Brazen shoplifting

[Breadcat24]

I know this has been in the news but I am a bit shocked witnessing it.
I was in the trolley self check out bit of Tesco. There are 8 trolley check outs and 10 basket check outs man by 2 staff,
It gave me an an error about using my own bag so I was looking around for the member of staff and saw the guy next to me just putting his stuff that was in his trolley in a bag. I nearly said you need to put it on the scale but a member of staff was heading my way so I did not.
Mentioned it to staff member and it seems he only scanned a loaf of bread and put the 3 packs of budweiser beer, meat and crisps straight in a carrier bag. Did not pay for the bag.
Staff said he would contact security but the security guy was tiny and the 2 guys manning the self serve just young kids.
I can quite see have they would not want to risk themselves.
But it was the casual way they were doing it that shocked me.
Is this what we have come to? Such brazen casual theft?

@WinterMorn that's very promising that in your area it's getting dealt with, in my area it's deffo not the case. It's a joke being honest! I was in home bargains yesterday and a guy walked in picked up three types of washing powder/liquid and a punnet of blueberries then walked straight back out he could not have cared less! In and out on about three minutes nice and casual!

I've watched people and if the staff are overwhelmed or intimidated people will steal. Local co op near me often only has one person nearby and might be busy. So I see tills where items have been scanned and taken. The other side to this is the Tesco chairman was paid £10 million this year so times arent hard for Tesco and I see eg a Welsh MP padding her expenses. Thats theft but somehow isnt the same as shoplifting. Sometimes all this starts at the top. Also there seems to be an attitude of I want it, Ill take it. If no one challenges me its mine. Would shops drop their prices if theft was eradicated or would the ceo get a bigger bonus?

A complete change is needed isn’t it?

Perhaps you should tell Tesco it needs to spend more of its revenue on security in future, instead of expecting lone staff and even customers to protect their massive profits.

Niece worked in our local Waitrose and she confirmed to me that shoplifters are ignored unless over £250 !

My local Aldi staff are always asking to look in the trolley bags and definitely do care about shoplifting

Well, the store should revise this policy and start to pursue private prosecutions if they don’t want to call the Police for whatever reason. If people KNOW they won’t be apprehended then it’s a green light to steal with impunity.

The self scan is just an easy win for a thief. My local M&S has a self scan in a blind spot so a member of staff has to stand next to it but then can't be on hand to help you. They also use a scanner that doesn't have a pressure sensor. Just a flat shelf where you put your item after scanning. Put the item on the shelf without scanning and it's yours unless you are seen. I work in IT and know how some of this works. Number 1 preventative is get rid of self scan. Obv honesty is the best but those scans are a gift for the chancer/dishonest

The shop would have to hold them, await the police who might not turn up. The thief might say they were innocent, I was injured, I'm innocent, not turn up at court. Someone has to turn up at court to say x did this and have proof. That costs time and money for someone

It’s a consequence of self-scan tills. The easy solution is to have manned checkouts. If the supermarkets won’t pay for staff to man the checkouts, then…🤷‍♀️

No, it’s a consequence of people deciding to steal. What an apologist post.

Then what’s the alternative?

Problem is the staff are often young men or women who faced with someone who knows where they live are going to ignore the theft. Maybe check everyones bag vs receipt on the way out? We wont do that as it implies you are dishonest. Just get rid of self scan like Booths did (and we know why they did it)

That’s not an alternative though. Also, searching someone’s bag on the way out is just as likely to put shop staff in a confrontational position.

I work in a large supermarket and shoplifting is massive. Staff and security guards know who the regular shoplifters are. Police don’t turn up unless you manage to restrain the shoplifter.

Alot of people saying it’s people stealing because they can’t afford food this isn’t the case for a lot of the theft that’s actually happening. Our biggest losses in terms of stealing is vapes, alcohol, joints of meat and razors.

We see a lot of people struggle to pay their shop and we know the regulars that are struggling and they always pay/ get what they can afford. I have had customers come in with 30p and just buy a loaf of reduced bread. This shouldn’t be happening and is awful. The government should address this better.

Self service is awful but not where all the theft is happening only have to go down one 1 aisle to find cut security tags and empty packaging.

Ive spent time with a detained shoplifter ( female late teens) Im female and was early 20s she was wild! Offered to knock my teeth out find out where I live etc (there was CCTV covering the room and another female staff member) she had left the store with 40+ pairs of jeans neatly folded into local posh shop bag. Once police arrived (over an hour) and came to take her to police station the shop lifter turned on the tears and was really sorry Mr policeman and he bought her BS asked her if it was a cry for help?. Is she sad at school? Then walked her through the store to the police van a and started to put her in the front not the "cage" back section because the poor girl has made an error of judgement!!!! Same girl came back within a week and was caught with 20+ pairs of jeans she thought the whole thing was hilarious!

The trouble is customer service has been cut to the bone in supermarkets. One checkout open and all the rest self service tills. No staff to ask questions or help. They are boosting their profits by cutting staff to the bone and still charge inflated prices. Bring back good customer service and thefts might reduce. Lack of staff doesn’t excuse it but there is a culture of ‘no one cares about me so why should I care about them’. Everyone is out for themselves.

DD used to work for one well knows supermarket, their policy was that the workers aren't allowed to confront shoplifters, and they were too stingy to put security in, so shoplifters got away with it, the staff would just follow them around the shop, a manager if available would not let them in again if they shoplifted but the police aren't interested. She said it was always meat and alcohol that was taken, expensive stuff I guess.
The staff even had nicknames for the shoplifters(!) I believe one was called 'bikini' 😂

To be clear I would not want youngsters working there to challenge someone. The risk of them being attacked is too high.
I was just amazed at the casual way in which the man was doing it!

I had thought of shoplifting as being a bit more surreptitious?

And yes the comment about not paying for a bag when he was lifting £50 of shopping was tongue in cheek- but he could at least have been eco and brought his own.
Still the man paid on a card only till- maybe they follow up that?

BTW it is perfectly possible to be stealing Budweiser to feed your kids - many thieves steal to sell not for personal consumption

It is actually very difficult to shoplift in the modern era because CCTV is everywhere and every move everyone makes is recorded. Shopkeepers don't need to physically challenge anyone, just note the time and forward CCTV to police, and if it is a repeat offender police will not have trouble identifying them (especially so if they are at a self service using their own card 🤦‍♀️). Police certainly do routinely prosecute people for petty theft (saw a homeless woman receive an £80 fine for a £3.75 theft some years ago). These kids are probably well known to police and subject to various sanctions but likely living in such chaos and dysfunction that petty crime is the least of their worries. Just because you didn't witness them being challenged at the time doesn't mean they won't be picked up/prosecuted later

People have always stolen from shops and always will. It happened long before self service tills. We had a newsagents shop in the 70s and 80s. We didn't have self service tills! We had the traditional counter. We had all sorts stolen, from magazines and chocolate bars, to cigarettes and newspapers. We had people who asked for a pack of cigarettes, which we got from the stand behind us at the till, put them on the counter and they'd just pick it up and leg it. We had gangs from the nearby "travellers" site who'd come in and openly help themselves to chocolate bars from the counter and just walk out, no attempt to pay, no attempt to conceal what they were doing. You can blame self service tills till the cows come home, but it's NOT the cause of theft from shops. Back in the 80s and 90s, department stores had "store detectives" in normal clothes wandering around the shop pretending to be shoppers, but watching "suspicious" people - there were no self service tills back then!

One of my very old relatives always re-told a story of Eric Morecambe (Morecambe & Wise) stealing an apple from the corner shop which was next door to where he lived. The shopkeeper regularly re-told the story to his customers once Eric became famous. It became a local thing. Apparently Eric lived on an estate very close to the corner shop and was well known in the area as a bit of a "character" shall we say!!

I imagine self checkouts are a thing of beauty to a shop lifter. The bloody things never work properly and there are never enough staff to sort out the machine when it's having a tantrum. I suspect the uplift of shoplifting co-insides with the increased number of self checkouts. Not condoning shop lifting. But I wonder if self checkouts still saves ££££ in wages compared to the amount that gets lifted?

My local (very small) branch of boots is locked and one of the sales assistants spends her whole day locking and unlocking the door letting a few people in at a time because of the amount of theft. I have been in twice before when some one stole something. However, even before they did this there was not much on the shelves so I don't know what they nicked though I think baby formula is a popular item to nick as is washing powder (or tablets) in a supermarket. A bloke comes in my local cafe to give some to the wait staff. I feel a bit sick about this.

Friends of ours owned a retail shop which sold quite high end stuff. Shoplifting was absolutely prolific. This was in the eighties.