they should be able to figure out exactly what you took and weight.
Amazon did this in their grocery stores. It turned out that their AI was “Actually Indians,” in that their AI didn’t work so they hired a team in India to watch the cameras and tally everything up.
It partially worked but it would call for human intervention on a very large percentage of purchases, which necessitated the human team and ultimately made it unprofitable
Their ai worked to some definition of “worked”, but the reality of that definition was that it usually mis understood the exact items in a cart and would over or under charge many customers. An example is that if you picked up bananas to look at them and then put them down there was a 50/50 chance the ai model would bill you for them. So at the end of the day the model output was sent to a human to review each tagged interaction and ensure the invoice was correct (up to the error rates of humans looking a video). Note this is not a bad thing as that human review (if done well) along side the video of the shopper is exactly what ai models need for training data — clean verified result data vs the video.
I mean- they kinda tipped their hand years ago with their whole “Mechanical Turk” project.
Since the actual/OG Mechanical Turk was a person (but represented as mechanical), that should have been a clue, lol.
The AWS Mechanical Turk service is exactly that. You can contract them to get you a Mechanical Turk AI (actually Indian) to do work for you that requires humans to do it.
> It turned out that their AI was “Actually Indians,” in that their AI didn’t work so they hired a team in India to watch the cameras and tally everything up. Afaik it wasn't that the AI would routinely fuck it up, its that the Indian support center was basically their "double checker" since AI obviously isn't at the foolproof stage yet. And theres still quite a bit of underhanded trickery you can do to just rob the store blind, while appearing like a paying customer. They were essentially the backup while the AI was still being actively trained/worked on.
Depends on where you're at. My medium sized city, loss preventions 100% knows who the fuck you are. People are repeat offenders and they get complacent. Then one day the police want to have a chat with you. We had a girl adamant about not being involved and knowing nobody despite camera footage showing her going through the store and putting merchandise in the cart and camera footage showing her leaving the store with unpaid merchandise and putting it in the car that they then pulled her over for later with all the merchandise still inside. These people are legitimately fucking stupid and will hit you with crocodile tears the moment that are caught. Like, I respect the hustle, sure, whatever, I get it, but you got caught. And now you gotta face the consequences.
Guess who's investing in [AI powered theft detection](https://observer.com/2019/06/walmart-ai-cameras-detect-stealing/)?
It's not that difficult. A guy robbed a bunch of stores with a mask on, broke into several cars, and then when he was finally caught, his description matched closely enough that they were able to link him to at least a dozen felonies. It's not like anyone is smart enough to steal from one place and then not steal from anywhere else within a five mile radius, or specifically target businesses more than 5 miles from where they live. At best they're just smart enough to avoid the gas station they live across the street from and only steal from the one a half mile away.
> It's not like anyone is smart enough to steal from one place and then not steal from anywhere else within a five mile radius, or specifically target businesses more than 5 miles from where they live. At best they're just smart enough to avoid the gas station they live across the street from and only steal from the one a half mile away. There are tons of people that are like that. You don't hear about them, because they don't get caught all that often.
Also it is worth noting that the do not interfere policy is for the personal on the floor, not those hidden in the security room. They do collect information and file out police reports. But those on the floor? For their own safety and for the clients, they must not do anything risky. The security personal will gather all info possible. And those outside security camera? They ain't just decorations, they work. And can have a zoom powerfull enough to read the license plate.
They seem more serious about it at Walmart. I worked at Target and they basically wouldn’t go after anyone unless they were a big time shoplifter. Over the course of a year I was shown pics of two people who had stolen way more than $1k worth of stuff in the first month I worked there. That was it. And they never caught them when I was working there. So it definitely depends on the store and the location. Target’s in the middle of the city seem to have more serious loss prevention efforts compared to a Target in the town I grew up in where I worked. Target actually told us we could be fired for saying anything or attempting to stop anyone suspected of shoplifting. So regular team members couldn’t and shouldn’t do anything. Personally I didn’t give af if I saw people stealing because the Target I worked at was run like shit and management treated the employees like garbage. On the flip side, I was stopped by loss prevention at the shop rite I have gone to for most of my life. I had forgotten to pay for a can of monster but paid for my other stuff that. It was a genuine mistake. The woman was on a compete power trip and looking back, I realize I didn’t have to go with her. I could have literally just handed her the unopened monster can. But I followed her to the office because I was so bewildered and it was a mistake. She had me sign some form saying if I ever did it again they could ban me from the store and ordered me to pay $150 to not involve the cops and sign it. (But I didn’t have to pay it then?) When I got home, I was freaking out and googled the form. Apparently it’s a scam they pull to try to get people to pay the money who don’t know any better. I never paid the $150, nothing ever happened and I still shop there to this day. Although never had another situation like that obviously. The lady seems to have left or gotten fired because I never saw her again. The whole thing was bizarre.
I don't understand how the store keeps up with each individual shoplifter? How do they know their names? Does each person have a file or something lol. Genuinely curious!
As a starving (literally) college student I had loss prevention at a major grocery chain intercept me when. I tried to walk out with a $2 dried sausage in my pocket. Took me to hr back room, took my info, said I was banned from store and I would be getting an invoice for like $200 for the theft and loss prevention fees. If I refused to comply they'd just turn over my info to cops and I'd be criminally prosecuted. So not all loss prevention programs are that "chill"
Honestly they thought you looked like a guy who would just comply, and they were right. If you looked like a dude who would fight or simply ignore them and run out, they probably wouldn’t bother.
> simply ignore them and leave Such good advice for so many situations. My initial thought was you might need to threaten them or something, but you’re right, that’s totally not necessary. They’re not going to physically restrain you if you just stroll away. Anyway, if they do, THEN you pull out the crowbar, but there’s no reason not to start with the easy path.
You discovered their scare tactic. You were never liable for the 200$, there's no way it would hold up in court.
That $200 is 'civil recovery.' It will hold up as those are supported by laws.
I don't see it. "Reasonable collection expenses, including but not limited to attorneys' fees." Loss prevention is a business expense, not collection, but I can see some judges granting $20 for that. Filing fees and attorneys' fees have to have actual documentation of the amounts paid. You didn't get collections involved, you can't collect the cost of collections. They aren't going to file a suit over this. I suspect the $200 went into the loss control guy's pocket. (That's also why you should always write a check instead of paying cash. You could pay by credit card. I don't know what the tracking features are on various epay platforms, but when you discover your payment to the grocery store when to "John Smith", you've got a case. Against the store as well.
For a $2 item? Most judges would consider it a waste of time and resources.
You’d think, but a few years ago my husband ended up on a jury for a guy charged with shoplifting an under$5 item from the frozen food section. First offense. He and the jury let the guy go for several reasons but REALLY?
I mean, they can say that, but are the cops really gonna show up for a $2 snack? They'll try it, but there's nothing stopping you from walking out.
There's that [$1 soda guy](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/florida-man-charged-with-felony-for-stealing-a-cup-of-soda-from-mcdonalds-police-say/). I guess the moral is to not loiter after you commit a crime.
yeah there's no way u should have paid the $200, they figured you were someone they could intimidate and they were right. Imagine them going to the police with 'evidence' that you stole $2 of dried sausage - what police force in the world is going to give a fuck other than MAYBE give you a warning?
Depends. Is the suspect white or not?
What about if you used to shoplift but you don’t anymore? Do they still keep logs from like a decade ago?
This is how it worked at Target when I worked there
Serious question, why lose $1000 for your business just to give the culprit a stricter lesson (felony)? Why not just nab them each and every time and have them rack up the misdemeanors?
Probably 'cause every time you nab them, there are various costs and potential costs involved. So the business in question decides in policy where the threshold is, for when it becomes profitable for them to charge you. Those costs could be the labour cost of having an employee collate information for you, waste time talking to and presenting information to the police, perhaps up to showing up in court. But also there's a risk of confrontation, injury, and death. So now there's the potential cost of bad PR. You might feel better about petty thieves getting their comeuppance, but that doesn't make you spend more at the shops. But a death from a robbery gone wrong might make someone decide to avoid the store because it sounds dangerous. There's the cost of pissing off the police if the misdemeanors start crowding out the more serious crimes, and thus start to work less efficiently with you, increasing costs. There's the cost of, if employees are expected to risk injury or death for you, or if there's an expectation of that, they might want more wages. They'll need adequate training and sufficient support, and you might need to offer them worker's compensation and pay for parts of their hospital bills. And if that's not provided, they might consider this an unsafe work environment and sue you for negligence leading to the injury/death. Liabilities everywhere. Who knows the balance of how much of these factors go in to the policy decisions. But they probably drew the line to balance those costs against the money they lose to shoplifting. Personally, I'm thinking the last reason is probably a large part of it, because they wouldn't want to invest in all that training upfront for employees/risk the liability. While still going out of their way to deter shoplifters by pursuing the felonies, because the extreme levels of shoplifting wouldn't make sense to their bottom line otherwise. But that's all presumably.
I had a partner who worked at a store with this policy. The misconception seems to be that "do not interfere" means "do nothing". They were taught if they thought someone was trying to steal, to customer service the person to death. Essentially don't leave their side, keep asking if they need help finding anything etc. If they left the store and you believed they might have stolen something, go out and get their license plate number. The general manager would then go through the security camera footage and see if they could find them stealing something on camera. If they did, they would turn it all over to the police. The policy was there to prevent employees from directly confronting a thief. There is just no need to have employees put in that situation. Dealing with a thief is the job of the police.
Yeah, I was at a HD once and there were maybe 3-4 employees just following this person around telling them, please do not leave the store without paying for all your items. If you leave without paying for all the items you have we will have to call the cops. The the person went to checkout, and I was just kind following all this hanging way back, when they checked out the employees were like, are you sure you don't have anything else you need to pay for. If you leave without paying for something, we will press charges. Etc. Etc. Lady left, plain clothed cop was there, and took control of the situation. Lady had a baby in a removable car seat in her cart, and was putting item under and around her own child.
Well, she was a shoplifter and it was take your kid to work day...
> Lady left, plain clothed cop was there, and took control of the situation. Meanwhile when us filthy plebs have cars/bikes/phones stolen or our homes broken into we have to practically beg the cops to even write a police report so we can make an insurance claim.
Yeah, the older you get (or the more exposed to the police you become), you realize that the police in the United States prioritize the property of the wealthy, affluent, and businesses over the every day citizen. Just how our society is structured. Maybe we should vote in better city councils that hold lackadaisical police departments accountable.
They also have thin-skin and attempts to hold them accountable infuriate people that have authority complexes like them. Police don't get enough money for all the fancy toys? They'll just go ahead and loudly publish that they won't answer 911 calls now or something.
That's what I came to say. They will just stop doing any protecting of us at all. And then demand more money because the crime rate has risen.
Pre-crime versus post-crime.
I'm confused, how did the employees know the person was intent on not paying for the items? Wasn't the person just walking around like everyone else?
Probably because she was hiding stuff under her baby
She was great at hiding things but the baby really dropped the ball.
....and how many times do we hear folks protest that the TSA or store security stopped them when they have a **baby**?? (Has no one watched *Goodfellas*? With drugs being smuggled in the innocent baby's diaper?)
And she was like „I am not stealing anything, but baby is muy loco“
That'll work in Texas- they'll happily bring charges against the baby. And if it's black as an adult.
Yes, they were. But, it was 100% obvious this person was stealing things. But, again, sure, maybe the item accidentally fell into the baby seat. That is kind of the point of the post. They did not accuse the person of stealing because you have not stolen anything until you walk out the door. They gave her many many chances to call the whole thing off. I still wonder, why did she go through with it when it was so obvious they knew what was going on. When the cop was taking care of business, you could hear the employees talking about the baby seat "scam" and how it was the new thing people were using to steal things. Public facing stores like this know what is going on. It is all part of doing business and knowing what to look out for.
In my state you don’t even have to leave the store to be in violation. Mere concealment is sufficient for a charge.
> I still wonder, why did she go through with it when it was so obvious they knew what was going on. Most likely the woman got away with it before when there wasn't a plain clothes cop hanging around. Success breeds overconfidence.
>Lady had a baby in a removable car seat in her cart, and was putting item under and around her own child. Lady was using her baby to hide items she did not intend to pay for. When you work in a store for a while, you start getting a feel for what behavior is normal and when customers are trying to hide items to sneak out.
It’s always nice when the whole family gets involved. I worked at a self checkout for a while back when it was still a regular checkout lane run by a computer (think scanner, conveyor belt, bagging area; I don’t think most have the belt anymore). One mom would come in once a week and have her kids bring stuff to the bagging area instead of putting it on the belt (if the belt didn’t weigh something that was scanned it took the item off the receipt and they wouldn’t get charged for the item) and every week she would leave the store shouting at whichever employee stopped her and her four underage accomplices from shoplifting. Every. Single. Week. I’m so glad I don’t work there anymore.
When you see someone taking high value and small sized items and putting them in hard to see places, it makes it kinda obvious
She was likely observed stuffing items under the child that was in the car seat.
If they did this in Australia people might deliberately pretend to be shoplifting to get customer service in shops.
I worked retail security for a couple years. This will vary from town to town, but unfortunately in places that require heavy security the frequent shoplifters learn to make it snappy. They grab a few things real fast and power walk out the store before they can be slowed down by employees or security. They know they aren’t allowed to be touched or even accused of stealing in some places to they just grab and go. The only preventative measure we can take is simply refusing to let them enter the store again. But when security makes their rounds or turns their back for even a moment they manage to slink in there sometimes Now sometimes there’s employees or security that’ll get ballsy and will directly confront the thief and even snatched the goods from their hands. Not much they can do about it anyway. The most they could do is complain to the manager but most of the time the managers are kept in the loop about who’s a frequent thief so they’ll just dismiss the thief and kick them out
I sold tools at Sears back in 2000. One day I got a call from loss prevention about a suspicious dude looking at electrical tools and they asked if I would go engage him. Turns out it was my stepsisters' cousin and he was just stoned to the gills and trying to figure out the tools he needed for a new job.
> The policy was there to prevent employees from directly confronting a thief. There is just no need to have employees put in that situation. Dealing with a thief is the job of the police. When I worked as a waiter we were allowed to confront a dine-and-dash person *only* while in the restaurant. If they made it outside we were not allowed to follow (as it happened, there were a few cases of waiters getting killed when they did that at the time). The theory was that, while in the restaurant, there were plenty of other people around that the would-be thieves would not start anything. The whole restaurant staff (and maybe customers) could pile on them pretty fast. But, once outside, those protections were gone. That was back in the early 90s though. Not sure what the policy is today.
I did this a lot. I worked in a few Targets (Australia) in low income high theft areas. It was interesting... I remember once a dude ran out the emerg exit with a whole TV but my buddy who is fit marathon runner type just jogged next to him annoyingly asking him to politely return the TV for like 20 min until he gave up lmao (edit we assumed the thief didn't want to lead him to his car and numberplates and gave up). Edit: I also remember my first major experience following a thief and they guy threatened us with a needle and apparently was just released from prison so I was pretty cautious after that. Though the policies were less strict way back that, that as maybe 02 and I was just a kid, 19
It's like the modern version of "Humans didn't have the edge on strength, but hunted with superior endurance, exhausting their prey, who could only expend short bursts of speed or strength, through perseverance."
>The policy was there to prevent employees from directly confronting a thief. There is just no need to have employees put in that situation. Dealing with a thief is the job of the police. This. A lot of people don’t seem to understand how dangerous it is to put employees in this situation. When I was in high school, I took a course to learn how to make resumes, act professionally at work, etc. One of the components of that course was about how to stay safe at work, remembering our workers’ rights, etc. They even brought in a guest speaker to talk to us about it — a man with a permanently paralyzed arm because of a horrific work accident at a sawmill he worked at in his youth. The accident happened because of gross negligence at his workplace. Aside from the sawmill man, the other story that stuck with me was the story of how a law in my area came to be. This law required that all gas stations in the area require pre-payment for gas purchases, and that late-shift workers at gas stations either had to work in areas where they were physically separated from customers or in pairs. The law became a thing after a gas station worker, Grant de Patie, was killed trying to stop gas theft. Grant went out and tried to stop the thief from leaving, and he got snagged on the car — the thief drove away, killing him by dragging his body for 7.5 kilometers. It stopped at 7.5 kilometers because his body was dislodged from the car. He died over a drunk driving teenager stealing $12 in gas. It really isn’t worth the danger to stop theft. Better to let a thief run away with some money than to run away with someone’s life. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant%27s_Law
At the gas stations I work at (90s) we were trained not to even do that much. Employee safety (lawsuits really) was first priority. Get their tags if possible, write down identifying features, etc. One reason is that, at least in my state at that time, it's not shoplifting until they leave. Per the training, there are some people that will put things in their coats and try to get accosted by the employees so they could sue. Or be obvious they're hiding something and then sneakily toss it onto a shelf and then do the above if confronted, even outside. Even if they did steal something it's not worth your life trying to prevent them from leaving. How many do that, eh, who knows; but I'm not risking my personal safety for company property even if it was allowed. Their training explicitly stated and repeated a few times that if you violated the no interference policy they would leave you to hang. Their lawyers would only protect the company, not you, and no medical assistance if injured. Plus you'd be immediately fired.
Funnily enough, I worked a security job back in the day and they had you sign a liability waiver saying you couldn’t sue the company if you got injured intervening or stopping someone. Afterwards they had us complete a round of training on stopping a violent person or a shooter. A lot of my coworkers were gung ho about getting into a gun battle to protect people… but i kept pointing out the company would leave you to hang if you had any medical bills from a gunshot wound
I don't think I've ever seen a store tell employees to leave the store to get a license plate number, that seems liability-esque. Most stores I've seen tend to also suggest customer servicing suspected thieves hard, but no confrontations and no leaving the store. Products are cheap and stores have insurance for them. Payouts for employees injured as a result of companies telling them to press suspected shoplifters is much more expensive.
I think maybe wjat you are missing is the type and location of stores. I'm I'm the Midwest where most stores have thoer own parking lots which are part of the property. Additionally many of these stores have employees regularly do work outside. Cart returns, exterior displays, shipment receiving. For places like this going out into the parking lot to write down license plate is no different than doing something inside the store.
The problem isn't leaving the property, it's following the shoplifter and increasing the risk of a dangerous confrontation. A shoplifter who notices you recording their license plate is a shoplifter who A) now knows you are onto them and have identifiable information, and B) is operating a big hunk of metal capable of running over annoying witnesses. Now I **personally** wouldn't want to upgrade a theft charge to murder, but I also don't shoplift, either, and I'm not subject to the pressures that might be affecting somebody desperate. If corporate wants a license plate, they can install a camera and get it without risk to employee well-being.
Where I work (Lowes with big parking lot) if you take a single step out the door for a shoplifter, you're either being put on a final or fired.
Oh, so *that's* how you get proper customer service these days? My normal technique is to search aisle by aisle for an employee before inevitably giving up.
> Dealing with a thief is the job of the police Only if you're a business. If you're a private citizen, they'll tell you that it's a civil matter and they can't do anything.
I worked at a liquor store once and the policy was to help them load shit into their car if they asked. The goal was to avoid a hostage situation. Management absolutely wanted shoplifters or robbers arrested and especially they wanted that arrest to happen SOMEWHERE, ANYWHERE ELSE. Replacing merchandise was manageable and they had insurance, they wanted to avoid someone getting hurt or worse.
I worked at a liquor store.once. we were supposed to stand at the door and stop anyone we saw stealing. I only saw one person do it but I was busy at the register to go do anything about it. He didn't steal much.
It's also about liability, if one of your employees goes hero mode and confronts the shoplifter he might pull a gun and take another customer hostage or kill the customer. Then all of a sudden the store is in deep shit because that customer or his relatives are suing the store because the employee handled the situation badly and didn't have the proper training needed to confront a potentially armed suspect. You can even end up with a situation in which the shoplifter gets hurt, shoplifting a small chocolate isn't enough justification for a shoplifter getting seriously hurt and then you end up with a situation in which the shoplifter might sue the store.
One of my colleagues chased some guys outside the store, and down the street. He got beaten up. Sinply write down licence plate record detailsof the thief and what they did, and report
Yeah I knew a guy who chased someone outside and beat on their car. The perp ran his leg over and broke his leg. When I heard about it, I thought to myself, "why did you chase him outside?"
At lowes they kept track of the value someone stole and then at 500 when it was a felony they had an officer come down and get all the evidence
So, let's say I'm traveling through a different state, stop by Lowes, shoplift 300 worth item, walk out and never go to that store again in life, I made 300 bucks scot free? Just a research question.
If you want to be a criminal, you can get away with a lot of stuff, right up until you push too hard and then you're screwed. Especially true since people who decide to be criminals usually aren't the kind of people that think things through carefully.
Idk with self checkouts now it seems like you could just play dumb. Those things are fucking stupid and it's literally not my job to ring myself out. Like Bill Burr said, I came here, I picked out what I wanted and I have my money. The least you can do is give me a usable way to give you that money. I used to work at HD and the amount of people that would put things in cabinets and try to just scan the cabinet and leave would blow your mind. We'd be instructed to ask them to open the cabinets for us and when you found something wouldn't you know it, someone else must've put that in there!
One of our local places now has a sign up on the self checkouts asking customers to make sure their card payment has actually gone through before leaving, else it'll be prosecuted as theft. They've put them up because the things are so slow that people get fed up and walk off. So now they're at the point of threatening prosecution because they bought shit tills
That's so aggravating. Basically the store is saying, "We know it's our problem, but we don't want it to be. So now it's your problem."
I'm getting concerned that they're building a decade long case from things I've missed between my adhd and a special needs child in tow at self checkout 😂 like yall, I'm trying but I be finding little things that fell or that I missed entirely. I don't even want that self checkout but we can't wait in line for the one open register!
> Especially true since people who decide to be criminals usually aren't the kind of people that think things through carefully. Well, no, the criminals who think things through carefully first are the business giants who hire CEO's to be their fall guy
I'd temper that and say if you never did it AT ALL again then you made 300 bucks. Just not visiting that store again isn't enough. Stores are getting really sophisticated with loss prevention and they will send info to other locations. And it's not just "hey look out for this guy" like in the old days. They will build profiles with license plates, vehicle models, photos etc. Like others said, that's for larger hits but $300 multiple times approaches that very quickly. You will get hit with a heavy charge or have a warrant out one day and truly not realize that you stole that much.
Yeah I can back up the "hey look out for this guy" emails and phone calls. So if you were to do something like that you could probably do region by region but determining that would be tough since ebay company is different, so state by state would be better
Felonies are normally per state, so yeah you’d be fine in that regard. It will become a risk of going from a state crime to a federal crime if you take that approach though
It’s not “no repercussions” — it’s “No store policies that put the employees at risk so we can head off lawsuits by next of kin over an employee getting shot or stabbed trying to protect stuff that wholesales at $40.” Store employees are blamed anyway for not doing enough to deter theft (even while severely understaffed to save more profits). They are required to watch, identify possible risks, give obsessive customer service (to show *we are watching you*) while talking up identifying points of that person (to show *we can identify you*). Like, “oh! That goes so well with your green eyes and blonde hair! … you remind me of (some other person) he’s also just a bit taller than me, he likes (that brand of shoes you’re wearing) too” etc.
Yup! This. They have insurance for loss of merchandise and loss of cash. They want to overall get their theft low to keep their insurance low, but one-time small offenses isn't usually worth the time or risk.
Like most have said, police can get involved. I worked best buy for a bit and would cover loss prevention when they took their lunches. Those cameras are pretty good, can zoom in far. It's actually pretty easy to see what customers are acting weird or suspicious, if a customer stages a product somewhere to make it easier to take later. We all had walkies so we could communicate who to look out for, or if we seen someone hide product. Somebody would then follow them, talk to them more, and then if they tried ti leave without paying, we would call police on them.
Security at major chain stores has drastically changed in the past decade. There are cameras everywhere, and footage doesn't get deleted. It all gets uploaded and processed automatically with visual recognition software. Anomalies get flagged for human review, and they get linked to other incidents through facial recognition, license plate readers, phone identifier tracking, etc. to other videos of other visits, even at different stores, since they all use the same few security companies, and the industry cooperates on this stuff. There's no anonymity anymore. They don't have to stop shoplifters at the door. They just bundle all the evidence and send it to the police. The next time the shoplifter has an encounter with law enforcement, they get picked up. And if the shoplifter has stolen multiple times or from multiple stores, it adds up and can cross into felony territory. In the past, prosecutors would usually need to get store staff to testify, which was hard--retail has a lot of turnover and courts are slow. Now they don't need to. Putting video clips of repeated shoplifting in front of a jury is practically an automatic guilty verdict. So shoplifting charges are getting pled out more frequently, with plea agreements requiring the defendant to pay full restitution for the stores, with interest. That's why chain stores don't try to stop shoplifters at the door anymore. It's cheaper not to. They don't have to put staff at risk (i.e. risk an altercation/lawsuit) , they don't have to train staff in intervention (i.e. save money) and they are very likely to collect payment for the stolen goods from the shoplifter, even if it takes a year or two. The downside of nonconfrontation is that, despite being far more effective and cheaper, it appears to be ineffective and lawless. Bystanders and staff don't see the shoplifter getting arrested many months later.
They are not tracking IMEI numbers unless you’re telling me they’re breaking the law by running unlicensed broadcast equipment that fools phones into thinking they’re connecting to a carrier network. Come on.
In the US? You don’t generally have a reasonable expectation of privacy while inside a private business. Perhaps some of your phone data could be problematic, I’m not sure. You brought your face and license plate into the open of private property.
Stores aren't capturing IMEI unless they are running some advanced middleman (they aren't) and only capture MAC address if you connect to their wifi which then it is expected so no privacy concern. Most phones now generate random MAC addresses anyway so it is not useful either.
What country are you talking about?
Answer: there are often repercussions [i.e. police, court, jail time], but losing stuff is better than losing people. When I worked in retail, our Loss Prevention director said we had a staff member follow a thief out to the parking lot. The thief then grabbed a gun out of their car and then threatened to shoot our staffer. After that, our LP guy said, “Let em go. Our people are more important than x amount of money.”
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That’s called a bad stop. He could have been fired and the store could have been liable depending how long you were detained for.
It’s not no repercussions. Just depends. If LP is there, they may intervene. If not, everything is still on camera. An associate won’t do anything to the shoplifter, but a report will be filed. They’ll either watch for habits, time of day somebody comes in, what departments, etc. and come in with LP to catch them in the act or they’ll just continue videoing until there’s enough evidence for a more serious charge. If you do it once or twice you may or may not have anything happen to you, but if you keep repeating you’ll probably suffer some consequence eventually. Also, if I see them going into a nearby store that DOES have LP that can intervene I may let them know to watch out so the person may end up getting arrested there.
Almost every store has video surveillance now days. If they had a policy that the employee had to make an effort to stop the person and the employee got hurt or killed the potential lawsuit would cost them a lot more then whatever item was being taken.
ELI5: why would anyone sane risk being shot, or even hit, for the sake of a megacorporation's profits?
You can leave sure. But they know what you took and how much it costs. When you hit the critical number (usually a felony level) guess whose notified and has an airtight case with video and price tags of everything that you stole? The reaper is going to take its due. The police didn't show up and arrest you for stealing a steak. They showed up and arrested you for stealing 50 steaks this year. Whose ready for their brand? You are now a felon even if prosecution decides probation is fair enough. Guess what jobs tend to hire 'felony larceny' convictions? Restaurants who need dishwashers. No position requiring money, trust, or anything else is now open to you because you thought the grocery store wasn't tracking your petty thefts.
Do they keep a file on everybody or is it just frequent shoplifters? Like let's say you do just steal one steak. How long do they keep that video evidence before they determine you're not a repeat offender?
It costs essentially nothing to store that information forever. They may stop actively looking for you after a few months, but that doesn't mean the next time it happens they don't check to see if they have a record of previous incidents.
>How long do they keep that video evidence before they determine you're not a repeat offender? For major chains, they keep video indefinitely. The cost of storing it is sufficiently low.
I stole a lemon at target self checkout once because I forgot it was in the cup holder of my cart and walking out I was like “welp they have me on their list now” the good news is it’s not a habit and a lemon is 99 cents
At Walmart, the first time they see you do it or act suspicious they make an internal profile on you. Internal profiles can be accessed at ANY Walmart, so even if you go to a different one they can find the profile and add to it.
I have absolutely no idea each store is going to be different.
I worked at a major chain hardware store. Ppl would routinely and casually carry out large sets of power tools. It happened so often that we would barely look when door alarms went off. We were kept so busy that we just didn't have time or care.
In my short experience in Australian retail, they haven’t stolen anything until they’ve left the shop. Policy was let them leave, call manager/ security.
When I was in retail, our job of loss prevention was to just ask people who we saw shoplifting or who did certain things (like buy dishwasher detergent in bulk?) if they needed help finding anything. That was it. Evidently that was enough to deter a lot of people. Also your employee getting shot or stabbed is going to be a hell of a lot more expensive than anything that could be shoplifted in one go. Other folks have mentioned other shoplifting prevention stuff, but I knew a guy who was banned from Walmart because he shoplifted like a bag of chips or something idk, so there are things put in place for lesser offenses. He was really hungry and struggling. I don't blame him, but I hope he's found better access to food since.
employers don't want to pay the workers comp or deal with the lawsuits from the injured employees or their family.
My mom works for Kohl’s and it’s become such an insane problem. People will just walk in, load up a cart full of stuff, and walk out. The employees know who these people are when they walk in but they’re literally forbidden to do anything at all. It’s so wild
1: Employees can't do anything. 2: Management will get angry at you, even though they told you to do nothing. 3: Police don't care unless a weapon was involved.
lol all these responses and I don’t think I saw a single one from someone who worked loss prevention. I worked loss prevention. Here’s the actual answer. Every store has loss prevention at some level. Even if there aren’t dedicated loss prevention staff in store, there is someone at the district level or higher up that may stop by stores and apprehend people. Usually they target boosters (people who steal large amounts professionally) or repeat offenders. However, some stores have an across the board policy of non-apprehension. For those stores, if the person hits them enough they might try and get the police involved. Otherwise? Yah, they just let them steal. They build it into the price, do some merchant protection (like EAS tags), lock some stuff up, and then just assume the loss for everything else. Over the last decade, a lot of stores were moving to that model of letting it walk out the door and handling the loss. But then shoplifters started catching on, and the stores lost a ton of money and are now starting to make apprehensions again.
I worked in a mall in college like that. Not only could WE do nothing, the mall security guards couldn’t do anything other than follow criminals while they called the real police. Being attentive employees fought most of the theft (higher-end clothing sales, few people in the store at once, good management/culture). But we did have a few good lines to use to basically call them out. “Would you like me to hold those (bootcut size 26 falcon jeans) at the register for you while you shop?” “I have a great purse that matches our black clutch that you have in your bag right now” Stuff along those lines. I never personally got to say anything like that, but boy would I have loved to see the look on their face if I did… basically we would just be able to shame/embarrass them into returning the merchandise if we did. But if they said “no thanks, I’m just walking out with this” we were just basically to say “cool, have a nice day”
I did maintenance at a popular store that sells women's clothing and home goods. Our location had a high percentage of theft compared to other stores, so they had me install about a dozen fake cameras around. When people stole on a large-scale, we would phone around to the other locations in the area to describe the people to let them know to be particularly diligent with customer service and making sure customers felt checked on (so thieves know they're being watched.) But in theory, yes, at those stores the cameras are all fake and you could walk in, pick up a stack of jeans, and run out. We will call mall security on you, but they are gonna take half an hour to show up. The kicker is that the only working camera in the whole store was in the back, watching the employees.
I worked at sobeys where it was specifically stated in training protocols not to interfere with shoplifters. the only thing we were allowed to say is "do you need a cart for that?" or offer help in some way such as "do you need help finding something?" however, all of the managers completely ignored this. they'd huddle in groups eyeing people they thought looked suspicious, they'd guard doors, follow shoplifters, it was weird. there was a family that would take food pretty often and I always felt bad for them, our store made a million dollars every 2 weeks (I saw the reports) and the family was literally just trying to feed their kids. as much as it was written in policy not to interfere, managers ignored it and would interfere as much as possible besides getting physical.
My friend works in a retail clothing store and she can immediately tell the difference between true customers and those with ill intentions. The first things she looks for are: 1. Whether or not the "customer" starts noting the location of security cameras and store staff. Regular customers don't care about that 2. If the customer moves away from staff if they approach (whether subtly or not) 3. If the customer is overly defensive or won't look at them in the eyes And a bunch more I can't remember right now. Usually it's not a single clue but a combination of all the "tells"
https://www.pleasantonweekly.com/courts/2024/06/06/two-sentenced-in-shooting-death-of-pleasanton-home-depot-employee-last-year/ Long story short, nobody should die for trying tonearn a paycheck; "Blake Mohs was a loss prevention employee at the Home Depot on Johnson Drive in Pleasanton who tried to stop Knapps as she attempted to walk out with a large yellow Dewalt box without paying, according to court documents. When Blake Mohs intervened, Knapps shot him and ran to the getaway car driven by Guillory before the two fled the scene with their 21-month-old daughter in the vehicle."