AIBU to think more people steal than we think?

[Garfy0505]

I run an online business and around 2-3% of my orders I get messages from customers saying thier items have not arrived. Most of them do not realise I can track the item and use the GPS to determine the house it was delivered to. I politely suggest they've contacted me by mistake and 99% of these then either miraculously find it or I never hear from them again. There's whole pages on facebook for people to advise them how to get items for free from online companies, what is wrong with people? I wonder now if for every 100 people I come across 2-3 of them are secret thieves! Please if you ever think of doing this, remember there's often a small business behind the website that you're hurting, rant over!

It's not these queries I'm moaning about, I get these too and often it's at a neighbours or back at the post office or sometimes lost in the abyss. It's only the people who have the item and then say they don't and just disappear when they're caught out that are getting on my wick. I get loads of genuine ones too and always manage to resolve it :-)

Yup! I wonder how many 'honest' people steal from their organizations' stationery? Honesty is rarer than you might think.

I worked in a large corporation. In two different areas I worked in, three full time colleagues studied for their law exams while pretending they were working. They hid their books inside files and it looked like they were working while instead they were memorising and jotting down study notes. One ex colleague did the same while studying for her psychology degree. One of these colleagues got promoted to office supervisor as she worked late so often (claiming overtime) and appeared so dedicated to her work!

Sometimes theft, sometimes a genuine mistake. I had something supposedly delivered and left over the garden wall. Checked, nothing there. Contacted seller they said it had been delivered. Went out again, it had been delivered over next door's wall.

Maybe it’s a genuine mistake by some people? I ordered a cape off eBay for my sons world book day outfit, I waited two weeks it hadn’t arrived I sent a polite message asking if it had been delayed? they never replied just sent me my money back, the cape arrived this morning, I feel awful.

Out of interest, how would you know it wasn't some one whose parcel genuinely hadn't turned up despite the GPS thing saying it has? Given a fsir few of us here have had stuff go awol that is supposedly signed for and tracked? How do you know the have the item when they have said they don't?

And if people ARE stealing like that, they are shameless bastards!

And again some of these are genuine but they often 'locate' it within minutes of me confirming the delivery details

That’s because you can direct them to within 2 or 3 foot of where it is, so I’m not surprised as it shouldn’t take than that long to search when they have the general area to look in.

When I worked in retail gangs/groups used to come in and steal quite openly. They knew there was little we could do to stop them and the police wouldnt come. I remember the manager pleading with them to give back a trolley of stolen items, to which the thieves said 'what are you going to do otherwise?' the manager couldn't say anything, not able to stop them. Police arrived an hour later. It was a big supermarket chain ☹

I know several people who claimed their amazon delivery didnt turn up when it did. Or someone that cheats the self scan til. I imagine the theory is that amazon/a big supermarket can afford the loss, but they will be getting things from much smaller companies who will, no doubt feel the pinch before amazon or tesco.

On the flipside a friend sent me some chocolates through the post special delivery. They were nice chocs but didnt really warrant being signed for....which was just as well as the postman (royal mail) just left them in the porch. That service was insured up to £500 so I'd have been a bit pissed off if she'd sent something high value and they'd just left it there without trying the door (I was in) or getting a proper signature.

I remember reading before that if people do this regularly to Amazon, they can be blacklisted and Amazon won’t deliver to that account/address again.

I remember ordering from a big online retailer before, the value of the item was approx £150. The parcel had to be signed for (as should every parcel!). I didn’t receive it and their online tracking showed it was still in the country of origin. They refused to refund me saying I had received it! They then proceeded to blacklist me and as they were a parent company to a number of large online sites, they blacklisted me from
all those too. I ended up getting on to consumer rights about them and I received an email from them confirming I was no longer blacklisted. Hopefully I put the company on a list in the consumer rights department. The item never turned up and never left the country from where it was supposed to be shipped. Tracking protects the buyer as well as the retailer.

Facilities Management keeps a ‘stolen goods’ list where I work. Every year it runs over a side of A4 paper so dozens of things, such as crockery, cutlery, glassware, condiments, washing up liquid, dishwasher tablets, coffee, Nespresso pods, Nespresso sugar sachets, clocks, plants, stationery - large and small items - books, packaging, wrapping, portable fans and radiators, air freshener, hang soap, hand lotion. Honestly, these are well paid professional people.

People will take anything if its not nailed down.

Once we confirm the GPS of their delivery address they find it quite quickly. often with the most random reason

I’m sure you’d have thought mine random. We had a delivery and the card said “at the back door”

We hunted for it at the back door but it was not there. Looked in the bins, Nope not there.

I called and they sent me another. Found it days later, right at the back on the house between two sets of rear patio doors we have, in a position you can only see it if you are Standing right in front of it. It never occurred to us that someone would think our patio doors are the back door. I called and told them what had happened and they said just to keep it as it was a low value item. I donated it to the school fayre tombola as we had no use for a second one.

I remember reading before that if people do this regularly to Amazon, they can be blacklisted and Amazon won’t deliver to that account/address again.

Yes, this happened to someone in my old building. Amazon kept leaving his parcels outside his door and they kept being stolen. Not sure why he didn't get them delivered to work/a nearby locker after the first couple went missing. It went on for a year and he was finally banned. He still rants about them like a lunatic on our local FB page.

My daughter workd in retail for a big phone company, staff thefts were tife, when discovered the company would quietly fire the staff member rather than have the bad publicity of a court case.

My packages always say left on the porch, the thing is I don't have a porch so they are left uncovered on the doorstep on a main road. I'm surprised nothing has gone missing.

DH works as Security in well known supermarket chain. You would be astonished at the brazen thievery he encounters every single day.

More often than not it's women with children - presumably on the assumption that they will not be challenged.

It's not food because the thief is hungry or needs to feed their children. It's wide-screen TV's, booze, electronics etc to be sold on - either to buy drugs, or part of an organised criminal gang.

More often than not it's women with children - presumably on the assumption that they will not be challenged.

It's that they have good excuses if the child is in a pram. 'Oh dc must have grabbed that, I had no idea', 'I put it in the pram for safe keeping then forgot to pay', 'What's that, no idea how that got there' etc etc etc.

What are the items?

'Oh dc must have grabbed that, I had no idea'

My eldest DC actually did this when she was a toddler still in her buggy. I left the shop and was walking around a shopping centre when I saw she had grabbed a pair of soft prewalkers and was holding onto them tightly. I got in such a panic. I returned to the shop apologising and they laughed and said it happened all the time and people never returned them.

I know someone who is sent to mend things in peoples homes, and who says that people lie about damage done to additional items all the time. It's rife.

and who says that people lie about damage done to additional items all the time.

I don’t understand?

Eg The Philips repair guy comes to repair the washing machine. And someone says he must repair the tumble dryer and fridge too? Surely they have to request call outs and he can say that easily as it’s company policy?

Or do you mean a roofer calls to repair loose tiles and the people say there are two loose tiles but really there are ten? Would that matter as he would see that before he quotes them for the repair anyway?

I'm another numptie who ordered a package, had an email to say it had been delivered and couldn't find it. Reported it missing - everyone was very polite about it, they send they'd send me a new one if the other one didn't turn up in two days.

I effed and blinded and cursed the delivery guy... finally found the package. It had been posted through an open ground floor window, had fallen down behind my dining table on edge, so was practically invisible (long, thin package) and I only found it because the dog started worrying at it.

AND the delivery man turned out to be a friend of mine. I sent so many grovelling emails that day...

had someone else's delivery arrive here, so he would have been the person thinking 'that's not my porch' - we share a house name but live 10 miles apart.

incredibly difficult to get it returned because the courier companies don't have phone contact and ignore email, twitter etc. It did go in the end and hopefully got to him but a major performance.

that said much of the population are low-lifes - you'll see lots on here who don't mind shoplifting if it is a big company and are still mentally in the playground when it comes to 'don't sneak'.

This thread is really eye opening. Just when we think humanity couldn't get any more depressing.

I don’t understand

Additional items. So you fix the roof and they say you damaged the window.

I used to work for British gas planning in engineers. We used to get it all the time 'your engineer has been here today and I realised when he left my 50 inch TV is missing from the wall' or the engineer has gone and 5 brand new tech items are missing'

It was company policy the the customer called the police then we dealt directly with the police until it was determined wether the engineer stole these items or not.

90% refused to contact the police. I would say 98% of the rest couldnt prove they even owned the items. One, still had said TV on their wall when the police went round.