Followed round Wilko by shop security team.

[ThreeWarriors]

I was shopping in Wilko today when towards the end I realised I was being very closely monitored by a very unsubtle security team. I went to the till and paid for my shopping and told the lady at the till how obvious they’d been and how uncomfortable they’d made me feel. She did apologise. The whole thing was very unnerving.

I have never stolen a thing in my life and have no reason to.

I am a DV victim and probably come across as less confident. I also struggle to make decisions in shops so like to take my time. I think there were at least two men, definitely one. There was a lady there too but she was much less obvious.

I was mainly buying stuff to send to my DD at uni and am now thinking of returning it all and buying it elsewhere.

I don’t want to be followed around anywhere by unknown men.

I was followed the other day (by store staff) and was a bit disconcerted - it’s hard to browse normally when you’re worried about looking suspicious.

i realised later it was because I had my coat draped over my arm. All innocent on my part - it had become a warm afternoon after a chilly morning and that’s just how I carry it- but I realised that must be one of the “flags” they notice.

They may have been trained to follow people at random, so that no particular sector of the population is picked out, and because someone who 'doesn't look like a shoplifter' can of course shoplift.

That seems to be about the size of it, @AuntSalli

I definitely encountered a mumsnetter in the wild today. Going about my surveillance, my colleague the other end of the shop. He was stood in one place not moving. A woman who had been literally in the same aisle for an hour stomped over to me and told me she wasnt happy that my colleague had looked at her multiple times and made her feel like a criminal.

Hands up who it was because it was pretty funny. Now apparently looking at someone who thinks standing in one spot in a shop for 60 minutes is normal is cause for a hissy fit.

60 minutes? Because that really happened lol.

Yeah ok because people dont spend ridiculous amounts of time in shops, particularly this particular shop. The average time spent inside is an hour.

@ShaneTwane woah, what aisle was it? I only spend ungodly amounts of time at ikea or maybe trying on clothes but can’t imagine staring at something for an hour before deciding to buy. Could be unusual customer behaviour but not necessarily shoplifting

Expensive bike parts. Highly stolen things. People act shocked when they see security in store.

The security in that Wilko sounded really heavy handed OP- and a few others, eg the thong story, are awful. A former colleague of mine when I worked alongside the military got tailed in m&s once. Unfortunately for security he was a former sniper who'd worked alongside the SAS. He put the security guard off his trail, started following the bloke and scared the crap out of him asking what the problem was, haha.

I've worked retail & I've seen differing approaches in different shops. When I worked in a really naice middle class shop, we did similar to @200degrees - get chatting, kill with kindness etc. We tried to keep people zoned on the shopfloor so they had an excuse to spot check/tidy the area/ or engage people. We probably weren't always subtle but we tried to be.

In every brand I worked for, we didn't want to offend people but we got audited on loss prev- so a balance had to be struck. Similarly attempting refund fraud etc is also theft and I have no time for people being angry at staff carrying out checks or following policies put in place by companies fed up of being defrauded. We're not to blame- your fellow customers are.

When I worked for a scandi fast fashion giant, if we could follow & deter we did but we were told not to go after people running out etc for our own safety. In contrast, I worked for a brand under a sports mega brand umbrella and we were expected to chase and they definitely didn't trust anyone. Again use of zoning to try and deter people but they had a bingo card of stuff that would get you followed - we had radios and code to alert whoever was in zone so they could try and make conversation and do shop standards with a vantage point etc. Again, attempt to kill with kindness but they could call back up if needed. That brand take any theft incredibly seriously and the blame lands hard on their staff. It's not a great culture but it's that way based on past exp and no one wanting to risk their job.

I can appreciate no one wants to be followed but I've seen people in a security session discuss how tenacious and inventive thieves are. A friend who managed a TopShop said they had a serious problem with school girls stealing jeans; they had worked out how to roll them up to fit in a tall coffee cup. Staff have to adapt for such "customers". Obviously some people do stick out a mile but it could be anyone tbh.

Maybe, just maybe, not many women want to be security guards, so that is why you don't see many

WTF has that got to do with anything?!

Back when I did security for Costco, there had to be a female security guard in case we needed to detain a woman. Don't know if that is still the case, or if it's even the case normally.

The store I worked for did.

I get followed around shops all the time

When I go into my local Tesco there is a guy who stands by the self service tills and comes and stands by me and watches me scan and put things into my bags.

If I go in there in the morning when the school kids are getting snacks for school and as the tills are back to back I can see the kids palming the chocolate bars and bags of sweets as I am scanning my shopping and I can tell they think their luck is in as the person who is supposed to be checking everyone is only concentrating on me.

The thing is these people aren’t doing their job as they are so busy watching me the real shoplifters are clearing the shelves and walking out the front door.

Erm….I was commenting on the thinking and judgement passed by the person who was the security guard or sales person who had judged me on appearance in that I assume that’s what they are thinking. I don’t think “whiff of poor person” is an actual thing.