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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To tell you about my accidental shoplifting and ask - has it happened to you??

137 replies

Spice17 · 01/03/2013 10:54

Mortifying and please no flaming, this was 100% accidental.

Shopping with DM, her DH and my DD in her buggy yesterday and we're sharing a basket, I plonk loads of baby essentials in it and then wander off to get some toothpaste, leaving them looking at crockery. Anyway, I chat to a friend I know on the till next to the one I'm paying at and leave.

An hour later, I go to top up the car parking and find the toothpaste in my bag! Can only asume I absentmindedly chucked it in the bag as I had it over my arm as you would a basket. Imagine if someone pulled me aside, I genuinely would have had no idea and they would have been thinking 'heard that one before Darlin'.

There's another one too can you tell I'm ridiculously 'Miranda' in my general uselessness!

On my lunchbreak a few years back, popped into a clothes shop, when I got back to work, a size 8 sequinned playsuit was attached to my bag by the hanger. The odd thing was, not only did no one stop me in the shop but I walked all along the high street and no one batted an eyelid. I took that one back but it was extremely embarrasing and the shop assistant was looking at me like I was a little bit loopy.

Please share, I feel like a total klutz!

OP posts:

emsyj · 01/03/2013 10:58

My DMum walked out of M&S with a bag of broccoli looped over her wrist. Nobody even challenged her, despite the fact that she had a basket of other shopping and went through the till chatting animatedly with the checkout assistant. She was mortified when she noticed, but got over it! People must do it all the time.

Doubletroublemummy2 · 01/03/2013 10:58

Hahah, a familiar story i went shopping for the baby clothes and when we got home one of the babies was playing with a bright pink size 6 diamante thong!!!!

WhoPaintedTheLion · 01/03/2013 10:59

At the checkout, I unloaded my shopping onto the conveyer belt and pushed my trolley past the till to load it back up with the scanned shopping, as you do, when a chocolate bar caught my eye and I just, out of habit, flung it into the empty trolley and strolled past the cashier. She saw me and told me very harshly to pleae put it with the rest of the shopping on the converyor belt. Mortifying. I couldn't find the words to explain myself properly and just made myself look and sound like a shoplifter

AnneNonimous · 01/03/2013 11:03

Once got home from tescos and found a tin of cat food in my bag. Still no idea how it got there, I don't even have a cat!!

Oh and once put a by of bananas in the hood of the buggy and forgot all about it until we got home.

Preposteroushypothesis · 01/03/2013 11:03

I did this last week, was shopping with the double buggy so had a basket precariously balanced on top I had to get milk which was on offer so I got 2, obviously didn't want to put this in the basket in case it dropped on the children's heads so I put it in the basket underneath the buggy. Go and pay, leave and get home to discover my stolen goods still stashed under the buggy! It was cravendale too

TheSurgeonsMate · 01/03/2013 11:04

I wandered out of a bookshop about twenty years ago holding a book. I can still remember the title - it was called "Cold Spaghetti at Midnight". I have no idea why I was still clutching it, I have no interest in cold spaghetti and having read the cover and found out that the book really was about cold spaghetti, it wasn't some sort of metaphor, I wasn't thinking about buying it.

SayCoolNowSayWhip · 01/03/2013 11:06

I accidentally stole our Christmas turkey...

MrsWembley · 01/03/2013 11:06

A few weeks ago I got back to the car with both DCs in the double buggy, to find DS underneath, playing with a nappy bin cartridge that I'd given to DD to hold. She'd passed it to DS to play with and I hadn't noticed... then I didn't remember it when I went through the self-service check-out!

Again,

mum382013 · 01/03/2013 11:06

i used to have a coat with velcro on the pockets and once i got home i realised i had a pack of baby socks attched to it! my youngest was about 7 at the time! had to take them back, they laughed with me! i was embarrassed though.

TomArchersSausage · 01/03/2013 11:06

I walked out of M&S with one of their wire baskets hooked over my elbow and a pair of tights in the basket.

I was in an indoor precinct and I just drifted in a trance out of M&s before I realised (after some distance) that I still had the basket over my arm. As a surrepticious shoplifting technique it leaves a lot to be desired.

No one stopped me but I practically fainted at realising what I'd done and dashed back.

gerbilsarefun · 01/03/2013 11:08

My dd 'stole' 2 purses from next when she was a baby, . I did take them back. A couple of years ago, when our finances weren't that good, I filled a small trolley with some essentials then went to the till. The assistant put my shopping through and I bagged it up but put a pack of chewing gum in my pocket so I could have some on the way home. My card wasn't accepted so I had to leave the shopping, again . It was only when I got home that I realised I had the chewing gum. I still think I must be on their CCTV and have wanted posters up.

nokidshere · 01/03/2013 11:09

I was shopping where boots and M&S were across from each other in an undercovered area.

I filled a basket in boots and then went to get sandwiches from M&S. It wasn't until I put my basket down to pay and the assisant in Marks said "these didn't come from here" that I realised. I had walked out of boots, across the forecourt and into marks without being challenged! I went back to boots with my basket of stuff and told the checkout what I had done - laughing, slighty mortified - she barely blinked!

mum382013 · 01/03/2013 11:09

mind you i once had a pair of my knickers stuck on the velcro as i had been rumaging in the clean laundry wearing the coat as i was on the way out and i was looking for the kids pe kit. The school run was fun that day. wasnt even my nice knickers but my granny pants!

ISingSoprano · 01/03/2013 11:11

I walked out of Next with ds in the buggy (many years ago). We walked up the high street and I bent down to say something to ds to find he had a pair of sandals on his lap. I went back to the shop and the assistants were all busy so I just put the sandals back on the rack.

CunfuddledAlways · 01/03/2013 11:12

i didnt realise that my dd2 had managed to pull some shorts off the rail in a clothes shop while i was looking at clothes. i didnt end up buying anything but beeped on the way out my bags where searched but nothing found, it got hot later in the day later so took the footmuff off the pram to find these shorts shoved in the bottom!!! so embarressed when i took them back but they clearly wouldnt have fit me as they where a size 6 and im a 10/12, luckily the shop where nice about it!!

mum382013 · 01/03/2013 11:12

my coat now has open pockets with no velcro

MewlingQuim · 01/03/2013 11:14

Police called at my mum's house and said there had been a theft of fuel from Morrisons garage when she was there, did she notice anything. Mum thought about it carefully and said no she hadn't seen anything. Police said do you remember paying for your fuel? Mum said.....er......oh!

No she doesn't have dementia, she is just batty

WorkingtoohardMama · 01/03/2013 11:15

I hung some clothes on the hook of the trolley, did some other shopping, put all that on the conveyor belt, forgot about the clothes, the cashier asked me if I was planning on paying for the clothes - I was mortified!

Also finished paying in Superdrug once and then realised I had one of those shower scrunchies on my wrist, I told the cashier and paid, but she looked at me like I was planning on pinching it and chickened out!

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 01/03/2013 11:16

I've walked out of Sainsburys and found a pack of sweets underneath my handbag, in the trolley. I went back in and paid.

Tbh, I think we have so much stuff in our heads, that this sort of thing is easy to do - I think of it as my brain being too full to hold any more details.

Ghostsgowoooh · 01/03/2013 11:16

I once went to tesco to do some clothes shopping, filled the basket up with stuff and hung a pair of boots from the handle of the pram, went to the checkout and paid, strolled past security at the door who nodded and smiled at me, got to the car and yup discovered the boots still attached to the pram. I didn't take them back

So, tesco. Your security is shit.

impecuniousmarmoset · 01/03/2013 11:17

My dad did this once, about 25 years ago, with a cheap cd he'd just forgotten he was holding! He's an obvious absent-minded professor type but the sodding security guards were having none of it. He was arrested and charged. He opted for a full jury trial when the v dim security guards tied themselves up in knots of lies. It was thrown out of court with some strong words from the judge about wasting public money. I think he was very unlucky but god it was ordeal enough to make me totally paranoid even today about making sure I don't inadvertently walk out of shops without paying!

zzzzz · 01/03/2013 11:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

WannabeWilloughby · 01/03/2013 11:18

I had about 20 pounds worth of shopping, put it through the checkout and before I paid they asked if I wanted a loyalty card thing. I filled it out, handed it over and walked off, assuming id paid...I even stopped to look at a display on the way out and nobody shouted me! Got home and realised all my money was still in my purse, meaning I didnt pay, no receipt or anything!!! Phoned the store and they said a manager would phone me back, they never did so, im ashamed to say, I just kept the shopping!! I did donate extra to air ambulance that month to balance it out a bit though!

I assume they added the cost of my shopping onto the bill of the poor lady behind me!? Haven't been in that shop since!

littlewhitebag · 01/03/2013 11:18

I went through a checkout in Boots once with DD2 in her pushchair. When i got outside i realised she was scoffing a large bar of chocolate which she had helped herself too. I was too to go back.

Once, years ago in H&M on a girly shopping day my best mate took a large pile of clothes and a belt into the changing rooms along with her carrier bags from other shops. When she came out she gave the assistant most of the clothes back in a big heap. When we were having coffee she went to show us what she bought from another shop - and found the H&M belt! It was very nice and she still wears it to this day and we still tease her about her 'free' belt!!

PommePoire · 01/03/2013 11:20

I know someone who arrived home from a holiday, having stopped on the very long car journey at a motorway service station, several hours before. Her little DS was wearing brand new Thomas The Tank Engine slippers that didn't really fit him. Gentle questioning revealed that he'd left his own also brand new Clarks shoes on the shelf in the service station shop from where he'd tea-leafed the slippers.

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