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I used to work at Walmart in Flint Michigan. I have seen it all. And the worst part is I can't do anything about it. When I'm ringing up items and clearly see someone stealing, I can notify my manager, who will arrive in another 10 minutes, who then has to notify security, who then has to personally witness the offender stealing off the shelf abd then out the store, no hearsay, they are the only ones that can touch someone. I as a cashier could not accuse, tell, suggest, or insinuate that a customer could be stealing. It was horrifying to have a customer run up to me and say someone is stealing and I say, okay, thank you. And they're like, "WHY ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE " And they get really upset. I say I can't do anything about other than contact my manager. "BUT YOU ARENT GOING ANYWHERE" I explain that I paged my manager through my register, through these magical things called action codes. Meanwhile, the theif is long gone, and I have another manager from a different department looking at an angry customer so they now have to come over and distract them from their annoyance. You wouldn't believe how angry some people get. The only things I am allowed to stop leaving the store alcohol, cigarettes, and miscellaneous items like super glue, certain medicines, paints, and acetone that you have to be a certain age to purchase and must show id for.
Quite sad, really.
I used to work at Kmart, and we were instructed that if we saw theft, to report it to management or loss control. DO NOT apprehend the suspect. The most the training video covered was if you stared at the person, many of them drop the merchandise and leave the store.
I was told by a coworker that they do NOT want to deal with lawsuits if you were mistaken. Another coworker told me that it's not our jobs, we had plenty of things to do anyways (stocking shelves, labeling stuff, or cashier if you worked at checkout).
Many years later, I saw a movie where a high school graduate worked at an amusement park for a summer job. He was working at a "ring toss" attraction where he called a player out for clearly cheating. The girl who was with him in that kiosk told him to not confront him, and to let it slide. He asked her why let him get away with that? Her response was "Do you really want to get knifed over a plushy panda?"
This is a small thing, but twenty years ago I was once going to lunch with several of my employees. For some reason, we needed a newspaper (Pre-Smartphones). So a junior employee walks up a paper machine, sticks in fifty cents and takes out four newspapers. Not one, four.
Having worked at a newspaper early in my career, I knew those newspaper boxes were filled by some guy who owned the route. So I made my employee put another fifty cents in the machine and put two of them back.
I don't know about you, but if someone is dishonest in small ways, he'll be dishonest in big ways down the road. After that, I never fully trusted him again.
Here, following your lead, could you have reported this to someone? He's probably going to keep on doing this.
Reminds me of a story how a classmate's father forgot to pay a bill. He let it lapse long enough that he owed an extra $400 or something as a late payment. His father called the company, and made up some cockamamie story about why he wasn't able to pay, and how the late fee should be waived. The employee initially responded by saying sorry, the it's still considered late. He eventually waived the late fee. The group that listened to this story... one person commented how his father was clearly in the wrong... why not take responsibility for it and pay the fee? Another person admired this, saying the employee should've been more firm if he really did want him to pay that late fee. His father gets to keep an extra $400 in his pocket.
This is indeed how some sales and job seeking pitches turn out to be done deals. Some things can be negotiated, and it's such a gray area at times.
I work retail, and we spotted a suspicious guy taking shirt after shirt into the fitting room and not bringing any back out. We started watching him and called the police to stop by. When he went through the register he only had one small item so the cop asked to speak with him. When they frisked him, he had all kinds of stuff shoved down his pants.
He went out in handcuffs and we felt great. We seldom catch these idiots, so it was one for the good guys.
There's a deli in my neighborhood that has bread and pastries delivered by a bakery. The bakery leaves a large box of baked goods outside of the deli around 6 AM which is before the deli is open. I saw a skinny old lady reach in the box and take a loaf of bread and disappear around the corner. If I had caught the old woman I would have given her money for food.
Once, my 4 year old stole a tiny troll doll. Took her back to the store to give it back and apologize. The lady who owned the store wanted to let my child keep the stolen toy! I had to explain that I was teaching my child not to steal.
There's a big difference between a hungry person like the lady up thread who stole a can of milk and some oatmeal and the people shoving DVDs in their pants.
There's a deli in my neighborhood that has bread and pastries delivered by a bakery. The bakery leaves a large box of baked goods outside of the deli around 6 AM which is before the deli is open. I saw a skinny old lady reach in the box and take a loaf of bread and disappear around the corner. If I had caught the old woman I would have given her money for food.
Once, my 4 year old stole a tiny troll doll. Took her back to the store to give it back and apologize. The lady who owned the store wanted to let my child keep the stolen toy! I had to explain that I was teaching my child not to steal.
There's a big difference between a hungry person like the lady up thread who stole a can of milk and some oatmeal and the people shoving DVDs in their pants.
OMG I hate that! It happened once with my kid when he was 3. He didn't know he was stealing but I wanted to make an impact. The lady wanted to let him keep it. But there are other things when you try to parent and people are "no its ok". Ugh! Even with pets. We have a new dog and he is a big guy and he keeps trying to jump up on new people that come over. I correct him and 1/2 the time they say its fine and encourage him to jump up on them more. I have to explain why I don't want him to. I know its well intentioned but it drives me nuts.
My town had a supermarket that had a liquor store inside of it. One day the cops were called to the store because a woman had come in, grabbed a bottle of vodka, opened it, and proceeded to start guzzling it right then and there.
One of my college jobs was working in a very upscale gourmet foods and liquor shop. It was rare to have an unruly or rude customer since 99% of them were looking forward to going home and getting happily smashed. I never had someone try to shoplift or guzzle a bottle of Courvoisier on the spot but I did get invited to a lot of parties.
Many years ago I walked into my local market to do the weekly shopping on one very hot day. Just before me walking in was a young man dressed in a long sleeve baggy sweatshirt and the sweats to go with it. Well my training/observational skills set in seeing this guy that was "overdressed" and not using a shopping cart. He passed by me in the produce and then I moved along to the meats section. There he was putting a very large London broil in a plastic bag as I passed by him once again.
A few minutes later I'm waiting to buy my groceries and then I see the sweatshirt guy again walking toward the checkout, then past it nearly to the exit doors. I told the checker as he passed the checkout "stop that guy he has stolen meat in his pants". The manager over heard and immediately stopped the guy before he could exit and confronted him about the theft. Yep the guy had it, one large London broil in a plastic bag which he handed over to the manager. The manager let the thief go because law enforcement would just issue a misdemeanor ticket.
I was a witness to something similar. A woman was allowing her preschool aged daughter to eat raisins from a package in the store. Its perfectly legal and stores encourage it because it keeps parents shopping longer when their little ones get hungry. You just have to keep the package so you can have it scanned when you check out.
A woman came up to the mother and starts shouting at her about her daughter stealing, then gets in the little girl's face and starts shouting at her for being a thief. The little girl was crying and the mother was on the verge of tears herself. As soon as I realized the mother struggled with English not being her native language, I stepped in to explain it is perfectly legal and just to back up the mother and try to help explain to her and the other lady what was going on. Of course the busy body got the manager who quickly apologized to the mother and gave her the raisins for free and explained to the busy body that it is perfectly legal.
I told her that she can get a free cookie for her daughter at the bakery every time she shops and she was super excited to hear about that
There is a market near me that offers a free piece of fruit, and another offers a free cookie, which certainly helps to keep people happy when shopping. This thread reminded me of the incident with my niece, and I mentioned it when I saw her earlier today, and we both started laughing. She said that she thinks the "bad lady" fled the country the way that she ran out of the store. The most galling aspect of the false accusation was someone daring to scream at someone else's child when there was an adult present.
I had to chuckle when my niece told me that she was at the same convenience store where the owner didn't charge me for the newspaper, and I insisted that I had to pay for it, and saw someone steal two bags of ice. She said the car drove up, a lady got out, quickly took the ice, and got back in the car, never going into the store. She told me that I needed to let the owner know about the situation so she could review the video tale. I my niece if the lady in question was younger and driving a silver Acura, and she said that she was, and had black hair. I laughed and said that the "shoplifter" is the owner's daughter, and she and her husband own a restaurant, and may have needed extra ice, but I'm sure she reimbursed her mother, though she also works at the convenience store for free when there is a staffing shortage. You need a key to open the outside ice bin, and my niece never caught that in her sleuthing, but I thought that was too funny.
Tonight, I went to a large big box store to get a replacement battery tender because I've had issues with an old one due to a frayed cable. When I opened the unit that I bought new, it was scratched, and had no instruction manual in it, and the seal on the box was broken. No doubt this was a "purchase-rental" that was purchased, used for a period of time, and then returned. Sold in new condition, too, and I am not convinced that it is even functional because when I plugged it in, the indicators lit up and then stopped, but came back on again. So, it goes both ways with some retailers, where there are members of the public who steal from them, but then turning around to sell a clearly used item as new to an honest customer because of dishonest practices and failure to return a potentially defective product to the manufacturer for credit. It was never inspected because it could not be sold at new, especially missing warranty documentation and an instruction manual. So, I have to go back to the store with the unit, and return it, but I will go to a different branch where the manager is a bit more aware of products in the store.
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All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.
~William Shakespeare (As You Like It Act II, Scene VII)
I find it funny that since the vast majority of folks at one time or anther shoplifted for you folks to be so judgy.
That includes you old guys who eat grapes on line before weighing them.
Where do you get the idea that the 'vast majority' have shoplifted?
I work in retail and I know how bad it is and that people in all walks of life do it, but I hardly think that practically everyone has done it.
And for the record I've never shoplifted, I remember how horrified I was as a young kid when I discovered a friend of mine shoplifted while we were together at the corner store.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HighFlyingBird
Its perfectly legal and stores encourage it because it keeps parents shopping longer when their little ones get hungry.
I think I'd check with the store first. I know we certainly don't encourage our customers to eat items that haven't been paid for first. Generally it means we have to waste time making sure they DO actually pay for it at the register, and a good many seem to 'forget' until they are reminded, it's a PITA
Speaking of, I think if you take a refrigerated or frozen item and decide you don't want it and stick it on a shelf...that is stealing. The store cant sell a melted or warmed item. When I worked in a grocery store I found more then one item like that a day and had to toss them. Enough to feed a small family. Especially gallons of milk...I have no idea why people grab a gallon of milk and then stick it on a shelf later.
I've seen someone return an unopened bag of shredded cheese he just bought, a minute ago. After processing the return, the employee threw it directly into the trash. I guess they have regulations about this sort of thing , but it really was literally a few minutes ago on the same day!
Quote:
Originally Posted by cpg35223
Sure it does. It drives up prices and forces store owners to impose greater levels of security, thereby costing you money and convenience. Not to mention that it forces retailers to consider every customer, you included, a potential thief.
Hate to break it to you, but it sounds like they should be considering EVERYONE a thief if they really wanted to cover their ends.
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I know its well intentioned but it drives me nuts.
, but it really was literally a few minutes ago on the same day!
