Are you regularly followed by security guards in shops for no reason?

What humiliation?

Frankly, i wouldn't even notice. I have my headphones, my music on, I don't pay attention to anything unless they shriek and are too noisy, which security guards are not 😂

If they want to follow me, so what?

Because they say so. In Singapore where I grew up, dark skinned Indians and Malays complain quite often about discriminatory behaviour towards them by chinese retail staff. They cannot all be lying.

Yes, I have idly wondered if I should smuggle something more lucrative than the piffling stuff I do but I do tend to honesty. The other thing about my face is that random strangers tend to tell me stuff or ask me advice. They pull out legal documents and ask me what they mean- and lately, a woman whom I met by chance asked me to edit her letters to a civil dispute bureau. I foolishly agreed. She has an ongoing feud with a neighbour and brought 5 folders of police complaints, copious correspondence with her MP and much cctv footage. My niece calls me the wierdo magnet.

There is a reason you’re being followed, the reason is they think you’re a shoplifter other wise they wouldn’t follow you.
I was followed in Tesco once I think, I saw a sales assistant skulking around looking at me when I was in the clothes section although she also could have been tidying the rails.
I did used to get followed when I was younger and had my very young children with me at 25/26 I looked like a teenager and dressed in tracksuits and no make up (because I was a harassed mum of 2 young children) and I definitely got followed in dunelm mill

I'm always surprised how much I am not followed, actually, when I read things like this, because most of the time if I'm in Tesco or wherever, I am in a massive coat with about 10 bags, 3 kids and a pushchair. Also, I don't shop with any kind of efficiency and double back on myself and go up and down the same aisles several times. I've even gone through the checkouts, realised I've forgotten something and looped straight back round through the entrance gates and back in without even leaving the store. I always think I must look really suspicious, but I'm never stopped or followed or anything.

I’ve never been followed. Not that I’ve noticed anyway!

Not in shops generally but every single time I went into Claire’s!! Regardless of whether or not I had my kids with me, not always same Claire’s/ different location.

I stopped going in there to buy presents or if my kids had some birthday money to spend because it was so awful being followed and stared at by them!!

Was it me? Was it them? I’d honestly love to know. Never had it anywhere else. Weird

I do sometimes. More often than not, it is when I am highly anxious, and I don't want to be out or around people anyway, so it makes matters worse!

However, I do not venture to anywhere more exciting than the supermarkets on a regular basis... and I usually end up talking to them, e.g. "What crisps do you think I should buy? I am torn between this flavour and that..." and after that discussion, clearly, I am not suspicious anymore!

If I am dressed oh-so-smartly (i.e. young woman in a conspicuous dress/skirt and unusually smart coat), then people tend to stay far, far away, as I cannot possibly be a suspected thief while dressed like THAT 😁

Racism is rife which is truly shocking

This is me! I look incredibly innocent. Even as a kid and teenager, people would find it hard to believe I'd done anything dodgy (even when I had).

Now I'm middle-aged and look even more harmless. I'm the person who complete strangers ask to keep an eye on their bag or their baby while they pop to the loo at a café etc. Never followed by security or anything like that. In fact they will often let me into places even if I don't really have the right ticket or whatever, as long as I look a bit flustered or confused.

Sometimes I think I should really try taking to a life of crime to get the most out of this.

@Pavementworrier I'm a middle aged lawyer with kids I don't dress weird and I'm old enough to have the confidence to be sure there is nothing particular thievy about me ...

Yeah, well, frankly that's exactly what an international high-end jewel thief would do and say.

Bang to rights, me ol' china. You'll need to get on the blower to your brief.

Stop suddenly - look them straight in the eye say ‘can I help you?’

or if they’d re following you say ‘oh thank you a personal shopper - you can carry the basket for me’

make sudden stops / turns or walk really slowly / really fast alternately.. just for the sheer hell if it.

or just totally ignore them

they have a job to do…

O don't think I've ever been followed by a security guard in a shop - if I have, I haven't noticed it! To be honest, I'm usually busy in my own head and don't often notice the people around me when I'm shopping!

I never do but my husband does! I don't know why.

Yes me! I always thought i had some sort of paranoia 🤣 especially in Superdrug when I am looking at the makeup. Maybe women in their late 50s are too old to be looking! However me and my daughters were followed in M&S once when they were teens and we were looking at the giant Percy Pig. I was so angry I actually went up to the security guard and asked him to stop following my girls!

Either I have never been followed by shop security or I am completely oblivious. Possibly both.

Always boots. I have fun going all around the shop. I also wait till they do the ‘look around’ as if they are not following and I hunker down ’gotta look at that bottom shelf’ and they lose me.

Used to be a security guard in the local co op years ago. Anyone with a pushchair....he was following them. I used to walk round the shop twice before I brought anything 😂

Yup there’s a guard who stands at the end of the aisle I’m in at my local Tesco, I’ll go to another aisle and he’ll be at the end of that one!

one of my friends gets followed a lot (she's black, she takes it philosophically) in one place she had quite a bit of stuff in a basket, and asked the security guard, since he was there anyway, to hold it for her so she'd be quicker. He declined but did step back.

Shoplifting is rife because they continue to target the wrong people where i live they used to follow women especially ones who looked tired and had pushchairs (because apparently they were probably on drugs) they literally held the door open for a man stealing a television he was a regular in the shop walked out with lego toys etc the biggest was the TV though and they literally held the door open and moaned about theft

Absolutely, but the OP seems hyperconscious of being followed, and I imagine it’s evident in the way she keeps tabs on the proximity of security, which is likely to code to them as behaviour that may suggest shoplifting. Which means they are more likely to follow her, she feels singled out and self-conscious, and the whole cycle begins again.

Are you searching out the security guards when you go into the shop? This can make you look suspicious if you are. Completely ignore them like they are a ghost.

If you find they are following you around the shop, you could give them the 'death stare' to show that they are harassing you! I did this to one guard and he looked embarrassed and walked away. The security guards shouldn't be making you uncomfortable.

But, yes, I have been followed. Not often, but it has happened a few times. Don't take it personally though, it must be a very boring job for them at times and they have to find something to do!

Maybe they SHOCK talk to each other about it?!?