Sister has started shoplifting

@Ahhifollowifollowyoudeepseababy how is your sister now? X

I would have nothing more to do with her

It's a crime luv, and she will eventually get caught and probably lose her job in the process!

Shop lifting isn't a activity for the poor out of necessity or just being hooligans.
There's a thrill or a sense of I got away with it. It's not worth going down this route as a ban, or prison sentence can turn her professional life upside down.
Probably needs to identify why she keeps doing it. Question morals behind it and have her imagine the outcome. Find another way to get a buzz. Be grateful she's financially secure to not feel the need to steal for the purpose of getting by.

https://metro.co.uk/2023/09/27/middle-class-shoplifters-confessions-19566015/amp/

We're better of dressing rough as the security staff that failed the police program will be overly keen intaking down white wealthy women

You would both be held by security. Imagine how embarrassed you would be. Yes it is a game she is enjoying the risk.

Phoned M&S customer service who say I have to take them back to store with proof of purchase to get a refund.

How would you even prove that? Anybody could have legitimately bought a full pack and then lied about there being some missing and thus fraudulently sought a refund.

It reminds me of a photo I saw on Twitter where somebody had been asked for photographic proof that they had never received their parcel and, in the same spirit as that of the daft request, they just sent a photo of them holding out their empty hand

Bought a pack of tights in M&S on Saturday. Get them home - only 2 pairs in there. Somebody must have theived the other three.

Phoned M&S customer service who say I have to take them back to store with proof of purchase to get a refund. No real point to this except to say stealing is still stealing no matter how small the theft and boo to M&S who won’t refund me over the phone. It’s a massive inconvenience for me to go into town (and have to pay parking) in order to take tights back so I shan’t bother. The victim of this little theft is me.

Shops must love online shopping as it stops this kind of petty theft. So it’s yet another reason shops are disappearing from the high street and the jobs that go with them. Pretty soon there will be no shops left.

Yes, very true. People don't even just grab an extra £20, but they 'work' the machine for every penny they possibly can.

There was a case from a couple of years ago that I recall, where Tesco was selling TVs for £300, but a glitch on their website/tills (I forget which) meant that they came up at just £3. Some of the angry entitlement from people who were determined to cash in on the obvious error, including many who claimed they 'genuinely' thought it was the correct price and they had just bought the 50 TV sets that they were planning to buy all along, regardless.

At my work in a large supermarket sometimes we see people take stuff they’ve not paid for on the self checkouts. Security make sure that’s what’s happened on the cctv, save the footage and then watch them the next few times they come in to see if they do it again. So she may well have been clocked already and they are biding their time. They mostly just get banned from the shop, but sometimes police are called.

Bloody hell. How desperate do you have to be to steal from a small business. Morally it's completely shitty.

Not that this excuses thieving in supermarkets but they can handle a loss better.

We have a small café where we work, and just after lock down we had a spate of people taking cans/chocolate bars.
We put up signs saying "smile you're on CCTV" and immediately the numbers being taken reduced right down. We didn't even have to put up CCTV. 🤣

So it does work to a certain extent.

We just need to look at the queues of people at ATMs that are giving out larger sums of money than requested and/or looting of shops when they aren’t locked up properly to know that a large proportion of people will steal
if they think there aren’t consequences.

I’m fascinated at the personality tests mentioned above by the psychiatrists receptionist.

Just me surmising, but I wonder if the CCTV does work to deter the vast majority of thieves, who would otherwise steal if there were no cameras there - and the brazen ones who ignore the cameras and walk out with stuff anyway (and apparently get away with it) are just the small percentage of a much larger amount of potential thieves?

Kleptomania to a degree. It can be quite addictive when you get away with it (I've been there).
But she should have a mixture of lower and higher value items if she wants to pretend it's accidental and she 'forgot' when she gets caught, not only high end products. And don't do it in the same shop over and over, because they'll recognise her and build up evidence.

If people don't think a nice professional woman with light fingers has a fair bit to lose shoplifting then think again. She does.

She's also an easy mark compared to an average junky who does this stuff.

Interesting. But I don’t quite buy it. If the stores have all this capacity to monitor cctv etc, they can surely use this to prosecute the repeat offenders who walk off with hundreds of pounds worth of stock? They don’t have to wrestle them to the ground there and then - they get all that digital evidence together just like pp are suggesting they might do to OP’s sister?

The sister is less likely to have a knife?

Not differentiating between theft and murder isn't the flex you think it is.

You may think it says that you're less likely to steal, but it also indicates you may be more likely to murder.

I worked as a receptionist for a psychiatrist who administered personality tests and he told me that employers who administer them as part of the hiring process will weed out the applicants who display such rigid, black and white thinking. Someone who would never, ever steal a pencil from the stationary cupboard are actually more likely to snap and embezzle thousands. In his words, "they're brittle."

It's very much getting that way.

Just wait until we fully embrace the concept of social credit, as we're now seeing the beginnings of - you could be publicly shamed for leaving the supermarket with 'too much' alcohol, chocolate or fatty food, even if you've paid for it in full.

they'll most likely take: once they know you're a thief, they'll have your photo or identifying details up at the security point next to the entrance - then simply stop you from entering in the first place.

Ive only ever seen this once - it was in a service station.
Does it really happen a lot?

All they need to do now is find a way for the wonders of modern technology to somehow introduce copious quantities of laxatives into meat that are 'magically' and invisibly removed without trace, with lasers, at the point of payment.

That would blow the gaff on the 'professionals' having a dinner party, if they tried to impress their peers with what turned out to be obviously-nicked meat! With the price of bog roll these days, you'd probably end up no better off anyway

My friend's son was out and got a bad headache. He didn't have any money on him. He went into the supermarket and took a packet of paracetamol (less than £1 I think).

Security saw him and called the police!! He was taken to the police station and interviewed.

Much is unlikely to happen but shoplifting in your sister's demographic is not unusual; professional 40s woman who takes a pointless risk.

As with anyone who does this, there is something at the bottom of this personally. Your sister doesn't need to do this and btw, she is exactly the kind of person who perversely does get prosecuted to set an example.

There is nothing better than a nice 40s woman of good standing being in the magistrates for rubbish like this. It is totally humiliating btw and so your sister should stop.

This is true. I used to sit in court and we would get cctv evidence of multiple occasions so it could not be dismissed as an accident.
They are probably already aware of her waiting and watching.
Yes, menopausal theft is quite common but they still get the same punishment and a criminal record.