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?

I couldn't care less if someone stole a bag of crisps - and I think it was completely wrong of this man to more or less accuse her of stealing.

But he must have seen her put them in her bag. Why else would he be watching her?

It's easy to say "it's only a bag of crisps", but if several people steal small things from you, you actually end up losing quite a bit of money. I wouldn't be thrilled if someone walked into my house and stole something no matter how cheap it was.

I saw a similar report recently (on the BBC I think) @ellyeth where a woman was burgled, got no joy from the police so she sent them neighbour's CCTV footage of him which clearly showed his face and they still refused to do anything. The BBC looked into it and found more (clearer) footage which showed him leaving by the front door and then returning a few minutes later. The woman was horrified as at the time she was asleep upstairs. Anyway they also passed this footage to police who came back to the woman to tell her they had closed the case! I think she has decided to move.

I know it’s laughable that people are more outraged about somebody been called out more than they are about theft

just shows which way there moral compass points no wonder society is fucked

Agreed. People are so obsessed with their rights, now people want the right to shoplift in peace. What next?
Don't arrest that guy who is burgling that house, maybe he just got lost, ask him nicely first just to make sure, I'm sure he will tell you the truth.

Whether it was an error or shoplifting that
was not an appropriate way to deal with it!

I did a Sainsbury's smartshop recently and they checked and found something that hadn't scanned. It was mortifying.

You're right about the police and that's why shops have "store detectives"

Also as a shoplifter in a bigger store you should be more concerned about a private prosecution, which companies that employ store detectives commonly follow up with on their repeat offenders, those with addresses anyway.

I’m inclined to think she probably was stealing them if his actual words were “the crisps you put in your shopping bag”, as that implies he saw her do it. But he didn’t have to humiliate her like that in front of everyone and it doesn’t sound like a very professional way to deal with shoplifters. I wonder if he would have been so nasty if he had seen a man stealing.

For a packet of crisps? I doubt if the Police would even attend!

What did you think you were supposed to do ?

I work for Asda and although our store doesn’t have a coffee shop , I’ve seen plenty of shoplifters stopped. They are masters at putting on drama when being caught . I would imagine , she’s been watched bysecurity and they caught her on camera stealing . They rarely prosecute just give the customer the option of buying the item , and no a lot of them are not very nice in the way they talk to shoplifters . If he went into a staff entrance he could also have been a manager if he wasn’t in uniform . I don’t know, maybe she was having a dizzy day , we all do, I’ve walked out of a shop with something and completely had a dippy moment and not paid so it does happen, just weird that she should actually put something in her bag , very suspicious .

Sometimes humiliation is the best way, particularly with repeat offenders. It lets them know that they are on the radar and have been recognised, so they might stop trying it on in that particular shop. And, yes, the manager would likely have been exactly the same if it had been a man. If they are stealing (which they are), then why would anyone be subtle about telling them they'd been seen? If you came home and someone was nicking your TV you wouldn't quietly take them to one side and ask them to put it back, would you? Shoplifters are professionals, they steal to sell - Ok, this one had only got a packet of crisps, probably checking out to see if there was any security, if she got away with that who knows what she'd take next time?

Not in a supermarket but in their petrol station, trouble with card but eventually went through, staff member came out and stood in front of my car as I tried to drive out, loudly announced I hadn't paid. I didn't sue but did get an apology and some money from the supermarket. I think it is more about the accusation than being asked not to steal.

I found it very upsetting and humiliating as the other customers looked on, I was so grateful when I suddenly realised I'd pressed the button for a receipt and could show it. I couldn't use the self service pumps for quite a while afterwards.

I was in my local Asda yesterday, hanging around the customer service kiosk waiting for a parcel to be brought out. The alarm went off on the door and a man was called back in. He was a bit flustered and couldn't find his receipt, the staff member who stopped him started going through his shopping and found it and he had paid for everything. The poor man was so upset and kept saying, "everyone will think I'm a thief."

Yeah that's quite different to taking them to court isn't it?

Firms often offer money to avoid court.

Trust me if you'd taken them to court you'd have got nothing

So, not an example of someone suing 😂

She sounds like a liar and a thief doing it for kicks.
Why he confused about “what crisps” if you know you’d decided on some crisps off a kid’s snack?
I used to work in a garden centre and a lovely woman in her 50s started part time, appeared to financially not need to work but said she loved gardening and was bored not working.
Most people were shocked when she was sacked - regularly stealing packets of seeds. She’d get maybe £30 of gardening stuff, pay normally - but there’d be a 99p packet of seeds slipped under the paper wrap round some pots, things like that.
There was outage amongst the staff on the day, because she pulled the flustered old dear, would never steal, in tears thing… said she’d slipped them there not to leave them behind in the trolley, forgot… those members of staff weren’t to know that those involved had CCTV of her doing in several times.
She just got a lick from it.

@SoupDragon

So, not an example of someone suing 😂

And also not where someone was stealing

Most likely she is known for it and they have given up on the police so think the 'best' solution is to get her to either pay for the items or drop them and leave without them. This telling her at the till also lets her know she's been rumbled and they will be looking out for her in future.

Win/win I think there, why should be pay more for her theft?

very dim ... why not just go to a different garden centre and steal over-priced seeds there - Even if you got caught nicking £16 crappy Sarah Raven seeds at £8 a packet each ... they are never going to get the police in or identify you ... Or to make life easier you would give a false name and a previous address - . . . . . Even if some Hitler phones the pigs , they will never attend under £50-£100

Stealing from your employer at the check-out is incredibly naive and self-destructive

You sound nice. I hope you haven’t got kids with this attitude. They’ve got no hope.

In a world full of cynicism I'm sure many will take the view that the lady got her 'comeuppance' and it will teach her not to try and pinch a bag of crisps again.
However, in a fair world the view we should all take is not to fall into mob rule, least of all when the circumstances are not 100% clear.
That's why we have a judicial system to deal with cases fairly, clearly it's unlikely to apply when it's a single bag of crisps. Here the employee (if he was one) could have (and definitely should have) had a quiet word at the till. It's not about the employee being a man and the lady who did, or did not, get caught stealing. It's about all of us having humanity and a dose of decency.
Imagine if this had been you and you were innocent, would this tip you over the edge?

@Königsberger

Imagine if this had been you and you were innocent, would this tip you over the edge?

If you were innocent you wouldn't change your story a few times. You would apologise and pay for the crisps.