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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:

VisualiseAHorse · 01/03/2013 12:47

A friend didn't realise till she got home that her son (in a buggy) had stolen an extension lead. He must have grabbed it while they were in Dixons and hid it under his blanket.

Don't know if she took it back!

dothraki · 01/03/2013 13:14

Another time when dd was in the buggy and I was out of the shop I saw she had helped herself to a packet of sweets - and she was eating them. I went back to the shop and handed the half eaten packet of sweets. I apologised - and then said "if you didn't leave them at that height...." thank goodness she just smiled and nodded.

LaalRatty · 01/03/2013 13:19

Dothraki :o I too was blamed for sweets left for kids to grab at the checkout. I'm glad she did what we all do. Smile and nod politely.

5Foot5 · 01/03/2013 13:27

Once when I was a teenager I was choosing postcards from a stand outside of a shop. Having found the ones I wanted I absent mindedly walked off with them up the street and it was only when I got back to our lodgings that I realised what I had done. I ran back in a state of great embarassment and went in the shop and paid, but I don't think anyone had noticed either way.

mydadsdaughter · 01/03/2013 13:28

My DS1 took a packet of sweets from local newsagents, didn't even notice til we were halfway home, he gets it from his dad who stopped at the local garage once to be told that he didn't pay for his fuel the day before, he usually stops there most days on his way home from work for a couple beers etc. On this particular day he paid for his shopping but not his fuel. The bloke wasn't bothered though as he knew he'd be back in at some point.

FeckOffCup · 01/03/2013 13:34

I stole carrier bags from lidl once as a student, the first time I shopped there on my own. I genuinely didn't realise you were supposed to pay for them, I had put the shopping through and paid for it, looked for carrier bags and saw none on the packing bit so helped myself to some from the shelf under a till that wasn't being used not realising they were 9p each or something. Nobody seemed to notice or care though.

popcornpaws · 01/03/2013 13:40

I got a phone call from the police asking if i had been to a tesco petrol station, i told them i didn't drive. They said my car was on cctv having been filled with petrol then driven off.
I phoned my husband and asked if he had filled the car up with petrol, and he said how did you know i had done that? eh, because the police are on the phone as you didn't pay for it. Cue big silence then SHIIIIIIT!
When he went back to pay he said the staff were glaring at him and nudging each other. haha

LulaPalooza · 01/03/2013 13:42

I stole a 5p piece from my Mum's purse when I was about 6 years old. It was sitting on the table, open, and there was a big shiny 5p piece staring at me (this was in the 1970s when 5p coins were quite big)... so I grabbed it on impulse.

I ran upstairs, heart thumping... mortified... felt sick... I knew I had been VERY VERY naughty.

I hid it under my bed and tried to work out how to get it back to her without her knowing.

A couple of days later she was weeding in the front garden (iI think it must have been summer holidays) so I went out to "help" her... the illicit 5p was in my pocket... I pretended that I had found it in the flower bed by the front door. She said "oh dear, perhaps the milkman dropped it. Anyway, you can have it for being a good, honest girl".

I was MORTIFIED! I STILL couldn't get it back to her! It became a VERY VERY big deal in my 6 year old head and in the end I think I just plopped it back into her handbag, burning with shame.

It still makes me feel to this day, and I'm in my 40s!

FascinatingNewThing · 01/03/2013 13:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

gallifrey · 01/03/2013 13:43

last week I went shopping and had dd in her buggy. I hung a pair of school trousers on the handle of the buggy and paid for the rest of my shopping and didn't realise they were there until I got back to the car and folded the buggy down.

Alizzle · 01/03/2013 13:44

recently I went to tesco and picked up some baby jars as we were going away that weekend. I has ds in his car seat in the trolley and put the jars around him, it was 10 for £5 or something like that. I didn't count them out to pay and discovered that I'd only paid for 8 of them when I got to the car. I ended up paying more for them that way and was too embarrassed to go back.

jeee · 01/03/2013 13:48

When I had a buggy I would often get half way home before realising that the stuff in the buggy's shopping basket hadn't been paid for. I would always walk back to the shop, to the sound of loud sobs from DD1 who was invariably convinced that I was going to be arrested and thrown into jail.

Oh, and DD3 did manage to pinch a pretty pair of glittery shoes from Gap once - that turned out to be fairly expensive as I had to take a bus into town to return them.

NaturalBaby · 01/03/2013 13:49

I had no basket and too much stuff in Lidl so I put a pack of biscuits on the hood of the buggy. They were still there when I got the buggy out the car back at home. For the sake of a 30p pack of biscuits I didn't feel too guilty!

Wommer · 01/03/2013 13:51

When DS was about 3 weeks old I totally accidentally made him an accessory to theft from boots
Had picked up a load of stuff when he went into the mother of all screaming fits - hungry+full nappy - and I left everything in there and ran off to the feeding/changing area in a big department store nearby.

Was only when I got home I saw, wedged at the bottom of the pram, a pack of maternity pads!

Ah the glamorous life of a high class thief!

hettie · 01/03/2013 13:51

both dd and ds have shoplifted (as unknowing toddlers ). DS loaded a top with belt into the bag without me knowing (he was interested in playing with belts at the time). On another occasion DD shoved some tights under the pushchair (actually not sure how 'innocent' she was in this as she rather wanted the tights and i had said no!)

Dillydollydaydream · 01/03/2013 13:55

I've accidentally stolen a mascara from Boots.
I had dd in her buggy and she wanted to walk so I got her out and put my basket of shipping in the buggy seat. Went and paid and popped dd back in the buggy. When I came to put her in the car later on I saw she was sitting on a mascara that must've fallen out of the slats of the basket into the buggy!

loopyluna · 01/03/2013 13:56

I managed to get home from Clarks with an extra (identical) pair of shiney shoes! DD had asked to keep them on and DH (unfamiliar with the usual Clarks routine), chucked her old pair in the buggy basket. The girl at the till gave me the shoebox in a carrier bag. I presumed it contained her old shoes but it was actually another pair of new ones. I'm not at all sure how the mix up happened but I did take them back!
If they'd been a size bigger, I might have been tempted ;-)

TerraNotSoFirma · 01/03/2013 14:03

We had stopped off at tesco for essentials, I went to get his tobacco DH went to get the drink (see, essentials)
Paid for cigs etc, picked up a nail polish on my way to find DH.
Was stopped by security as I left the checkout, police called etc. as the nail polish was still in my hand with the cigarettes, I had forgotten I'd picked it up.

Had to wait ages in a wee room for the police, asshole security guard asking sarcastically "ever been in trouble before Terra", DS was 9 weeks old, breasts leaking all over the place, he was due a feed soon and thought I was going to have to get my mum to bring him down and I'd have to feed him in the criminal waiting room.
Police turned up, watched CCTV, agreed it wasn't intentional but they still had to charge me. :( totally mortified.

TerraNotSoFirma · 01/03/2013 14:04

BTW I think the police must never have officially charged me as I've never heard anything since and that was nearly 2 years ago now.

HelgatheHairy · 01/03/2013 14:06

I was shopping in Tesco with my mum and she had gotten a naggin of whiskey to make hot whiskeys with. Anyway put the shopping through the self scan no problem but the alarms went off as we were walking out the door. A member of staff came over and realised the whiskey had a security tag on it, I took the receipt out of my pocket to prove I'd paid but she waved it away. She took off the security tag and all was good.

On getting home mum was going through the receipt and guess what she realised?? Yup, we'd never actually paid for the whiskey. I'm still not sure why the weight sensors on the till didn't go off.

I left her to go back and explain that one!

thenightsky · 01/03/2013 14:09

I once got out to the carpark of Waitrose and realised I hadn't paid for a huge box of Fosters lager cans that I'd stowed under the trolley as it was too big to go in the trolley! I'm gobsmacked that Waitrose's security was so lax

starsandunicorns · 01/03/2013 14:12

6 pint milk at bottom of buggy realised when got home called tecos to say will be in to pay for it. Got to desk had to explain again the lad asked what size it was said the six pint one said thankyou for being honest I handed over a tenner reaisled when home he only keyed it has a one pint.

TheKelda · 01/03/2013 14:13

Yep, we were in B&Q and my son, who was about 4 at the time, was carrying lolly moulds that he wanted. Paid for everything at the till, got to the car and realised that he was still carrying the lolly moulds. We'd never paid for them .

I did go back into the shop and pay for them - got laughed at too

Dfg15 · 01/03/2013 14:20

when my DD2 was about a year old we were in Childrens World, she was in her buggy and I was looking at books for a present for someone. When we were at the checkout I looked down at her and she'd cleared a whole rack of Mister Men books and put them behind her in the buggy!

MrsDeVere · 01/03/2013 14:21

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

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