Wow! I didnt think people could be so brazen..
Gone are the days of slipping a few bits down your trousers
Until I started working in retail I didn't realise just how brazen many shoplifters are! Or how unassuming some shoplifters can look - we had one who was the most polite, well spoken, well dressed, middle aged lady who had developed a very elaborate scam of buying clothes from our stores, removing the tags and reattaching them to her own old clothes and then returning them at very busy times (so staff were less likely to check too closely) to the less experienced customer service staff who would just look at the tags, which was attached to the items; checking the numbers matched the receipts and the description matched (eg a dress scanning as a dress with it being a dress on the reciept) and issuing refunds only for the clothing department to do a full check on the items later because they didn't recognize them. They then found that the labels in the clothes were either from different stores, were cut out or we're really old items from years ago.
She only got caught out after she'd perpetuated the scam about 15 times in the three stores in our area. Our store was the one she targeted most and we managed to narrow down the scam transaction to her when it was discovered pretty quickly and someone remembered that she had a reciept from a different store when she was doing her "refund" so we contacted them and discovered they had had the same issue with "switched clothes" and the two security departments compared notes and confirmed it was the same woman.
The next time she came in they made sure that it was me and the supervisor from the clothing department (who could verify whether it was store stock) waiting at the desk. So when she came over, I did a full visual check and found that the item was old stock, asked the supervisor to confirm it was years old (the labels change design regularly so we could date it to a particular year range) which she did, by which point security came over to take the lady to speak to her as the police were waiting to discuss her fraud with her (he'd phoned them as soon as he'd seen her walk in, and she helped us out by perusing the clothing department for a good 20 minutes to allow the queue to build up before coming for her "refund" which also gave the police time to arrive) as at this point she'd defrauded the company of about £1000 over the course of her scam. She ended up being charged and ended up in court, iirc she got a suspended sentence and a fine but if you had seen her in the street then you would never have guessed she was such a prolific thief as she looked so normal and unassuming.
The things I have seen since I started working retail would shock many people, and I have to confess it has affected the way I see the general public - from the unassuming shoplifters, rude and abusive complainers, the general lack of comprehension some people have when reading signs/offers all the way to the wannabe lawyers who tell me they'll be taking legal action because I've refused to honour their made up law.