Shoplifting stories?

[Foxglove8778]

I worked in a music store selling cds and cassettes. Just after clocking in, I was treated to watching my manager confront a young man leaving the store by stepping in front of him and saying "Take it out, wipe it off, put it on the counter and get out."



The young man begins to protest that he didn't have any idea what the manager meant...

"Dude. You are too stupid for me to have arrested. Look. "

Young man had put Metallica's black album down the front of his white jogging pants... not only had the manager seen him do it, the black rectangle was clearly visible as was the security cage outline that the cd was in....

I would have pressed charges... but it was the "wipe it off and put it on the counter" that sticks in the memory.

[rerant]

The one major shoplifting story I have comes from when I worked at Wal Mart.
It also involves employees.
You know those little Telzon barcode printer/scanning gun things? Well some people were making tags for items that cost $1 or less and scanning them in place of more expensive items.

Here's a list of what I remember them getting away with:
Playstation 2 and games
XBox and games
Gameboy Advance and games
DVDs
Cameras
Miscellaneous clothing and acessories

Management finally caught on but had to be able to prove what was happening so they were closely monitoring the pruchases of some employees.
One night one of the male cashiers who was in on it was ringing through a sporting goods employee who was buying nothing too fancy. I think the most expensive item was a toilet seat.
Anyway, on his way out a manager stopped him and asked for his reciept, saying it was a new LP rule for employee purchases.
Well sure enough she saw what was going on and hauled him and the cashier into the LP office.

NINE people were fired that day, since the two guys who were caught gave details into everyone else who was in on it, what they took, when they took it, etc. and once confronted all the others folded like cheap suits.

They constantly tried to get me to scan these made-up barcodes for them and I refused and I'm thankful I never did, even though they got on my case pretty hard about it.

[Trayol]

I recall a few stories that my Manager has told me.

1. About a year ago, a woman tried to scam him into giving her money by claiming that a product she had received was tainted in some way. Her attempt failed epically when she alluded to our store being the only one of its kind. Since my Manager had worked for the company for about 15 years and new there are 50 stores in 4 states, he gave her jack squat.

2. When my Manager first transfered to this store five years ago, he had to fire about half the staff within the first few months. Besides stealing money from the registers, some of the employees would have their friends come through drive-thru, have the order made and give it to them for free. He caught them doing this because only a manager could cancel out a transaction and the former workers did it a lot.

[ArcticChicken]

This one happened when my mom was in college. I don't remember the exact circumstances, but mom was in the parking lot of some grocery store when a heavily pregnant woman came out of the store pushing a cart of groceries. The woman goes to her car unloads all the groceries, then looks around, shiftily, squats down a little, and give birth to her 'baby', a twenty pound turkey.

[d962831]

In all fairness, there are some companies *cough* Hy-Vee *cough* that probably deserve their employee's stealing from them. Example, worked a 6 hour shift, was told I could go home half an hour early if I would for go my break. I agreed, ended up staying fifteen minutes after my original time. I've also had 'deductions' taken out of my paycheck for God knows what reasons, and when I confronted the higher ups the give me some vague crap about customer complaints or missing items, which is bullshit as the only customers that complain are the asshat's who are responisible for their own misfortune and I haven't stolen shit from the place...oh but how I've contemplated it, those pricks.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

A few off the top of my head:

-an employee in the backroom who was ganking video games still in their security cases. When LP caught him, they asked me to come along with them into the office and hold his jacket. The thing weighed a ton from all the video games stuffed in it.

-another backroom guy who we observed remove a disposable razor from its package and pocket the razor. We presented the empty package to the manager on duty. Employee got fired for something unrelated some time later.

-yet another backroom guy (we're not all thieves, I promise) who stole stuff by dumping it into the trash compactor and then going dumpster diving after his shift was over. He even bragged about doing the deed to his friends. He managed to quit before he got caught.

-one final backroom guy (actually the receiving clerk) who stole video games and then returned them, without receipts, to pocket the cash. Did this to the tune of several thousands of dollars before LP caught him and called in the district LP guy to assist in the bust.

I was told management created some ruse to keep him from leaving at the end of his shift, and figuring the jig was up he panicked and made a frantic cell phone call to his girlfriend.

Lastly, the moron could have gotten away with it. He had an interview at a factory in town but skipped it to play softball with his rec softball team.

The stories about non-employees shoplifting are probably more interesting but I don't really hear about them.

[Xieg]

I've got one from a few years back when I worked at a small bakery. This one always gives me a chuckle when I remember it, simply because of the little runt's miserable timing on his part.

Let me set the scene. Over the last few weeks we have been having pastries disappear from the counter without anyone being able to account for them. It is normal for the few of us that work the front to sample to goods a couple times a day, infact the boss lady encouraged it. Constant feed back on her work and what not. Anywho, the likelihood of a counter person feeling ashamed was unlikely. We suspected some of the neighboorhood kids sneaking bites when our backs were turned.

Now, this particular day was a busy day, long lines of people wanting their espressos, lattes, and so forth. On top of coffee and register duty, I was responsible for making crepes to order. I was the only one out front since the boss lady was busy in back baking, as a baker is wont to do. I was tired, a little gruff, but in generally high spirits because my tip jar overfloweth, and it twas all mine. Normally, I would dump it into a cup behind the counter every few hours, but I was just too damn busy.

So enter our little thieving rats. There was a gaggle of them, no more than 13-14 years in age, and they were all decked out in the usual suburban "gangsta" wannabe attire. They went to our cooler and stood there, hands and faces on the glass (How I hate kids who do that.), and gibbered to one another about how delicious everything looked.

Now, at this point there is a momentary lull, and I use this time to run in the back real quick to swap out knives. These are the kind of knives you would commonly chop veggies and fruits, as I was doing, with. The ones that run about 6"-8" in length. Big knife. So I come swinging around the corner with my clean knife to catch three little bastards in the act. One had a pastry in both hands, another was trying to get into the case from behind the counter, and the third (That foolish little punk) had the gall to shove his hand in my tip jar and was half way to pulling out a fist full of bills and coins. All three stopped in place and I watched as their eyes went from my face to my big knife.

The one dropped the pastries right quick, the second, who was closest to me, skittered away from the case in fear, and the third, who my angered gaze was focused on, was as still as a deer in the headlights. Dinner plate eyes, slack jaw, the works. I pointed to the tip jar thief and boomed in my most authoritative voice, "Start counting that out, now! I want it all there when you are done!" Went over, placed the knife on the cutting board behind me, and watched him.

Never seen a "gangsta" count tip money that fast. Never saw the rats in there again. As a bonus, I didn't have to count it out for myself when the day was over.

[Secret Shopper]

These stories are very entertaining!

[StarsAreFixed]

Aghhh, so many. My store loses €10 million a year from shoplifting. Security tags are on some of the ranges of clothes but there's NO SECURITY BARRIERS! In the changing room, 4 items in- 4 out has to be enforced at really busy times, and even still you find clothes from a cheaper shop on the rails- clearly they did a swap. When on tills, you're scanning a bra that comes in a box and it rattles..there's jewellery hidden in the box, same with some sets of briefs.

There's a room in the staff quarters where shoplifters are held until the guards comes, you often hear people crying in it when you're walking past it. Mostly children who've been stuffing fish fingers in their bags from the supermarket part. The (foreign couple) who wanted to buy about €200 worth of clothes, the woman had the clothes heaped in her arms, really obvious. They went to the menswear tills a minute before closing time, closed, lingerie tills, closed, then instead of going to the ladieswear tills, which were open..they proceeded down the aisle towards the door...we were all gawping at them, security got them just before they reached the door. The woman was saying 'where to pay?' and the security guy pointed at the till. I don't get it, why did they think the door was a till??? As if, 'oh the tills are closed, let's walk out of the shop with the clothes so?'. Very surreal.

Then you get travellers, who are watched closely, and when caught get extremely violent..!!

[IHateStupidCustomers]

Is LP short for a store security officer? Or is it a regular police officer?

Thanks for the stories, btw...

Hehe...that reminds me of a short story. My first job, Sears, out security people were called "Asset Protection." We never even really called them AP or anything, just Asset or Asset Protection.

Apparently there had been a shoplifting or something and a cop was walking through the store, looking for the Asset Protection office or something that worked in that department. He spots me and comes over and asks.

Cop: "Where's LP?"
Me: *blank stare*
Cop: "Where's the LP office?"
Me: Uh....I...I don't know, I don't think we have one."
Cop: "YES you do."
Me: "Oh, I...I can call someone, I guess - "
Cop: "forget it!"

I suppose I could have been a little more helpful by calling a manager or something right away. But I was intimidated by this huge cop; I'd never heard the term "LP" before; and it's difficult to get anyone one the phone for help anyway.

I found out that LP stood for Loss Prevention, which would be the same as Asset Protection. Kind of felt a little dumb after that, lol.

[SuperB]

Here's a 15 year old I busted in front of her father:
http://www.customerssuck.com/board/s...ad.php?t=19852

[powerboy]

Once when I was working at Walmart. I was already working for about 3 hours. I got called over the Walkie Talkie(Radio) for some kind of code. As I went to the front, our male door greeter and pinned someone to the ground. He is a huge guy also. The guy he pinned got arrested.

My last factory job. I was walking night shift. Now it was about 10 of us on nights. We could trust each other with our personal property. There was a new coworker. It was his 2nd night of work. Well one of the guys left his cell phone as he always did, out by his workstation. We were on break and coworker let the manager know about his cell phone missing. So the rest of us was talking to the hire. What we didn't know at the time was that the new hire had the cell phone until the manager called that cell phone. The new hire tried to run, and a couple of tackled him down. He was fired and we called the police.

At my last job. I was not there on that day. A girl about 20 years of age, came in and robbed the store of $20 and she tried to get a coworkers PSP that she had out. Well she didn't get the PSP but her finger prints were on it. She was arrested and we later found out that she had shot an employee at another store.

[South Texan]

We once had a case of a guy who was observed at an Albertsons meat section stuffing several steaks inside his sweat pants. The guy then started walking/waddling toward the front of the store. He was stopped by LP and charged with shoplifting.

The judge found the man not guilty as soon as the prosecution rested because the guy was stopped while still in the store and had not yet made it to the registers. In my state, the theft cannot be assumed until the accused walks past the last possible place a payment could be made. The guy was lucky LP was so efficient in that store.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

We once had a case of a guy who was observed at an Albertsons meat section stuffing several steaks inside his sweat pants. The guy then started walking/waddling toward the front of the store. He was stopped by LP and charged with shoplifting.

The judge found the man not guilty as soon as the prosecution rested because the guy was stopped while still in the store and had not yet made it to the registers. In my state, the theft cannot be assumed until the accused walks past the last possible place a payment could be made. The guy was lucky LP was so efficient in that store.

He would've had an open and shut false arrest case against your store as well.

I think it's pretty much a universal rule that it isn't shoplifting until the suspect is out of the store, past all possible points of sale.

Although there might have been a separate charge for concealing the merchandise that could have been pursued.

[pyxee]

Shoplifting you ask. I have so many stories, but what really sticks out are the people who act as if they are going to pay but then run out.
first a little bit about how my last store was set up. there is only one double door into the store and a back door in the store room but it stays locked most of the time. The counter in this store must have been placed by a moron. it looked something like this, the blanks in the solid line represent the doors. Now the counter is very high for some reason, and reacher my upper chest. It is also about 2 1/2 feet wide. The x are where the registers are. ingnore the periods.
_______ _____
l....... lxl
l........lxl
l......./ /
l. . . / /
l......l l
l......l l

Now when someone decides to take something there is very little I can do about it. The counter is too tall and wide to jump, and by the time I get around the thing to the doors the best I can do is get a license plate of the car.
So yeah, I have all sorts who will come up and ask for things like cartons of smokes and bolt out of the doors.