stop thief!

[Luna]

What do you do when the thief is a little toddler - perhaps no older than 3?

This is what happened to me last week. I want to say it was last Saturday but I can't remember. The whole week has felt like one long day for me.

I'm counting money at the register. Other employee is sweeping the store. Out of the corner of my eye I see a little girl waddle in. She grabs a toy from a shelf on one of the front fixtures. Kids play with the stuff all the time - I don't care. I kept counting.

Then I see her attempting to carry the toy (which is almost as big as her) out of the store. I stood there open mouthed. From the very corner of the window where you can see out into the mall - a woman is standing there beckoning the little girl to come to her in a very conspiratorial way.

I then realize that this woman is coaxing the little girl to steal the doll. I shut the register and follow her out of the store. The woman already had the kid in the stroller and was trying to shove the doll into the back of the stroller while walking. She was almost 2 stores down when I caught up with her.

Luna: Excuse me! Can I have that back please? We have to pay for things before they leave the store. (last sentence directed to little girl in my trying to not bite sickly sweet voice - but the glare was all for the mother)

SC: Oh??? This? Oh! This is from your store? I didn't know where it was from!

Luna: Uh-huh. Right. *takes doll back and RUNS back to store*

Now yes, I probably should have called mall security but frankly - I was so shocked to see it that it slipped my mind. I've been with this company for almost one year now - and I've never seen that happen. I was so used to it at old music store hell job, and from the bookstores. It was a daily routine - chasing people down. I was simply dumbfounded. Plus, it was just me and another employee - and I wasn't supposed to leave the store in the first place - which is why I literally ran back.

Have you guys encountered situations where parents are encouraging their children to steal?

[TWOLF]

I've seen inventive ways to steal but this one takes the cake. I can't beleive how stupid someone could be for getting their kid to do thaat.

[TruthHurts]

When I was working at the resort we had this huge family stay over. They continually requested dozens of our complimentary tea bags. Soon over the span of two days they had accumulated at least 50 bags and weren't using them. The boss told us not to give them anymore. I cleaned their room and was cleaning the next room when I heard a rustling in my cart, sure enough there was a three year old girl grabbing handfuls of tea with her mother telling her to grab more. I was totally dumbfounded that she would so willingly teach her kids bad behaviour for something as simple as tea bags.

[Rapscallion]

Closest I've seen was CCTV of a mother shoving a case of coffee into the back of her child's pushchair (stroller?). It ended up with so much weight in there that the pushchair fell over backwards.

The shop had only opened that day, and it was a front for a television program to show how rife theft was. I thihnk they caught about twenty thieves on camera on the shop's first day.

Rapscallion

[Knightmare]

I wound never ever ever ever in a million years teach my daughter how to steal. Unless there was a billion dollars in diamonds sitting open on a counter and the only was in was thru a small ventilation duct. Then maybe.

[JustaCashier]

I almost want to say that I am dumbfounded and surprised, that anyone would encourage a child to steal, but knowing the absence of character that many of our species have, I am actually neither.

Also, as an knee-jerk reaction to this, I want to say many things about, and describe many things I'd like to see done to, this creature that, I assume, provided an egg, and gave nine months of pre-birth incubation to this poor little girl, but doing such could get me an infraction, or banned.

So, I'll just leave it at this.......

To the little girl, I wish for you to find, asap, someone with integrity to take over raising you.

To the scum that got the girl to do that, today's your lucky day! You get the double-whammy special!

First...... Then......

Mike

[Imogene]

I have an odd theft story, but it's only vaguely related to the Original post.

Chesterfield (surprise)
First few months working there.

Major players:
OS: Old SM
PA: Prior Anime geek
KK: Knicking kid (I've been picking up some British, what can I say?)

KK comes into the store, wanders a bit, leaves. Comes back about twenty minutes later, leaves, repeat until we're all absolutely certain he's a bit slow. Eventually, he finally wanders in, grabs a VHS (old story, I told you), and beelines out the door, setting off the alarm as he goes. He stops in the sensors, covers his ears, and walks out anyway. He wanders across the hallway to the Victoria's Secret.
PA: *jumps out from behind the desk as I come wandering up, follows KK into Vickie's.*
Now, we had a perfect, unobstructed view into Vickie's because of the positioning of our stores, PA wanders about halfway into the store, stops, gets a horrible blush all over his face, looks up, soldiers on, grabs the tape from KK, and returns to the store.
PA: *hands off open copy of Three Caballeros* He opened it and was trying to play it in Vickie's little trailer TV. The one they have that's a TV/VCR combo.
Oh, kay...

[Gawdzillers]

I have heard of these kinds of situations.
Namely,
SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
(seriously, young boys were encouraged to steal as their training for the military).

[TWOLF]

Or someone sticking porkchops in their kids clothes.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

This happened not terribly far away from me.

We sure have the winners in this state, I tell you.

And in my hometown, we had a family of people who stole thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from the Wal-Mart down the street and would've done the same at my store if the Wal-Mart hadn't called us to let us know what happened. The manager had the employees stand guard by the emergency exits in the store while he got in his car and drove around to the back of the store to find their waiting car parked by the exit I was standing by. They took off right away.

Sadly, it's not as uncommon as you may think.

[DesignFox]

Luna...I'm shocked! I can't believe the NERVE of that woman! I've seen some things...but but...I can't fathom that!

[ShortTemperHatesStupidity]

Damn they train em young these days... I feel bad for the girl, she's gonna grow up feeling like she has to be a thief to win her mothers affection.

[Tria]

I wound never ever ever ever in a million years teach my daughter how to steal. Unless there was a billion dollars in diamonds sitting open on a counter and the only was in was thru a small ventilation duct. Then maybe.

Cue Mission Impossible Theme

[Tria]

This happened not terribly far away from me..

Fagin operation

[greensinestro]

That story really beats many of the ones I've heard of parents doing with their children. Sounded like this was her way of getting around being charged with shoplifting, so she's teaching her kid to do it. My daughter once stole a votive candle from Cracker Barrel, but she was two at the time and had grabbed it being kids do things like that. I have tons of candles at home and did not need to have my daughter steal one for me, plus we were half way home by the time we realized she had it in her little hand.

This parent is pathetic, if you can call her a parent by teaching her not even in Kindergarten yet child to steal. What's going to happen when that kid is older?