Accused of shoplifting after mistake. Should I complain?

He was overly aggressive by the sounds of it.
He didn't have the right to search.
My best guess is he knows the police weren't going to show up for a mother 'stealing ' milk.
So he tried making an exhibition of you and a hero of himself.

Where I live local shops are employing security guards at peak times because of gangs of shoplifters.
The police here will not come out for anything less than £100 worth of goods stolen 😕
I've personally seen these people (mainly young teens) enter in groups and they think they're being surreptitious but they are not the artful dodger and the weirdo they hang out with isn't Fagin.

I think shops pretty much invited shoplifting the minute they removed manned checkout.

That comment takes mental gymnastics that Olga Korbett couldn't do.

Logistically there was no need to put the milk in a bag attached to the pushchair.

She had two payment receipts, for all items but one, which the guard refused to acknowledge at first. He accused her of having stolen everything, apparently on no basis other than her having items in a stroller. Guard only focused on the milk once he'd been prevailed on to acknowledge the receipts for everything else.

You fucked up, albeit without meaning to but you did, he was doing his job but was a bit aggressive. I’d shop elsewhere for a while and let it die down.

Do you feel okay about it all now?

It's always horrible when a misunderstanding occurs and someone uses it as an excuse to vent their spleen/throw a tantrum.

People do shoplift everywhere, surprisingly!

Does every other business have to? Surely they have to factor it in as a running cost or something, so it must count when calculating what prices to charge, wages to pay etc.

If she had been a real shoplifter, that would hardly be a deterrent, would it?

I don’t think OP should complain, but it’s hardly the black hat matter that these hyperbolic answers infer. He could have just walked her back to pay, and then dialled it up if that failed.

I think shops pretty much invited shoplifting the minute they removed manned checkout. Now they’re having to experience chancers breezing past a hapless security guard who isn’t going to take on someone nicking a joint of beef for his minimum wage.

I don't think it really is hammer to crack a nut at all.

They are not pursuing a theft charge and are not going after OP to recover costs as many supermarkets do. They didn't take her picture and ban her from the shop. All they did was put the milk back. The milk that the OP had taken through the tills concealed (inadvertently) in her bag without paying for it.

I think the OP should be glad she is not in a bigger mess and move on.

I'm sure absolutely every single shoplifter says, "Oh, it was a mistake!" when they are caught.

Just because you genuinely know it was a mistake, doesn't mean the security guard, who doesn't know you from adam, has any reason to know that.

Yes, he was probably a bit heavy-handed, but it's probably the way they're trained to be. Some prolific shop-lifters can get very aggressive and argumentative, so he needs to be ready for that. A lot of shop-lifters also use babies/small children as decoys as well.

I don't really see what grounds you've got for complaining. You were caught shop-lifting (albeit accidentally).

Talk about taking a hammer to a nut! He absolutely should have been a bit more discreet. Yes, we all know that shoplifting is rife, but there’s a massive difference between a person about to pay and someone doing a legger with a bottle of Vodka in each hand, which a man did in our Tesco Express yesterday.

My local Lidl now has a barrier past the tills ( self service and manned) before the exit door where you scan your receipt to open. Another reminder to those of a ‘forgetful’ inclination though not sure how much it would deter those who had secreted items and deliberately not paid at the tills - only tagged items would cause an alarm to go off.

The big Sainsbury's near has now also installed barriers, though not fully functional yet. I use it a couple of times a month for a shop when I need the car - just before, I’d seen 3 occasions of shoplifters with trolleys or clutching expensive items run through shop and out the exit doors, one waving a big knife. That last incident shook everyone, including the staff member I was standing near.

This is no longer the trope of years ago, with a nice bewildered menopausal woman on Valium explaining to the police that she didn’t know what had come over her - this is professional theft on a huge scale, prompted by the lack of police response to lower value shoplifting. A lack of response at all - was shocked when the knife was produced that the police only ambled in by the time I had finished my shopping.

I wouldn’t bother complaining but me and so many others have all been there when we’ve used the buggy to hold something and forgotten to pay for it, I’ve regularly run back to a shop after my toddler has grabbed something.

I don’t want to be that mumsnetter but if you hook a basket on your arm you can still push the buggy and shop with a basket ok.

YABU to complain when he was correct, you must have attracted suspicion for him to tail you. The man was simply doing his job, he identified a shoplifter, challenged you, checked the items on you against your receipt and retrieved the stolen products, think yourself lucky the police weren’t called.

I think your feelings of unjust are driven by the fact you feel embarrassed but to expect security to take shoplifters to a private area and have a quiet word so not to distress them is ridiculous.

Yes the pram method is a known means for people to shop lift, but if OP we’re doing this with intent, she would surely have been smuggling out high-ticket hidden items.

The issue is clearly not the unintentional theft, which OP has owned, but the security guards behaviour, which was extreme, disproportionate, and escalated before you had an opportunity to realise your mistake, let alone rectify it. He could have quietly approached or taken you aside, but instead he went in all guns blazing over a bottle of milk

Ultimately it feels like an abuse of power, and sadly we need to worry about men who behave like that these days. That’s why I think it is worth mentioning to the store.

Not really. White collar crimes account for billions in loss due to fraud. Companies that are found to have failed to prevent it receive fines, which are sometimes capable of being passed on to the execs but more usually impact share holders. In terms of smaller scale organisational crimes, eg stealing office supplies, in the public sector there would be no way to hand this on to a client.

Sleep deprived or not it's no excuse, people drive cars and they are sleep deprived it would totally be their fault if they had a crash or kill someone, being sleep deprived is not an excuse to get away with everything and this is coming from a very sleep deprived mother.

I think it’s because although the shop will absorb the costs (factor it in to the operating model as another cost of operation), when it sets prices and wages for staff it has to take into account the operating costs. The money has to come from somewhere, and in the longer term it is spread between lower dividends for shareholders, lower wages and higher prices.

Not sure how that would work because the receipt would have the time on.

Something similar happened to me years ago, carrying a basket and pushing a pushchair, my son was newborn and my 2 year old daughter next to me. Buying baby formula some food, I hung the big pack of nappies on my handle and totally forgot about them, the security guard asked me at the door if I forgot to pay for them which I had! He looked after my shopping whilst I went back to pay for them, he was discreet about it, whether he believed I forgot or not he handled it with professionalism and kindness but I really did feel so embarrassed!

😂 just don’t post the video on any social media!