Woman passively outed for shoplifting and I did nothing?

[Juliesdagger]

Weird one that’s rolling in my mind as I’m wondering if I should have stepped in ☹️
busy well known coffee shop in a supermarket this morning. As I was queuing, a man in front of me said loudly to the lady paying at the till “don’t forget the crisps you’ve got” as he spoke so loudly it was hard not to then hear the rest - she looked confused and said what crisps? I’m just getting my coffee” and again in a loud voice the man said “the crisps you put in your shopping bag” again the woman looked bemused, looked down at her carrier bag and said oh gosh they must have fallen in when I got my phone” (or similar, I didn’t get the exact words) and took them out to be scanned. She looked a bit upset and I heard her apologising to the barista at the till saying they were for her kid’s snack and she couldn’t believe she’d nearly forgotten to pay for them. The man who had called her out then started scoffing loudly saying “oh yeah, that happens to me allllll the time, things just fall into my bag and I forget about them” and smirking and rolling his eyes, clearly insinuating she had stolen them or tried to. The woman just looked clearly flustered and by this time had paid and she left looking like she was going to cry.

I then to my surprise saw the man leave
the queue (despite him being next in line to order) and head for the staff only door so he must work there! And was only waiting in line to see if she paid at the till for the crisps.

it’s been playing on my mind all day. The woman was clearly upset but I would have been too if I’d Been passively accused like that 🤷‍♀️I know you can’t type cast but she was buying an overpriced coffee and pastry, the crisps couldn’t have cost more
than £0.60 extra 🤷‍♀️and she looked well dressed, a bit flustered but not wonder and really just like your
average mum rushing Round supermarket etc so I guess I’m doubting if she was stealing? And I feel bad I didn’t challenge that It felt unprofessional of this man who clearly worked there to passively accuse her?

or am I being naive and she likely was attention to shoplift for a reason I can’t fathom?

Maybe she's done it before and this was a way to catch her out. Don't get involved if you don't know the back story.

And for anyone else considering it a deterrent.

I really don’t get peoples thought she should have been handled discreetly and with empathy, she was in there robbing them, and then lying about it. Sure it was just a bag of crisps, and a pp is saying 1.34, but if you’re going to shoplift then expect if you’re caught then it’s your own fault and you don’t deserve them to cover it up for you.

She probably does this every time she goes for a coffee, I bet she won’t do it again.

Sounds as if she's been caught out.

There have been times in the past where I could've easily stolen something, but didn't. The other day in a health food shop on my way home from work, went in, cashier there who then goes out back for 5 mins. If I was dishonest yes, I could steal, I wouldn't though, and there are cameras anyway!

I've known a few people do this and confess to me/others.

I’m ok with thieves being embarrassed. They don’t deserve discretion.

I wonder how different many of the responses here would have been if the OP had posted the exact same situation while leaving out that the woman was well-dressed

I put some stuff in the bottom of the pram in my local small supermarket the other day. Paid for the stuff I was holding and walked out with the rest. Went back 5 mins later and explained to the guy running the self serve checkouts who said that yes, he’d spotted me, but that their approach was to keep an eye on people and if they did it again or their stealing went to the level police would be called out for, to intervene.

It made me think of all of the people out there blithely shoplifting/ not scanning stuff at the tills, thinking that they are so clever and getting away with it until bam - they get presented with the list of stuff they’ve stolen over the past months which amount to more than £100 and so the police turn up.

hay when times have fell hard I’ve robbed cheese , if it’s for your kids you will do anything

Quite a clever move from the staff member to pretend he was a member of the public…he probably nipped in the staff room, put his coat over his uniform and did his little speech and went back in again and took it off.

I once walked out of a shop with a large (unwrapped) Jiffy Bag under my arm that I’d forgotten and hadn’t paid for, though I’d paid for other items. It was a relatively small shop (Ryman’s) and the person on the checkout hadn’t noticed it either. I was 100 yards away before I realised, went hot and cold - and went back and paid.

So I do know that genuine mistakes happen. At the same time, though, I’d have thought it preferable for someone in the queue to ‘remind’ anyone loudly that they need to pay for something, rather than be stopped outside the shop and be accused of actual shoplifting.

In the OP’s case, I dare say staff see (or are surely made aware of) so much shoplifting that frankly they don’t give a shit whether someone’s embarrassed - maybe it’ll put them off trying it again.

For me no different, as I said earlier well dressed is subjective. I’m guessing she wasn’t head to toe max Mara, but just dressed averagely, and gave no indication to her financial status.

op, cam uou describe what she wore?

‘Theft is theft’
is it?

Would you say the same if it were a broke starving person stealing a loaf of bread for a big supermarket or someone with no money stealing something small to feed their kids*?

(*Not saying this was what was happening in this case)

Well, those examples are still theft, yes.

It’s still theft, yes, the fact it’s understandable, doesn’t change the fact it’s theft, being poor and with starving kids doesn’t mean it’s not theft.

There was something in the paper about Lidl or Aldi where staff had to tell people they wanted to look in their bags at the checkout.

Yes, they are. My point is I don’t think those examples are unethical/wrong. Is all theft unethical?

But would you consider those examples of theft unethical?

In this case it does sound as though they were on the lookout for her. He wouldn't be waiting in the queue otherwise.

All that for a packet of crisps, he’s a hero!

I can't imagine they would have been any different. If you're struggling for money you don't buy coffee and pastries from fancy coffee shops, so this wasn't someone who couldn't afford it.

Actually I think the OP was using "well dressed" as a proxy to suggest that the woman was clearly of a superior class that didn't shop lift. As opposed to the poorly dressed working class people from whom one might expect it

It sounds to me as if she was intending stealing the crisps, however, I do think that the employee could have handled it differently, like quietly taking her aside.

People steal for all sorts of reasons, including certain mental health conditions. There was no need to embarrass her, in my opinion.

Not for a 60p bag of crisps . The police would not bother . I think it was handled the right way . The woman got a shock and a public shaming. Hopefully it should be enough to stop her doing it again if she was guilty of the offence .

i feel like I’ve heard that middle aged, middle class women the ones who shoplift the most, because no one suspects. If she did mean to or if she didn’t, he shouldn’t have been so harsh. Especially as it was only 60p

@Redglitter

A lot of people steal from budget shops because they think security is non existent, Budget shop = Budget Security. But they are wrong.

And if he's been hired by the store as security then that's literally what he had to do?

Are we condoning shoplifting now, when it's a man calling out a woman, or when it's 'only' a bag of crisps to supplement the coffee and cake?