Secret Shoplifter

[Dark Psion]

One of my co-worker's girlfriend works at our local Wal-Mart and I got this story from him.

Like many stores, Wal-Mart uses Secret Shoppers, but they also use Secret Shoplifters. And after 5 visits to different departments in the store, they walked out with over $3000 of merchandise!

They did it by using a Rubbermaid trash can on wheels, going from one department to another, filling it, went thru the 12 items or less checkout and out the door without anyone actually looking in the trashcan!

I hate to think about how much we loose to shoplifters here. I noticed a 6ft level was gone from the shelf but still in the computer.

I swear that some people are just walking in, getting items and walking out.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Secret shoplifters you say? At the swamp they'd get away with murder.

Our full-time LP person, or at least the one I see most often, is a woman who's in her 50s (I think) who always comes to work dressed to the nines. As in a smart-looking dress suit and heels. She never pursues anybody even when she has reason to. She just says "Oops, too late, they got away."

Our other LP person is nowhere near as high-maintenance, and won't hesitate to chase people if she has to, but she isn't around very often anymore.

[dbblsanta]

I'm curious: do they have an official secret shoplifter card that they can whip out in the event they could get caught? They must be incredibly trustworthy people: what's stopping them from doing a little unauthorized overtime?

[Mamadrae]

Secret shoplifters you say? At the swamp they'd get away with murder.

Our full-time LP person, or at least the one I see most often, is a woman who's in her 50s (I think) who always comes to work dressed to the nines. As in a smart-looking dress suit and heels. She never pursues anybody even when she has reason to. She just says "Oops, too late, they got away."

Our other LP person is nowhere near as high-maintenance, and won't hesitate to chase people if she has to, but she isn't around very often anymore.

Irv you just described my stepmother and myself. My stepmother was stupid enough to be all dressed up for a hike through Yellowstone. As in she had white shorts, sandals, all her fancy gold jewelry, her make-up done, her hair all styled, her shirt even had some metal tooling deal going on, and otherwise looked like she was a tourist going shopping in some major city. My dad and little brother were smarter and wore walking shoes and long pants and looked like farmers.

God I would have killed to have seen that woman on the 6 hour hike. If only to point and laugh at her whining. XD

I'm usually in long pants and a plain t-shirt or sweat shirt. I always have a hoodie on me in case of cold to. Only real weakness of mine is sandals and if I'm doing a lot of walking I'll switch to sneakers or boots if it's in the wilderness.

[roguesqd]

This was quite a few years when I worked at Wallie World, was talking to our LP one night and he was talking about how they will bring teams of LP's to stores and try to steal from them. One he was talking about was like over $20,000 at one store over a full day. They even rode bikes from the toy department out the front doors

[ThirdGenRetail]

And lo, for we lack this problem at Red Vest Land We take quarterly cart tests to make sure we look in everything, scan everything, etc. Let's just say I tend to pass a lot, and I maintain this by continuing the "I have to follow policy" in regular ring-up. It makes a lot of customers mad when I scan EVERY single knob/pull/whathaveyou, but... Policy. It's not in me to go against it without a VERY good reason(IE, OMGHUGE bags of rock salt for water treatment, or a missing barcode...). Had so many people whine and moan about it, "But why can't you just do it THIS way?" Because this is MY job, and I'm not going to YOUR job to tell you how to do it. I don't ask Dominos why they can't just microwave my pizza or hot wings to cook it faster. Faster is not always right, nor does it always WORK. Especially with... All those little knobs, pulls, and things... They like to MIGRATE... Which makes everyone thankful when I find 3 oddballs out of 40.

And, for the record, when tool bags and things come through, I poke into EVERY pocket. Especially since people bring their kids in, and I don't know if one of those parents was inattentive enough that Jr. stuck a wad of gum in one of the pockets, or opened a tool chest and did something to it...

[fireheart]

We do have these from time to time. However, it's somewhat ironic that large busts like the ones mentioned above are rare, yet we're one of the busiest stores.
We have had a few noteworthy ones. The ones I can recall are...

-The lady who attempted to steal $400 worth of groceries by presenting right receipt, wrong date.
-The kid who stole a bottle of beer and didn't get very far before being caught.
-The lady who concealed about $50+ worth of meat in a green bag.
-The lady who stole about $80 worth of tinned cat food and another $80 or so of various foods that can be used to feed animals but are not recommended...

[Boozy]

A lot of what experienced loss prevention people look for is nervousness or erratic behaviour. In the case of someone hired to shoplift, much of this odd behaviour would be absent, since they'd be trying not to get caught, but the stakes are low if they do.

I hope stores don't judge their LP staff too harshly when they fail.

[calulu]

Paid to shoplift!?! How does one go about that? I used to work for a marketing company and do 2 to 6 secret shops a day but never did shoplifting make it onto the list of things we did.

Irv you just described my stepmother and myself. My stepmother was stupid enough to be all dressed up for a hike through Yellowstone. As in she had white shorts, sandals, all her fancy gold jewelry, her make-up done, her hair all styled, her shirt even had some metal tooling deal going on, and otherwise looked like she was a tourist going shopping in some major city. My dad and little brother were smarter and wore walking shoes and long pants and looked like farmers.

God I would have killed to have seen that woman on the 6 hour hike. If only to point and laugh at her whining. XD

LMAO! I see ladies like this at the gym all the time in their perfect makeup, hairdo, jewelery and designer clothes slowly walking about the indoor track while we hard core people are grunting and sweating and looking most unglamorous. Idiots.

[LillFilly]

Wasn't there a classic here about shoplifters filling a tupperware container with dvds and such, then taking a car seat out of a box, putting the tupperware into the box, taping it back-up, and going to the check-out to pay $40 for $2000 worth of stuff?

I'm sure I read it here. It's so sneaky I wouldn't have thought of it, but seems a little obvious if you know what to look for.

I always wanted to be a secret shoplifter

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Wasn't there a classic here about shoplifters filling a tupperware container with dvds and such, then taking a car seat out of a box, putting the tupperware into the box, taping it back-up, and going to the check-out to pay $40 for $2000 worth of stuff?

I'm sure I read it here. It's so sneaky I wouldn't have thought of it, but seems a little obvious if you know what to look for.

That's a very common method of shoplifting, and very effective if nobody's watching.

We used to have a gang of shoplifters who'd stuff DVDs and video games into duffle bags and take off with them. We also used to have people stealing stuff by hiding it in Sterilite totes. The cashier never thought to take the lid off and check inside.

[bainsidhe]

We have some shoplifters who snatch some plastic bags from the front, then casually load items from their cart into the bags while they walk around the store. This is because the greeters won't question someone leaving with a cart full of bagged groceries. They're professional shoplifters and are good about realizing when LP is following. One day we caught one out of two (the 2nd managed to leave in time) when they were on their second trip through the store. Had over a grand of merchandise in the cart, which means the first trip was probably just as bad. There was well over $200.00 of refrigerated food (steak, chicken, eggs) and lots of childrens clothes/shoes/etc. So yeah, they were professional shoplifters, but they were stealing stuff for their kids.

[BowserKoopa1]

We have had 2 shoplifters come into our home improvement store to shoplift some rather expensive stuff. When they're done, they go to another home improvement store to rip them off.
The problem is, our company is so dam paranoid about falsely accusing a customer of stealing. If we do and we are in the wrong, that is, if we don't follow correct procedure and do absolutely everything properly, they can turn around and sue us for $150,000.
Ok, I can totally understand not wanting something like this to happen, and I know we don't want to lose business by falsely accusing customers. But these same 2 guys have been on a roll, and they keep coming in about 2 or 3 times a week to our store, and other stores. I talked to the Loss Prevention Manager about them and asked if there was anything at all that we could do to stop them, catch them on tape or something. He said no, not to worry, and that they would be caught eventually. He also said that these guys are probably pros and know their rights. And as I said before, if we don't follow correct procedure, they will turn around and sue us.
I really hate shoplifters and the fact that these guys are getting away with murder I told LP manager that we really need to change our policy when it comes to customers stealing from us. It just seems like we're way too lenient, and customers can get away with it. I wish I worked for Walmart. I heard that they will not hesitate to confront a shoplifter and call the police. Also that they're such a big company and therefore aren't too worried about being sued. Mind you, this is not exactly what I think, but I heard many of my coworkers talking about Walmart. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[bainsidhe]

I wish I worked for Walmart. I heard that they will not hesitate to confront a shoplifter and call the police. Also that they're such a big company and therefore aren't too worried about being sued. Mind you, this is not exactly what I think, but I heard many of my coworkers talking about Walmart. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Allow me to correct you. Last year we received an entire list of "What not to do with suspected shoplifters" that we needed to read & sign off on. Stealing is an LP and management issue. Lowly peons should never accuse or suggest someone is stealing and especially shouldn't follow/chase/etc. I understand it's a safety issue (an employee in another state was shot & killed a while back when confronting a shoplifter) but the list sounded like management simply didn't want to hurt shoplifters' feelings. *gag* Even when I see someone obviously stealing in the self checkouts, I should instead blame the computer for "not working properly" and ask if I can assist them.

It seems to me that smaller non-corporate-owned stores are more likely to crack down on shoplifters because they take a very personal interest in how it affects their bottom line. People like to pick on big retailers and will gladly sue simply because scammers know WalMart/Target/etc has deep pockets. Because of that, big retailers spend lots of money dealing with frivolous lawsuits.

[Andara Bledin]

Because of that, big retailers spend lots of money dealing with frivolous lawsuits.

Any big retailer likely has lawyers on retainer, so it doesn't really cost them anything extra to defend against the frivolous stuff.

^-.-^