To feel as though I've been judged as a potential shoplifter

[101stNC]

I was in boots and thought I'd get myself a BB cream whilst in there collecting a prescription.

As I'm browsing the make-up kiosts looking at the options I can see the female security guard(?) has left her position near the door to come to the make up isle and stood at the end of the isle watching me closely. After a couple of minutes she approaches me and says that due to coronavirus testers aren't available which is fine by me as I had no intention of opening any of the creams anyway

She walks off back to the end of the isle and continues to watch me closely. I choose the one I want and make my way to the tills around the other end of the shop, I stop to pick up the dummy my daughter dropped and when i looked up the same employee is following me through the shop.

She only buggers off once she has seen me pay for my items.

I wanted to address her and ask what the issue was but as soon as she saw me leave the cashier she walked out of sight.

For context I'm 26, casually dressed (trainers and leggings) and have my little girl in the pram. I'm not a drug user and don't look scruffy (I hope!)

I phoned my DM to have a moan and ask whether it has ever happened to her, she said no despite the fact she regularly uses boots, Superdrug etc.

Today has reminded me of a separate incident where the same thing happened in a shoe shop, again where I was casually browsing to then buy.

I'm offended and embarrassed that this is the impression shop keepers get of me, what is the likely reason? Age? Pram? Trainers?

It's absolutely not the case that this happens to everybody as confirmed by the multiple friends I've asked since. She looked at me and made a judgement.

WIBU to complain or is that overkill?

@Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies

I’m obviously utterly honest looking. When I had a pram it wasn’t infrequent for me to go back to shops, rather shamefacedly, to pay for all the stuff I’d forgotten about in the basket

And my finest hour was when I was Christmas shopping one year (with no dc, so can’t claim I was distracted by them), looked down at my arm in M & S, and realised that I was clutching a large Primark basket stuffed full of clothes. Nobody had stopped me leaving Primark, and nobody stopped me as I slunk back in.

This really made me laugh

Thousands are lost each year in stores through theft so she was doing her job. Thieves don't have a sign on their backs and if your not stealing then you have nothing to worry about.

There’s clearly profiling everywhere, no idea why chubby DH gets stopped for a frisk at the airport every single time but i never do even when i let the alarm off. Why is Boots notorious for following everyone around. Tesco always selects me for a scan as you shop check when i buy a few expensive things but never when i buy a shop of boring cat food and milk.

I think i could count on two fingers how many times I’ve been watched when shopping, but i still have. And yet...I’ve not been watched when I’ve eaten my Morrisons prawn sandwich going round and put the packet in my trolley to pay later. And I always do pay later.

Maybe I’m on their approved ‘eat now pay later” list.

Thousands are lost a year? It's been estimated to cost retailers about £4.5 billion, a third of thefts by employees (Centre for Retail Research etc).

As a teen I was regularly confused with another local girl who was a "bit of a one!"
She had a bit of a reputation with boys and also shoplifting. I would say that you may have a local doppelgänger

My lovely DH is always getting followed! Shops, concert venues, airports, train stations, you name it ! Hes fairly short but stocky, bald and has a beard. He just laughs it off!

Used to happen to me all the time. It was the pram. Not in shops I always went in, ones where they didn’t know me and I felt it especially in poorer areas because I looked quite young to be having a double pram as well.

M&S was horrendous, the security came to tell me off for taking a photo of the Irish creme I wanted for Christmas and sending it to my sister in law. He accused me of being part of an organised crime ring. With two babies in the pram

I just burst in to tears and didn’t argue back at all, I was horrified he thought that, I was so embarrassed. He still wasn’t having it, asked me to leave and a possible ban. Husband came to help me out with the kids and complained about how he’d spoken to me.

I’ve been in once since without the babies and he clearly didn’t even remember who I was and smiled at me.

WinnieWonder oh wow, just seen your comment. I too am of Irish descent, and I 100% think that’s what the security guard was getting at when he said “crime ring” ie travellers. I was so upset. It’s so wrong.

Contrary to popular belief is not the middle aged women that are the worst offenders, it’s the druggies, alcoholics and the bastards that train their children up and give them shopping lists-in and out like lightning.

This totally gets my goat. I don’t care if they are following me about on their cameras or do it in plain clothes that isn’t so obvious but when they make it so blatantly obvious that they have their sights on you like a lion hunting it’s prey when all the while you have the resident shoplifter filling their bag as said security is so focused on you, I then refuse to go back to that shop.

The absolute worst is the Afro hair products shop that sells 98% hair products for Black people so it’s no surprise that black folk are flooding their doors, yet they have more security than Heathrow airport and staff standing on EVERY SINGLE AISLE AT BOTH ENDS watching your every move and that takes the piss.

I refuse to shop in Shaba’s or Paks. They are the worst for racially profiling yet 90% of black people will still be foolish enough to give them their money to be treated like crap only so they able to send their children to private schools and drive bentleys! I will rather my hair fall out than give them my money.

Definitely the pram.

Prams make shoplifting easier if you want to go thieving, but even if you don't, pushing a pram means you are looking after a baby, and if you're looking after a baby, your chances of being sleep-deprived and forgetful rocket.

A handful of friends have confessed to me before that when absolutely exhausted, they've accidentally walked out of a shop with something cheap and been far too embarrassed to go back once they've realised.

I do wonder what the real statistics are on accidental absent-minded shoplifters.

I am puzzled as to what "suspicious shopping" looks like. My eyesight isn't brill so I often have to study small instructions really carefully and then looking carefully at another item. Would that be construed as looking dodgy?

I was browsing for less than five minutes so I don't think that on Its own gave her cause for concern, she was on me pretty much immediately.

To respond to an earlier suggestion, It wasn't because i was looking at her and making myself look dodgy, she was stood on the end of the AISLE cross armed it's impossible not to know you're being watched.

As a PP mentioned, I have no problem being watched on cctv or by plain clothes security but what she was doing was so obvious it was embarrassing. There were other customers in the shop and they'll have known it was me being watched.

I've seen it happen to kids/teens and you can spot it a mile off.

The absolute worst is the Afro hair products shop that sells 98% hair products for Black people so it’s no surprise that black folk are flooding their doors, yet they have more security than Heathrow airport and staff standing on EVERY SINGLE AISLE AT BOTH ENDS watching your every move and that takes the piss

I'm white myself but I occasionally use these shops for the cosmetics and I've noticed the same thing, staff stood at both ends of the aisles every time anybody is in the shop. OTT definitely.

Given that I used to almost daily see 5-10 people running out of Nike carrying 4 boxes of trainers each, even if I did forget to buy a bag of rice crackers, it’s negligible to the amount you see people robbing everyday.

The security guards don’t even give chase because they can’t run as fast or there are too many.

So they skulk about behind new mums instead.

I agree with that.

Coincidentally, I was in this very boots before lockdown and somebody actually had shop lifted. Another customer alerted the security guard, who was a man on that occasion, and he just watched him leave the store.

The absolute worst is the Afro hair products shop that sells 98% hair products for Black people so it’s no surprise that black folk are flooding their doors, yet they have more security than Heathrow airport and staff standing on EVERY SINGLE AISLE AT BOTH ENDS watching your every move and that takes the piss.
I doubt very much that they employ security guards for the fun of it. Obviously those stores have a high theft rate hence the security guards

Pram after years in retail you will be amazed how many people load up the basket under it and accidentally walk out or don't get everything out and only pay for a couple bits. Security guard was just doing their job based on their experience of what goes on.

It’s the pram!

I mind being in Debenhams and the male store detective followed me about (it was practically empty, so I think he needed someone to watch). Eventually I was going to look at knickers so turned round and told him that I didn’t need an audience while looking at pants

ha ha!

Hi OP,

I understand how you feel and what you mean entirely. I fully appreciate security and shop staff have a job to do. It might be that Boots have been actively encouraging staff to watch out for possible shop lifters and some staff are more 'proactive' in the way they approach it than others.
I can understand how uncomfortable you feel being singled out when they make it so obvious it is you they are zoning in on even though there are lots of other customers around.

It happened to me the first time in a health food store many years ago where I was browsing with my basket having a look around different aisles. I hadn't been in there before so didn't know the layout. The shop assistant literally stood at the end of each aisle watching me like a hawk wherever I went. In the end I kept browsing around longer than I planned, revisiting different aisles just for the sake of it, seeing if he followed me just to waste his time. (Childish I know). After all that I went to the till and paid for the items as I had intended to do all along. I am not a thief, I've never stolen anything and I would never steal anything. I suppose in his eyes he doesn't know that, but to be singled out as opposed to any of the other customers is a horrible feeling.

The other place it has happened to me is Debenhams. One particular woman used to single me out every time I went in there. Over a course of a few years she would glare at me and watch my every move. As above I had never done anything wrong, never caused any reason for this I can think of. I would browse around, pick up clothes I liked, get an items number tag at the changing rooms, try them on and then pay for my items afterwards. That's it. Every time she made me feel very uncomfortable. She did the same thing a couple of times when I went in there with DH too, watching me only. She just took a dislike to me I think.
I wear casual clothes (jeans, t-shirt) but I'm always clean, tidy and presentable and don't look like a piece of pond scum as far as I know. That's how she made me feel though.

I never said anything to these people but I have wanted to. I always go back to thinking the same thing that they will just say they are doing their job. So what could I say and therefore why bother.

Just as an aside, I am mixed race. I will never know if that is the reason these incidents occurred or not and I'm not saying that's the reason. Maybe they just didn't like the cut of my jib! But whilst they were watching me, a law abiding citizen, they might have missed actual shop lifters who probably love it when the staff are distracted.

It's certainly not pleasant. I'm past it now but I think I'll spend my money in Superdrug next time, they have a better selection too.

I'm really sorry you were singled out HotMess (and others) its definitely hard not to take it personally at first.

Naively, I hadn't stopped to consider how often this type of thing happens to people of colour on a regular basis and I feel incredibly sad about that and as though i have been somewhat ignorant to it.

If this is something you or your loved ones have to deal with on a regular basis then I must sound like the biggest twit for moaning about a couple of occasions.

My half sibling is mixed raced. We've only been in one anothers lives a little over a year and are still building our relationship so this has never come up, but I bet if I asked him then he would be able to think of examples where he has had this happen much more frequently than it has me.

Mixed race*

Type error. I've corrected it myself before the spell check police do it for me

Happened*

Grr. This phone is the worst. I usually have a fairly decent grasp of the English language.

my dh used to be in retail security-he says its the pram always watched people with pramstoo easy to hide something

also atm theres covd so she could have just been reminding you not to touch tthings youre not buying