Another theft thwarted

[Dark Psion]

Today was a little slow in the garden center, might have something to do with the snowstorm that came thru this morning.

So I decided to do a back-to-front facing; pulling up everything, make sure everything is in the right place and check for discontinued products (I swear some garden decor items are discontinued 5 minutes after we get them).

I get to the wire & plastic fencing and notice a big box on the bottom shelf behind everything. It is a car seat for an infant, why would this be down here? I pull it out and push it to the counter, it is very heavy. About the same time, my dept. manager is coming back from lunch and I show him the box. As we look at the box, we realize it has been opened and resealed ( with better tape than we get to use) and inside is everything but a car seat.

Dvds, rifle scopes, computer accessories, razors, a roll of bubble wrap, all told over $2900 worth of merchandise!

We figure they were going to "buy" the $50 car seat and get everything else as a bonus. Why they hid it I don't know, but I do know that most of the items in the box are items that have security Spider wires on them and nothing in the box did. I later found the spider wires under some bird seed bags, but they had not been cut off, they had been unlocked.

I hate to say it, but maybe I should have posted this under "Cussing out Coworkers".

[mhkohne]

I hope it's not a co-worker, but who knows. Are the keys to the tags unique to your store? A worker would have the best opportunity to set that up, probably with someone else supposed to come do the buy. On the other hand, a worker should also have a better opportunity to get rid of the tags and would likely have used the store's tape.

Did you find the car seat yet?

[Dark Psion]

Yeah, as word spread one of my co-workers said she found a car seat without a box a couple days ago.

[Jay 2K Winger]

Not necessarily an inside job. I'd wager if I set my mind to it, I could find a way to acquire one of the magnets/keys to unlock those "spider wire" theft deterrent devices, and then de-tag the merch I planned to steal, much like these thieves did.

There are plenty of pros and semi-pros out there who would do exactly this kind of thing, and even arrange a distraction near the front end when making their purchases, to distract LP and management while they abscond with their loot.

[paxillated]

I saw a tutorial on removing spider wires with magnets... good thing I'm honest.

[otakuneko]

Yeah, I've seen some of those.

Not that I'd ever use them of course.

[LillFilly]

Shame you didn't leave the box and put a camera on it, to see who came to 'buy' it

[Grendus]

Shame you didn't leave the box and put a camera on it, to see who came to 'buy' it

Unfortunately, they could legitimately claim they were trying to buy the car seat, so even a good sting would still be a waste of time.

[Firecrackers Not Included]

I feel like this mission-to-be was already over. Something scared them off.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

We figure they were going to "buy" the $50 car seat and get everything else as a bonus. Why they hid it I don't know, but I do know that most of the items in the box are items that have security Spider wires on them and nothing in the box did. I later found the spider wires under some bird seed bags, but they had not been cut off, they had been unlocked.

I hate to say it, but maybe I should have posted this under "Cussing out Coworkers".

Easy--so somebody else can pick up the "car seat" after they've been told where to look for it.

I'm thinking this probably isn't an inside job. Just a professional thief who knows where the camera blind spots are, and who knows how to remove spider tags.

Shame you didn't leave the box and put a camera on it, to see who came to 'buy' it

That might be a good way to accuse an innocent person of shoplifting.

[Dark Psion]

Shame you didn't leave the box and put a camera on it, to see who came to 'buy' it

Actually my plan was to put a badger in the box, replace it and wait for the screams to stop.

[Kanalah]

I like the way you think, sir.

[Mystic]

Does LP have a camera on the area so they could look back and maybe see who put it there?

[pzychobitch]

Someone's either very desperate or part of a larger operation. Those keys that are used to unlock spider wraps and magnetic merch locks can run into the thousands of dollars.

[wolfie]

Security through obscurity. The "official" keys may cost thousands, but if someone manages to steal a wrap to "play with", a technically-inclined person could probably figure out in a couple hours how to make a usable key out of ten bucks worth of rare-earth magnets. Easier if they steal 2 wraps - one to take apart to examine, one to leave intact for key testing.

Only needs to be done once, and the "recipe" (how to arrange the magnets) circulates through the underworld.