___est shoplifting story

[Antisocial_Worker]

Walking into the store dressed as a Wells Fargo man, he approached customer service. CS directed him back to the Cash Office. Walking back there he knocked on the door and waited. The Cash Office said that he 1.) Wasn't supposed to come in the store, and 2.) Wasn't pictured on their list, so they couldn't give him the money. The guy smiled some and said "Oh great. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm new at this. Tell you what, call the company and they will vouch for me." The Cash Office clerk, and Manager thought it over, decided that he was OK, and handed over the deposit. Turning around, the robber walked out the door, smiling for the camera, never to be seen again.

The reason there's no longer an ATM in a local mall here is that the same thing happened. Someone put on a security guard costume, brought in a dolly and said the ATM was broken, and wheeled it right on out.

[Dreamstalker]

Jordan is amazed how he was able to get unchallenged into "authorized personnel only" areas on a construction site wearing only a baseball cap with the company logo (he's working construction now and does work for the company in question, but is surprised that nobody asked if he was really supposed to be there). You used to be able to buy old UPS/FedEx uniforms on ebay, but that's been banned probably for this very reason.

[CrazedClerk]

A friend of mine once asked me who's the greatest con artist I've ever encountered.

I related a story about someone who'd tried to swindle a store I worked at.

When I finished my friend promptly told me that I was wrong, the swindler was not the greatest con artist I've ever met.

I asked "how do you know that?"

He said "because the greatest con artist you ever met never had you thinking for a moment that he was a con artist."

My friend is right, some of these people are so damn good you never suspect them until it's too late.

[Mighty Girl]

When I worked at Jewel Mart, we kept hearing rumors that business wasn't doing too well, which seemed strange since we usually had a good amount of customers in the store.

Suddenly, I came in one day after my classes and several people had been fired and a lot of people had their hours temporarily increased A LOT. Turns out, after closing about 3 or 4 managers and maybe 3 other people (like stockboys or cashiers, I can't remember) were taking TONS of stuff- VCRs, TVs, jewelry, cameras, lamps..... you name it. And the idiots that they were, they were walking right in front of the security cameras as they were carrying the stuff. They assumed since the store was closed, that the cameras were turned off I guess. The dumbest part is- they apparently had been taking stuff for over a year, and the company only finally put in security cameras at the loading dock a week before they were fired.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Well, I might have an interesting shoplifting story in a while.

We've been having a large black guy coming into the store and ripping off ipods. The ipods are merchandised on peghooks in special, plastic protective cases and the guy is so strong, he just breaks open the case and takes the ipod.

He had been doing this with a couple other guys, and LP got at least one of them. Apparently, the other guy is not ratting out the thief. Our LP girl is afraid to confront the thief because he is so big and strong. Plus, during a recent shoplifter chase, the store manager got pinned up against the wall of the store by the person being chased, another teammate chasing him got injured, and corporate LP seems to be discouraging chasing shoplifters because of the possibility of teammate injuries.

I imagine if we do ever have to take him down, it will be a sight to behold.

[Tanasi]

A customer of ours decided that our software and support was too expensive decided to go with Micros for their POS system in a very busy FL hotel rest/bar. Two bartenders that had became shift leaders and closers always made a point that they would close the place down every night, they would even come in on their day's off to close (just being nice guys). About 18 months after they started being so nice, they got busted and through an audit of the POS it was discovered that they had taken about $200K. There was a major hole in security in the Micros POS system that they exploited. They would change the price on steaks from 22.95 to 19.95 run their paperwork, change the price back to 22.95 and pocket the difference. The hole was the system that it didn't make log file entries of price changes and the sales price wasn't written with the sales record but relied on item price. The new F&B mgr noticed that his projected sales was significantly less than actual but sales numbers were met or surpassed and promo's didn't offset the difference. I guess you'd have to be into computer/accounting forensics or just a huge nerd to find this interesting. When my bosses found out that this had happened they questioned if this could happen to our system. Answer no, and only 3 people in the world could do this and cover their trail. That was myself and the other two guys that wrote the system, since we didn't actually use the system in the field and handle money it was secure. I've heard several kids talk about security holes but they've never be able to produce said errors and independent auditors confirm our system is secure and has done so several times over the years.

[Blinky]

Well, I might have an interesting shoplifting story in a while.

We've been having a large black guy coming into the store and ripping off ipods. The ipods are merchandised on peghooks in special, plastic protective cases and the guy is so strong, he just breaks open the case and takes the ipod.

He had been doing this with a couple other guys, and LP got at least one of them. Apparently, the other guy is not ratting out the thief. Our LP girl is afraid to confront the thief because he is so big and strong. Plus, during a recent shoplifter chase, the store manager got pinned up against the wall of the store by the person being chased, another teammate chasing him got injured, and corporate LP seems to be discouraging chasing shoplifters because of the possibility of teammate injuries.

I imagine if we do ever have to take him down, it will be a sight to behold.

An old friend of mine used to work LP at a local grocery store. He told me that their has been a couple times where he was scared to take a guy down because of his size. The funny thing is that most of the bigger guys he had to get didn't put up any fight at all! One of them even broke down and started crying in the middle fo the store.

[CrazedClerk]

"Well, I might have an interesting shoplifting story in a while.

We've been having a large black guy coming into the store and ripping off ipods. The ipods are merchandised on peghooks in special, plastic protective cases and the guy is so strong, he just breaks open the case and takes the ipod.

He had been doing this with a couple other guys, and LP got at least one of them. Apparently, the other guy is not ratting out the thief. Our LP girl is afraid to confront the thief because he is so big and strong. Plus, during a recent shoplifter chase, the store manager got pinned up against the wall of the store by the person being chased, another teammate chasing him got injured, and corporate LP seems to be discouraging chasing shoplifters because of the possibility of teammate injuries.

I imagine if we do ever have to take him down, it will be a sight to behold."

This may sound cheesy, but if there are any Professional Wrestling or Mixed Martial Arts organizations in your town you could probably find someone who could go toe to toe with this guy for a very modest fee.

I bet you could find a massive wrestler to do it for less than the cost of an Ipod.

[Plaidman]

I think the worst theft I've dealt with was th older man clamming that he worked for the city. So I said ok, and he took the garbage. Manager came in, as what was going on. He repeates that he works for the city. Manager cries bullshit. So the thief just run out the stoor and droop it on the grounf, thrn walked out.

[Rocko]

We have been getting people passing fake reciepts from our store. We had a few walk away with TVs and the like. As a result, the door greeters have been very anal about checking reciepts on big items and have become much more suspicious of people. It paid off because yesterday they stopped a guy from walking out the door with $2500 worth of DVDs and CDs. The dumbass tried to walk out the door with all of these stuffed into a tote bag, and the greeters had to check the bag. He got caught, held, and arrested. Of course, it was likely he would have gotten caught anyways, as all the merchandise was in the original packaging, complete with security sensors

[PorkChop]

This pissed me off the most. Several months ago, we had a beer run. No big deal right? Well, the thieves were 11 years old!!! They took that 18 Bud Light pack and ran out the door. Our policy is a do not confront or chase, so I had to let them go. What kind of parent would let their kids be out and about on a Friday night at 1AM!!
Good god, I hope those kids had massive hangovers!

[OfficeSlug]

I worked at Target during the summers in the mid-90s (come home from college, screw around for 25+ hours a week, party the rest of the time, you know how it is)...

Not really shoplifting, but internal theft, this story is.

Three guys (one was in Electronics and had keys) would put big 25" televisions and VCRs and stereos onto flatbeds and tell their department manager that they were going to help a customer out with their purchases. In front of everyone, they'd make a big show of looking for the customer who had just "purchased" the equipment and "probably went out through Lawn and Garden"...

What they were really doing was loading up the cage (the back end of the store, away from the cameras and register) in the Lawn and Garden center (one of the OTHER guys had the keys).

Then, late at night, they'd come back and unlock the OUTSIDE door to the cage and remove all the equipment into their personal vehicles!

It took 3 months for security to figure out where everything had been going!

[dizzy_starshine]

This lady came in and imediatly started to fill her shopping bag from another store with goods. I told the manager who approached her and asked out right what she was doing. The lady said she was just holding them till she got to the till as she's allergic to the plastic used in our shopping baskets o_O O_O O_o.
The manager then pointed out that our baskets are metal with no plastic, took the goods out the bag and showed the lady the door.

[Cosmic Cat]

A customer tried to run, actually shuffle very slowly, out the front door with a giant industrial compressor. She got caught of course.

The most annoying shoplifters are the ones who open a package of socks or underwear, steal one pair, and stick the package back on the shelf! Then the store can't sell the package, but at least the remaining underwear/socks get sent to charity.

Edit: I have more stories.

A guy came in and paid for his merchandise with a $500 traveler's check. A few minutes later, he "changed his mind" and wanted a refund. There is no such thing as $500 traveler's check.

One night someone robbed the store! He took a crowbar and smashed up all the jewelry cases. Fortunately, the alarms are so sophisticated that the slightest movement will cause them to alert the police, and he was caught.

[Barefootgirl]

This may sound cheesy, but if there are any Professional Wrestling or Mixed Martial Arts organizations in your town you could.

While its touching how much faith you wrestling and martial arts fans put in your peers' abilities, I somehow think that bringing in civilian help to apprehend a shoplifter is a really, REALLY bad idea. You don't know what else that guy has in his pockets apart from ipods, and no matter how big and muscly a wrestler or MA might be, i suspect he's not blade-proof.

A much simpler solution might be to put the Ipods behind the counter instead of out on peghooks.