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?

Oh come on
Really🤣

Its very clear he was outing her as just about everyone on here has recognised
He seems to have delighted in it with his sarcasm aswell……a previous.PP mentioned ‘ oh yes I do that allllll the time….

The law is the law.
Shaming someone as a previous poster ( this page or last ) mentioned could get him in court,

The issue in modern society is people wanting to back the bad guy because of how they appear aesthetically. Yeah without cctv and a visit to the law courts there isn’t definitive evidence of who was wrong and right but the story doesn’t add up and I think it sounds like she had shop lifted and got caught but because she looked wealthy you felt bad for her. Would you be writing this post if she had looked homeless but exact same circumstances?

I don't understand why anyone would risk it for 60p. It could have been a genuine mistake. The Security Guard is probably a bully and enjoys publicly humiliating women. He could have been more discrete.

If he works there, I bet he has seen her do it before and that's why her called her out this time.

Imagine it’s not a store but your house and it’s something you paid for and needed, and while a guest on your private property your belonging was in her purse. It could have been a mistake. I have done this before! But he was just doing his job, no harm done.

Good. She was a thief and the reason we are all paying more for groceries. He obviously saw her conceal the goods and wanted to make sure she paid.

Probably looked flustered because she was caught? But we don’t know what her intentions were. As for the staff member, he went about it absolutely the wrong way and if I was a manager I would have pulled him up!

I think if he thought it was worth joining the queue and watching her, she must have looked obviously suspicious to begin with.

Sounds like he man used just about the only weapon he had against a shoplifter - publicity and shame. How has she become a victim?

I honestly couldn’t give a shit about someone stealing a 60p bag of crisps. There are much worse problems in the world. Like rampant misogyny for example.

I can’t see he did anything wrong

She is obviously a regular. They know it and he gave her the chance to pay and hopefully deterred her from doing it again.
Remember theft affects everyone. The shop doesn’t lose money they just pass it on to customers with price rises.

Committing an offence?

For using … sarcasm?

not sure the staff will share the same opinion when there responsible for the stock she’s stealing

I suppose she's a regular customer and also known for shoplifting, so they gave a sign to a security guy to interfere. Maybe she has cleptomania, can't help herself, and that's how the shop handles it - not calling the police I mean 🤷🏼‍♀️

She was lucky the store didn’t call the police. Shop lifters cost us all more at the till.

Call the police over a stolen packet of crisps?🤣😂

I am sympathetic to your situation @Iwasafool but in this situation I think jumping out in front of your car was very brave on the part of the sales assistant.

Clearly based on the information available to him it was unclear whether you had paid. Maybe he was worried that any lost revenue would be deducted from his salary? Petrol is not usually a cheap purchase. This thread started about a packet of crisps. When I buy fuel I am typically paying 50 quid plus. That would be scary to a young shop assistant, perhaps new to the job.

Again, people think they know the law but they don't. There is absolutely nothing in law that states that the offence takes place once someone has left the premises.

There's confusion because police will generally want to see that the shoplifter has passed a point of payment so that the intention can be proved but from a legal standpoint she has already commited the offence is she intended to steal the crisps.

It may seem like the member of staff was being a dick but retailers/ shops have limited powers in dealing with shoplifters. Police will not come out to reports of routine shoplifting where there has been no violence or assault, and, even where there are security staff, they have limited powers in handling shoplifters due to the risk of being accused and charged with assault. In this case public humiliation could be seen as a potential deterrent and infinitely preferable to having a theft charge.

Was the woman guilty of shoplifting? Who knows. Her response could indicate genuine confusion having had a stressful experience going round a store or she could be a habitual offender pilfering small value items. While odd, her garbled and strange explanation could be plausible.

I still remember the mortification I felt when opening the handbags I had purchased a couple of months previously to wrap for DD and her best friend (they have birthdays 2 days apart) to find a stash of hair accessories. I had put them inside one of the bags to stop them falling through the gaps in the store basket while I was shopping. Of course, I had intended to pay for them, but had been sufficiently distracted by the time I got to the till to forget that they were there. I took them back to the store to pay for them. I was thanked profusely for my honesty but told to keep the hair accessories. By this time the store had destocked the items so could not charge me for them. They were tainted. Having spoken to DD and her friend we decided to donate the offending articles to charity as nobody felt comfortable using them. It’s made me ultra careful especially when I’m harassed or not feeling 100%.

If he was watching her there are polite ways to pull her aside to deal with the situation. No one deserves to be humiliated.

Very different from someone who has tucked a half dozen sirloins down their jumper and blatantly attempted to walk off.

The guys a dick. (in every sense I suppose)

Stealing is stealing. People are getting fed up of people doing it. We are all skint but don't steal. If she was doing it to feed herself or her family because she was desperate then I'd have sympathy but not in this case. By stealing she lost the right to be spoken to politely. I've seen well dressed shoplifters fight with staff, swear and threaten them. The staff member is probably sick to death of people stealing. Staff get earache if too much is stolen. The reason she could afford the over priced coffee is probably because she steals. A hungry person with no other choice is one thing. A greedy mare is another.

In this case, it really is putting things into perspective.People do make genuine mistakes the man who works there, didn’t deal with this in a professional manner.To publicly, try and humiliate her in front of the whole shop, is completely unnecessary, he could have spoken to her quietly, but chose not to.
Do you honestly think, the police have time, to come out to coffee shop, to a completely sortable situation and your opinion is, she was lucky to get away with prosecution!
I would hope, but of course this situation, happened very quickly, l would have said something to him.He’s very unprofessional, that’s not how you treat your customers.
Also the company he works for, should know about this, regarding his conduct.

It can be a genuine mistake.

I was once in Selfriges, looking at makeup with a friend. I picked up a lipstick to look at it, but was chatting away with my friend and got distracted. I walked out of the store with the lipstick in my hand, only realising my mistake 5 minutes later.