I knew shop lifting was a problem but I didn't imagine it was like this..

[SunShow]

DS is working in a Tesco Express. He personally makes around 8 shop lifting reports every day. Obviously these are just the one he sees.

I imagined that shoplifting was kids/teens stealing a chocolate bar or desperate people stealing food and that does happen, but most of it is much larger scale. Yesterday he had people arrive with rucksacks and literally sweep the contents of a shelf into their bags.

Staff are taught not to confront them (good as far as his mother is concerned!) and police take no action even when there is good CCTV.

This is a small supermarket in the nicer bit of a perfectly pleasant suburban town.

The Tories massively cut police budgets.

The current gov has increased by 100mil for neighbourhood policing

I was in my local Sainsbury's one Sunday morning. I patiently waited while a guy was flicking through the steak section. He suddenly filled his large back pack with every steak on the shelves and legged it over the security barrier. I was totally stunned and found a member of staff who told me it happened all the time.
We had sausages for tea!

I work in a supermarket - we're very rural so less of the 'rucksack, shelf sweeping' going on but we do know who the regulars are and when they come in we get on the radio. Someone on the shop floor will trail them around the shop - it's often enough of a deterrent. The really brazen ones, nothing short of tackling them to the ground would stop them and we're not allowed to do that. Besides, they have to leave the shop to be done for shoplifting, otherwise they can claim that they WERE going to pay, they just needed to do something else first.

There's no answer. Nothing short of a police van permanently in the car park scooping them in and charging them as soon as they leave the shop would even slow them down. Fortunately my manager is an ENORMOUS bloke covered in tattoos and only has to eyeball the offenders and they go out. But on a late shift when he's not in...

A Tesco express store is at the end of my road. I often wait next to it whilst the lights change. 3 times in the last 4 weeks I've seen people come out and remove things from their trousers or t shirt - obviously shop lifting. If police don't gave resources the government should set up some fast track system where stores can submit evidence and get a conviction

James O’Brien had this as a topic for his phone in this morning! A girl working in retail said her employer cut the number of staff on the shop floor & started employing younger people when the minimum wage went up!
Younger staff, less staff far more shop lifting.
The Retailer doesn’t seem to care, must be cheaper to lose stock & claim on the insurance rather than actually employ people or try to stop the shop lifter!

it’s crazy!

I saw a woman stealing on my local Aldi, the security guard asked her to return all the stuff she had taken and she bent down and bit him on the hand so hard it was bleeding and then as she left and hurled a jar of coffee at his head. It was horrible, poor guy and a bite from any person let alone a junkie is very dangerous in terms of infection. Absolutely shocking. I also saw a guy walk off with about £800 worth of steak from M&S but what do these people do with the stuff who buys all this stolen meat?

I’ve had a similar experience in our Asda @NannyfannybannyI regularly see people stealing meat & alcohol, I’ve even seen someone walk out with a trolley full of tellies (which they offered to sell me in the car park half price) and not get approached.

I, however, was accosted a couple of months ago, alone, with my newborn baby and accused quite aggressively of stealing. I’d put my Asda Essentials range bits in the pram basket, after purchase, as I’d left my bags at home. Luckily I had my receipt🙄

Not saying it would have been okay for me to steal these things, but it’s frustrating that I was stopped with a loaf of bread and some tins (all bright yellow as part of their cheap range) and yet people stealing huge high value items get a blind eye turned.

Maybe shops should all become online apart from low value staple items. Or click and collect an order? This can't go on. We are living in a two tier society at the moment. Some work hard and pay for everything and others just take.

I can't see how it's not going to get worse. Honest, decent, respectable people are always the ones to suffer in the end. Crime pays it seems 😞

Christ that's horrific! That poor guy. My DD is due to start working in a shop soon, I pray she'll never attempt to confront anyone shoplifting.

I work in an Asda and it happens all the time. This is the reason why prices are going up . The amount they steal is ridiculous. We are told not to confront anyone who steals, we have a few members of staff that do and chase them off. They are our heroes.

So why aren’t we all doing it then, if there are NO consequences? Literally, why not? Free food.

As am employee, I don’t think I could help myself grabbing the bags off them. It would be a natural instinct. Cheeky twats.

Yes this. This country is really going downhill and I am someone who has always defended it, but just lately I feel as if everything is out of control.

Who buys £800 worth of steak? Some people getting their rent paid by the nash. The blokes in the local Wetherspoon who won’t work. Family of thief. Friends of thief. Plenty of choice. It’s an absolute racket.

They do that in France

at the self service checkout you automatically get a receipt and you have to scan the barcode on it to exit the area.

Yet it's amazing how many people are happy to buy stuff off some blokes in the pub or a at car boot sale or some bloke in the high street selling from a large supermarket bag.
Because "it's a bargain".
🙄

A few weeks ago in our local Tesco an off duty police office was chatting to the checkout lady. She had arrested a shoplifter in the store a week previously but it was decided to take No Further Action by the CPS.

Shoplifting is costing the UK economy £170 billion a year, but apparently it's not worth doing anything about it.

My son used to work in a large supermarket, the amount of brazen shoplifting he saw was astonishing.

In Berlin recently, I had to scan my receipt to be able to open the little gate from the self scan area and leave the store. Something like that could work. Expensive to install though, I guess.

It’s absolute nonsense that the police don’t react. We actually have teams of undercover place that work on our local High Street. The stores will alert them. They will arrive in an unmarked car and either recover the goods or prosecute or give them a fixed penalty notice depending on the severity

Some years ago I did some prison chaplaincy work, and there were a group of women who were like revolving doors for sentences due to shoplifting. What you are describing is small potatoes with rucksacks. These women would walk into huge stores like M&S, Debenhams etc, and walk out with entire racks of clothing still on the racks!

There are a few places in the UK that now have these too. I read about them somewhere on line - can't recall where now though

I was in a little convenience store at one of the GridServe places recently.

You had to tap your bank card to gain entry and then it deducted everything you had on your person automatically when you walked out. No staff seen on duty at all. I wonder if that's the answer, although wouldn't help my DS, and the barriers would be easy enough to jump at the store I saw.

Agree that police and courts need to start taking action, there's no deterrent, and it's unfair on those of us who are honest and end up paying more.