… to think shoplifting is really bad?

That’s reassuring!

Gosh I just uploaded a pile of stuff to Vinted today, including lots of things still with tags on!! Do I look dodgy now 🤣🤣

No one I mean no one has the right to judge the behaviour of another UNLESS you've walked in their shoes!! This its wrong! Addiction is no excuse, where are you from in most cases these "addicts" also suffer from mental health, self harm, no family or love, maybe the gov could tax the proceeds of crime from big players and put them back into the communities the real crooks flooded (usually estates and poor areas) with drugs. Note to self stop reading any posts that require a deeper understanding. God help any friend or family goes on a path and needs your support.

Bless the people in that shop. Poor boy, what a horrendous stress to live in/with.

There were mums who stood outside school at Christmas taking ‘orders’ for items. My friend worked in town and said they were regulars.
The lack of prosecutions made things very hard. Occasionally the very worst would be banned from town. I’m sure that’s why shops prefer to be out of town, it’s much harder to run off on foot anywhere.

Me neither. I don't care if people are stealing from Tesco or M&S. I think it's a symptom of something much bigger that's gone wrong in our society and politics. I don't feel that way about independent shops though.

We agree that all the brand new with tags stuff on vinted is nicked, right?

abusing human beings in any degree is completely different to small theft from capitalist constructs. Ugh

But the existence of something worse in the world doesn't magically stop a bad thing from being bad.

You could just as well say that it's unfair to call people who are 'only' guilty of abuse and DV scummy, when there are serial killers out there.

i disagree completely. i worked for many years for a high street store and chemist and experienced every side of the epidemic of shoplifting. I worked in loss prevention and until you have experienced that, you won't understand that most loss (historically) is does to poor operations and management, not to mention waste and damage!

Until you have experienced domestic violence and abuse, you won't ever understand how scummy it is to call those people scummy.

Several of us have expressed sympathy with desperate people stealing basic essential supplies.

Nevertheless, if you're (not necessarily you personally) a massively struggling single mum on UC and somebody stole your purse from your handbag... would you feel compassionate towards them because they may have been even poorer than you are? It's exactly the same in principle: the goods on the shelves of the shops belong to (and have been paid for by) somebody; they aren't abstract things that just appear and have no value until they are bought by a customer.

But the majority of people who shoplift do so because they wish to gain goods and/or money dishonestly and know they can get away with it. If this were not so, then shops that only sell luxury items would never have to worry about theft at all.

The people who regularly 'case' your shop and wait for you to put goods for which you have had to pay on the shelves, just so they can come and immediately take them away - often having had the audacity to take 'orders' from 'customers' to buy the items from them at a knockdown price, before they have even stolen them - and then maybe preventing your honest customers from being able to buy them from you and contribute towards your livelihood...

Yep, absolute scum.

Not that they should have to, but if they know the regulars, can't they just refuse them entry when they see them approach?

You might struggle to stop them from walking out with unpaid goods, but if you can prevent them from getting close to your goods in the first place?

They can hardly threaten to call the police on you for refusing them entry, when you can just remind them that you have (or may have) CCTV that the police might also like to see. I had a relative with a number of mental health problems who, at various times, was banned from several of her local shops - not for shoplifting, but just because she would 'cause a scene' every time.

i have shoplifted baby teats and milk out of absolute necessity so those saying shoplifters are scumbags are short sighted.

People also steal by swapping tags and bar codes so they buy something but much cheaper.

Honestly? I don’t particularly care about that, either.

It is wrong. If someone steals an essential as a one off to feed themselves I can understand this but it should be a one off not a way of life

That's interesting.

Our local M and S Food store is rife with shoplifters, I have rarely seen them being challenged though.

Well I guess you don't mind paying extra for your shopping to cover the cost of the theft.

Latest industry figures show theft of £7.9 billion from retailers last year, 60% of that was directly stolen by customers the other 40% from within the supply chain. The retailers recoup that cost by charging us for it. (source: https://www.drapersonline.com/news/uk-retail-theft-to-cost-7-9bn )

No sympathy for shoplifters, but not much for the supermarkets (at CEO policy-making level) because they should have foreseen this would happen when they replaced the bulk of checkouts with self-service. I feel sorry for the frontline supermarket staff.

Shoplifting is an hourly occurrence in the supermarket a friend works in. They know the regulars, what they are likely to go for and there is little they can do to stop theft.

The police are stretched so are unlikely to attend, the store does have a security guard, but he can't be in more than one place, the staff are doing jobs like replenishing, working on the tills customer service etc so for those who are minded to steal, can and do with very little challenge.

It is not a victimless crime.

partly why costs are high to cover stock theft by customers and stock shrinkage when its the companies own employees @Queenofswords88

I've worked in retail for years and I don’t think I’ve ever encountered someone who is actually stealing to survive. Not saying it doesn’t happen but stealing to sell on/a thrill/just pure selfishness are basically the only reasons I’ve encountered.

Mostly where I work currently it’s stealing to sell on. We have a meat man, baby formula man, washing detergent man and so on. One delightful lady recently tried to steal several bottles of expensive wine and when challenged said it was because she was hungry. Needed it to sell on to buy food. Sure babes. You’re gonna buy food when she didn’t get her way she chucked a couple of bottles on the floor to smash and threatened to shit on the floor.

The balls people must have trying to walk out with a full trolley 😬 I guess it happens every day though and some people just don't care

I think it's wrong. I ended a friendship over it.

According to BIL who works at one of the big supermarkets, it's definitely on the uptick near us. Especially lots of"low level" value items which come under around £100 when all added together. People just grabbing and running for it. Management have told the staff not to give chase due to many of the lifters carrying knives and threatening to stab staff with their dirty needles.

There seems to be a lot of "professional" shoplifters who steal to order round us. They know the police are not coming out, they know it's a slap on the wrist and often nothing at all. It's also incredibly easy in some shops due to self serve and 1 staff member manning many self serve tills. It's also very easy to move stolen goods, I know there are a few prolific ones round us who are flogging stuff with tags on on market place, eBay, vinted ect. Same with things like meat, cheese, veg. They are stealing bits and then flogging them as food packages for £5/ £10 / £15 depending on what's in them. Sadly due to COL there is a huge market for a box of various meat, cheese, wine, bread, butter, posh deli meat, and lots of branded treat food. They know what they are doing. The people buying know it is stolen but when a food shop for a family becomes very expensive and you start having to say no to treat stuff for the kids every week then people are willing to buy a box.

There is also a lot of "oopsie this hasn't scanned on the self serve, I'll just pop it in my bag" going on round us as well. In fact I know many people who have decided that there must be some perk to having to scan your own shopping - it's known as using the "staff discount" near us. Again, 1 overworked staff member to 10 tills, long wait for them to come over and rectify something and I can see why some people just call it "staff discount". It's just too easy and tempting for some people. BIL's supermarket has actually re-opened the tills and if it gets busy will open more tills as the amount getting lifted through self serve was insane. Whereas there is less lifting when tills are open.