Do people have no shame any more?

[tachetastic]

I don't know if the worst part of this story is the fact that its theft or the fact people don't care.

I was in Tesco this morning buying eggs (the normal type, not chocolate) and a couple were standing by the egg display swapping the eggs from two half-dozen boxes of the fancy premium brand eggs into a box for 12 Tesco own-brand eggs. They weren't even being subtle about it. He was just standing there holding the boxes while she swapped the eggs over. He then double checked that the designer eggs she had put in the Tesco box were all unbroken, and then they put the expensive box containing the cheap eggs back on the shelf and put the cheap box with the expensive eggs in their trolley, and off they went.

During all of this I and three other customers were just standing openly watching them and casting glances at each other.

The difference in price was probably about 50p per box, so about a quid in total. But is that the point? Are the eggs so much better that it's worth a heist, or are people just so pissed off with the CoL crisis that anything they can do to feel that they are getting something for nothing is worth while?

The couple so clearly didn't care that I couldn't see the point in telling them it was theft, but when they left I moved the two boxes containing the cheap eggs to one side and left them open, so nobody would pick them up not realising they weren't the fancy eggs.

AIBU, this is fine and large supermarkets have it coming?

or AINBU, this is still theft and cheeky fuckery of the highest order?

And more interestingly, what cheeky fuckers have you seen lately who could beat this?

@grumpygrape: How many times does an employer have to warn an employee, who agreed he already knew he was breaking the rules, before ending their employment ?

I don't know. How many times did they warn him? Four or five? Two or three? Any?

Shop thieves come in all shapes and sizes. I think there should be more support for drug abuse which is one of the key drivers for theft from shops. I don’t think incarceration works for addicts.

I have no data but would suggest theft out of necessity is low, to sell on to feed addiction is higher, and the highest loss is probably from planned organised crime gangs.

CCTV and communications are helping Police tackle the organised gangs but as they are able to commit crime and move on geographically so quickly it’s difficult to tackle.

I don’t know, because, rightly, Waitrose won't comment on his specific case, but he has agreed/admitted he knew he shouldn’t have tackled the thief or thrown anything. He knew the rules. He potentially put other people at risk.

Kier starmer wants to de-criminalise shoplifting. I think you can successfully steal up to £200 worth and get away with hit. What a hero that guy is!!

Well that's Starmer for you. Useless and with no respect for the normal law-abiding, hard-working person.

Agree.

@grumpygrape: He potentially put other people at risk.

Wasn't it the shoplifter who put other people at risk?

On the upside, that will save me a fortune on my weekly shopping.

Will you have to scan what you're stealing to make sure you don't take more than 200 quid a time, or is it assumed that thieves are honest?

Don't know where you got that from as it isn't true.
A quick Google tells a different story.
Daily Mail perhaps pedelling more lies perhaps.

It was Walker Smith who instigated the physical interaction.

I'm manager of a charity shop. We've had to close the toilets because toilet rolls kept getting nicked, and last week someone nicked the coasters off the table in our small coffee area. Nothing surprises me now!

i think you are referring to the new shoplifter sentencing guidelines introduced by this Labour Government.
Estimates put the number of shoplifters likely to avoid a custodial sentence as a result in the many thousands.
I believe some of the details you cite are inaccurate but it does seem reasonable to describe the guidelines as a shoplifters charter.
How much Keir Starmer supports this change may be open to debate. He doesn’t really seem to be control of much of what this government is doing.

What is the point of these new guidelines? Whom do they benefit?

Shoplifters.

We should boycott Tesco and other supermarkets where it’s allowed to happen. I said previously that Aldi where I am has one narrow till route out and a single door which you have to cross an open space to exit. So probably has little shoplifting -also their stuff is not premium so not such a target.
WE are paying for the shoplifting in our prices but Tesco finds it cheaper to charge us more than to pay for staff /security staff. They also have cctv in the car park which they could track the culprits cars but I e only heard of this happening once where I live (if it was true). The honest working public get stuffed at every opportunity . £200 of stolen goods -yeah! But if the go to every supermarket in town that’s £Ks
Only good thing is Starmer pissing off more people before the elections

Forget about giving shop security guards truncheons, they need to have tazers. And in some areas, guns. And they need to be free to use them on felons.

I presume it's a nationwide thing and not just in our local Morrison's whereby they've recently beefed up their tech on the self-service tills so that you have to wait for the assistant to come along and confirm that you haven't stolen your own baby?

It's an amazing idea that some genius must have had: that it films a very small, specific area around the till and calls you out as a potential thief if you click to pay for your shopping whilst it can still detect something left in your trolley or basket in the appropriate area. This applies whether it's a free paper that you picked up on the way in, another of your own shopping bags, a handbag or indeed - as one of the wearied assistants today told me with a sigh - your baby sitting in there. It's also useless if you need to pay for things in two transactions and are not, indeed, intending in any way to steal the stuff for the second one whilst paying for the first.

It's absolutely foolproof and the inventor and whoever signed it off for use should be so extremely proud of themselves. Now, you couldn't possibly get away with stealing anything whatsoever... unless you move the items that you intend to pilfer to a slightly different position out of the trolley (such as under the opaque shelf or straight into your own pocket) OR - and I'm confident that no thieves will ever have thought of this one - just brazenly walk out with it, unchallenged, and don't trouble yourself to go anywhere near a checkout in the first place if paying for stuff really isn't your vibe.

Oh is that what it does? Our local Morrisons has new automated gates that supposedly only open if you paid but as there are about 20 self service tills I have no idea how it knows.

In fairness I did recently pay for my items in two tranches (making sure the three for two offers included the three expensive items and not two expensive items and one cheap on) and it still let me out. Never tried taking a baby without paying though. 🤣

so you think shops should take no action whatsoever to impair the ability to steal?

Not at all. All I'm saying is that this adds another step for many honest shoppers, and thus all of them need the assistant to come to them. Any security that puts ordinary paying customers to inconvenience, whilst having no effect at all on those who are determined to steal from you, is probably not a great idea for good customer relations, is it?

Meanwhile, the actual thieves have several very easy, obvious ways to hide/pocket items so that the camera won't pick them up and they needn't be held up at all; and of course, the ones who don't trouble themselves to go to a till at all are just grand as they are.

As security goes, it's about as effective as the message on iPlayer that asks if you have a TV licence before letting you straight through to watch. I always click 'yes', because I do indeed have a TV licence; but if people don't have one for whatever reason, how many of them do you reckon click 'no' so that they can be turned away from watching?

If they're so paranoid about people stealing when using the self-service tills, they should probably just get rid of them and go back to staffed checkouts only, with a gate to stop you from walking out freely without being checked... and then we end up with people on NMW will ending up seriously at risk from armed and violent thieves who are determined to take goods without paying for them.

Yes absolutely sure - he walked straight out of an unmanned checkout!

Why didn’t you confront them and tell security?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/04/17/sainsburys-threatens-shoplifters-with-police-action-over-eg/

Labour’s manifesto promised to “scrap” what it said was an “effective immunity for some shoplifting introduced by the Conservatives”, although it did not specify what that entailed.
However, ministers have since said this refers to a section in the Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014, introduced under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, which defined “low-value shoplifting” as a summary offence, where the total value of stolen goods is less than £200. It specified that a person can be sentenced to a maximum of 51 weeks in prison, fined, or both, for such an offence. However, the maximum sentence is, in effect, six months, as this is the maximum sentence allowed for a summary offence in magistrates’ courts.
From Full Fact.

So not only did Mr Starmer not say anything about decriminalising shoplifting if the value of the goods was under £200, that level of theft was made a summary offence (magistrates) rather than an indictable offence (Crown court) under the coalition government 12 years ago.

I'm not a fan of Starmer but I am a fan of the truth.

Shoplifting of any kind should result in a hefty prison sentence. There really needs to be a major crackdown on this.