Shop took my bags from me

[Watermelonsugarcube]

This is something that happened around15 years ago that I just randomly remembered, not a massive issue just something I’m curious about.

Aged around 20 I was out clothes shopping, big city centre. I walked into a shop (pretty sure it was Armani exchange but can’t be 100%) and a member of staff approached me and said “would you like us to take your bags for you madam? You can collect them when you leave”. I wasn’t really sure why but being young and still wet behind the ears I compliantly handed them over, I thought it was maybe just something they did in posh shops so that you didn’t have to carry them (I realise Armani exchange isn’t exactly high end but to my 20 year old river island clad self it was the height of luxury).

Until I realised that every other shopper in there had their bags with them and realised they probably had me down as a shoplifter. Still remember the embarrassment of having to ask for my bags back before I could leave.

So not really an aibu, just wondering if anyone who’s worked in retail knows if this was an actual store policy and did my admittedly badly dressed but ultimately shy and perfectly normal lone female presence really give out mega shoplifter vibes.

Shoplifters do often carry bags in with them to conceal stuff they're stealing. So, yes, it sounds like the staff were proactive in minimising that - I wouldn't give it too much thought really. It sounds like they were polite to you. Staff are often under pressure to stop opportunistic thieves.
My Mum was a shop manager and they looked for giveaway behaviour rather than how people looked. Your shyness could have been misinterpreted as being shifty!

I don't work in retail but remember visiting a country where some of the shops had this policy - they even had lockers to leave bags in.

Think I must look like a shoplifter to my local co-op as my entering the shop seems to trigger a warning that there is CCTV and shoplifters will be prosecuted. Not noticed this happening to anyone else. I have never shoplifted and don't intend to but feel weirdly guilty and self conscious when I go in there now!

Toys r us used to do this to everyone. Used to get a bingo ticket to get your bag back with

I suppose I’d wonder if they picked on me for some reason e.g. only female there or only person of colour?

Yeah sounds like they thought you were a bit dodgy. I'd guess a demographic thing.

When I was probably in my mid to late twenties, my local Lidl stopped me going in and insisted that if I wanted to shop, I had to leave my bags full of shopping from other shops unattended at the front of the supermarket, after the checkouts, exactly where they'd be easy for anyone else to casually pick up as they were walking out.

I said no, obviously. A bit later I gave the bags to the person I was in town with (twenty years older, male) and asked him to see what happened if he went in carrying them. Nobody said a word to him. Both of us were dressed casually, both the same race so not a racist thing, neither of us drunk or particularly behaviourally weird.

Who can fathom the judgement of shop staff on what makes someone suspicious? I can only assume that youngish and female sometimes ticks boxes for shoplifting risk, and it depends on who they've recently had trouble with.

Or you could be looking like someone who was trouble before or elsewhere.
Our security when I was young did sometimes follow people because they got echo from other shop nearby that x with y hair and z bag was shoplifting

Honestly can’t imagine this happening in many shops these days. I worked in retail and there’s no chance I would have wanted to touch someone else’s bags (I’m sure others wouldn’t post-covid too). I worked in a tourist hotspot in London and we never asked for bags unless it was for concierge collection service.

Having said that, once I went to Coventry Ann Summers with a massive suitcase. Coventry has their high street shops close to the train station so I was killing time until my train. I asked to use the fitting room to try 1 item on and the lady offered to keep my suitcase behind the till as the fitting rooms were small. In the end, she opened the locked disabled fitting room for me to use and take in my suitcase. Looking back, I don’t think they were worried about me stealing as they could see I only had 1 item with me? But after reading this maybe she did🤣

I worked for a big-ish department store a while back - the biggest loss due to shoplifting was make-up, and almost exclusively by teenage girls of all ethnicities. We hired security specifically for that department!

I get followed around boots by the same security guard every time I go in. I’ve never shoplifted in my life but he quite openly follows me round. I did a click and collect there recently and the lady on the till radioed for someone to collect it and then turned to me and said oh sorry I will have to go get it, security normally do but there is a known shoplifter in so he can’t, he was stood at the end of the queue watching me still. I said to her he’s following me, he does every time I come in for some reason and then seems to radio the next shop I go to. I hoped she would say something to him and it would stop but nothing has changed.

I read in the news that some coops are using face recognition tech now for this sort of thing - do you live in the South?

In some shops in France they would seal the tops of your other shopping bags so you couldn't nick stuff. This wasn't in a smart area, they did it to everyone.

@Chouetted no I'm very much in the north!

Ah! You must just look suspicious then. Maybe you should ditch the SWAG bag and striped shirt?

Funky blues, yes! Our carrier bag from the main supermarket was taken from us and stapled up by a security guard in a shop connected to the main shop in the south of France. Worst than that though was the fact that the dye from said bag ended up all over my hands on the bus on the way back to our holiday villa. I don't think we looked particularly shifty....

Worse than, b@#£&+ auto correct

You must be so bored op.

TJMaxx (in the US) used to make everyone check their bags...then you'd have to wait in a long queue to retrieve it

We keep an eye on people who come in with empty buggies as they tend to hide items underneath it or in the footmuff. Or small items in the fold of the hood bit. So if you take the buggy to carry stuff but don't have the child with you or the child is walking you might attract attention. Or people with massive bags that are practically empty.

@Chouetted ah that'll be it! Maybe I should get rid of the balaclava too?

@Smokealarmwakeup

You need to make an appointment with the manager and follow up w head office. It’s likely you look like someone else, but this is unacceptable.

when i was at school there was a craze for stealing small items from boots, and then bringing them back to get a refund.
at that time they didn't ask for a receipt if price under £5, which was worth a lot more in early 70s.
i couldn't understand why they did it; just because they could i guess. they could not understand why i didn't, telling me how easy it was.
i was one of the v few w/c pupils; it was a private school, the perpetrators all had well-off m/c parents.
they had absolutely no qualms at all. these were teenagers, so old enough to know better, and to be criminally liable, and at a religious school.

just looked it up; allowing for inflation, is now worth about £70.
so not small potatoes then.

Thought this was going to be the same as my experience yesterday.

Walked into a charity shop and some volunteer tried to take my shopping from me thinking it was donations. Had force them to get the manager to stop them taking my stuff.

I remember in a big shopping centre in Spain had a supermarket within it and if you had any bags that you’d gotten from another shop they’d put all your bags in a big plastic shopping bag and melt it shut haha.