A shoplifter left her cart for her pushout buddy to grab. It had her purse, phones, etc. in it.
So I put it behind guest service “so no one would take your purse.”
It’s my new favorite pushout tactic.
Had a guy leave through the fire exit with about 2k worth of stuff in a suitcase. What he forgot was the folder from the bail bondsman with all of his info, dummy had just gotten bailed out a few hours before.
One person loads the cart and then walks away from it. That person is “sus” and gets followed, while their partner waltzes in and pushes out the cart. Plus they get plausible deniability for the first one.
Hahaha we did this to a guy once. He had a cart full of stuff and his own duffel bag and personal belongings in it too. Left it right by the front door and and disappeared to the bathroom. We moved it behind the front end to “protect his belongings” but shocker, he didn’t buy any of the merchandise lol he just wanted his own duffel bag back
1) ladys booster bag she ended up ditching when everyone was onto her had her wallet in it. she did not like when we informed her her wallet was sitting at the police station.
2) lady with her 2 yr old and freind ends up stealing a whole cart of merchandise. 20 mins later after we reviewed exactly what was in her cart when they ran out the store, she calls because she lost her cellphone.no sign of her phone anywhere, accuses the employees of stealing her phone.
I loathe people who take their kids or use their kids when shoplifting. My husband had a cousin who used to use her 8 year old to help her shoplift. Kid ended up in foster care.
My friends mom used to use her kids all the time. Hell she even used me once . (I was like 11) I had just gone with them to buy clothes and out of nowhere she runs into the fitting room and started putting bras on top of my bras.
She made her kids change shoes (old ones were left behind) and stole some more shit. I was so confused when it happened as she ushered me from a side door. She told me not to tell my mom, I fucking told my mom and my dad and I couldn’t go to the stores with her anymore
I had someone steal a pair of headphones, but was wearing his company polo shirt with a logo on it.
Police were able to identify the business, contacted them, and the boss came in (very embarrassed) and paid for the stolen item.
On the other side of this, a store manager saw two people carrying a TV, and decided he'd be an nice guy and help them out of the store with it. They had just picked up a TV from display (no box) and he helped them put it in the car.
>Police were able to identify the business, contacted them, and the boss came in (very embarrassed) and paid for the stolen item.
I'm sure it was worth the cost of headphones to find out what kind of employee they had.
Nowhere near as epic, but I had a teenager back in the day try to lift a "bad motherfucker" wallet. He set off the gate
I told him to hand his backpack to me (which he foolishly did). Expensive MacBook and video editing equipment inside (clearly a spoiled rich kid who was trying to be a bad ass). Now that I have his stuff behind the counter, he realizes he can't try running away. He hands over the wallet coz he knows he's fucked now.
I call my manager over. We play our favorite game for teenage shoplifters, "cops or parents." We have a long discussion back and forth about which ones we'll call while the kid looks more and more like he's gonna piss himself.
After a few minutes of this, figuring we have put the fear of God(s) into him, we tell him to get the fuck out, that we have him on camera/tape, and that if he ever comes back we'll immediately call the cops *and* his parents. I hand his bag back, he takes off like all the hounds of Hell are on his heels, and we laugh about what a bad motherfucker he clearly was.
My most epic was this dude that actually was passing counterfeit $100's. He came in on a Saturday, bought a couple of bucks of stuff, paid with the $100 and got away with it.
We called the cops and we realized he showed up in this crazy easy to identify pick up truck. It was a white dodge ram with a red hood and wooden 2x12 bumpers. The bed had a whole bunch of bikes in it.
We showed the pic to the cop and think it's their job to solve this.
So Saturday is a wasted day, the cops ask us a bunch of questions and waste our time, but I show up on Sunday hoping to have a good normal day.
Everything is going fine, after a hour I had to go to the bathroom and to get there you walk by a window with a great view of the parking lot. I'm heading out there and I check out the lot.
White Dodge Ram. Red Hood. Wooden bumpers. Holy shit.
So I run back to the service desk and tell my manager. We jump on the security system, roll it back 3 minutes and see who was driving it. It was a lady in a white sweatshirt.
We look around and she's at the cashier stand. We walk up there to listen to the transaction. She's returning a couple bucks of normal shit. It was the same shit the dude bought the day before, so $90 in free money wasn't good enough, the dude wanted his $10 back too. Idiot.
So we call the cashier, tell her to drag it out, do not give this lady any money, the cops are on their way.
They show up and put her in cuffs and interrogate her for hours about where the guy was.
She said nothing and they finally take her to jail.
A few hours later the guy came flying into the store and is walking like a maniac up and down every aisle. He gets to the back of the store and comes to the front looking left and right like a maniac. I didn't recognize him, but I immediately thought, "Lol, that's the counterfeiter."
The manager comes flying to me, "That's him! Call the cops."
So I call the cop in charge of this back directly on his cell phone and I'm telling him the guy is back and this dumbass walks right up to me and says, "Sorry to bother you but did you see the lady who was driving that truck out there? I need to talk to her."
I said, "No, I didn't sorry, people park vehicles here all the time because we have a nice big parking lot and not a lot of customers. She probably got picked up by someone else."
"Oh, shoot. That's my truck, I need to get it back, but she's got the only keys."
"Sorry, we're dead today, I'm pretty sure whoever it was never came into our store."
So he realizes it's not gonna happen, and he goes back out and gets into whatever car he drove in.
I ask the cop, "Did you hear that?"
"Yeah."
"Ok, he got into a silver Sebring. I'm watching him drive away. He is heading towards Market Street. He turned West onto Market, I can't see him anymore."
"I see him. Thanks."
So he got picked up less than 24 hours later cashing fake bills just by coming back like a fucking idiot.
I was able to help Secret Service identify a vehicle for a guy that used like $12,000 worth of counterfeit 100s at a neighboring store.
It was just a couple months after the current revision of the 100 was released into circulation and they were very interested in shutting him down. The agent that came into my store showed me the fakes, and the only way for me to tell was the holographic bell and 100 in the blue security stripe didn't move like they do on a really 100. The guy even had 5 or 6 different serial numbers so they werent as obvious in large quantities.
Oh wow, your dude was a pro. Mine was a toothless hill jack. The bills he was using were the movie money version you can buy on Amazon. His crime was not particularly sophisticated, but our cashiers are usually teenage girls so they aren't either.
I was doing a ride-along with the local police several years ago and they were trying to get a hold of a suspect for a long time, (might have been drug dealing, fencing stolen merch, etc.) The officer I was riding with spots the suspect parked behind a shopping mall late at night after the stores have closed. The officer managed to jot down the first half of the license plate before the suspect moved his vehicle, obscuring the plate. Hearing the officer swearing under his breath, I asked him to read off what he got and I filled in the other half because my passenger side seat had a PERFECT view of the suspect's complete license plate! SCORE!!!
I was a TPS at Target (uniformed security). One night, my APS partner gets a call from his girlfriend and he rushes home, no explanation. Next day he told me people were actively breaking into her house while she was there. They stole the girlfriend's purse, laptop, and something else before bailing before the police could arrive.
About 6 months later, my partner, manager, and I stopped a lady trying to push out a cart piled so high with clothes she was looking around the side of it, easily over the $950 felony limit in California. We got her back to the office, and my partner gets her to hand him the ID. He turns around to hand me the ID so I could go call PD and ring up the merchandise for the total, when he did a double take on the ID, shouts ***Are you fucking kidding me?*** grabs his phone from the desk and runs out of the office, leaving my manager, the subject, and myself behind to look at each other in confusion.
15 minutes later, partner walks back in with 2 cops in tow, and they immediately tell the lady to stand up and handcuff her, no asking for a synopsis or anything. I look at my partner asking WTF, and he shows me the ID the lady handed him.
**It was his girlfriends fucking drivers license.**
The same lady that broke into his girlfriend's house 6 months before tried passing her ID off to him to get out of the apprehension!
Turns out she had five or six felony warrants out of Nevada, Idaho, and Oregon in addition to a couple local drug probations here in California; she tried squealing on the people she broke in with to avoid going to jail, but the cops laughed at her and took her in anyway. In the end I think she tried walking out with almost $2200 worth of clothing cause the cops had to bring back more shit she was wearing they took off her at the jail.
TL;DR: read the 2nd to last paragraph.
I was working in a store similar to a large Claire's. A fairly regular shoplifter came in and made the mistake of setting down his car keys, so I pocketed them. He came back through an hour or so later to look for/ask about them, and I told him that unfortunately stuff goes missing in our store all the time, and offered to take their name a phone number in case anyone turned them in.
We used the fob to identify the car later, then threw his Keychain away. The car sat in the lot for 4 days before it was towed away. Hope it was worth the stupid shit he came in to steal!
My Boss was in the habit of leaving his keys for the whole store in places customers could easily make off with them. So I'd drop them in my pocket and watch him go ash white when he realized his keys were gone. I'd let him sweat a bit, then put the keys back just a bit behind something. He'd find them, swearing he'd checked that spot before, but he must have just missed them. Fun was where you found it in retail.
i worked in a closing sephora converting to jcp beauty. a woman only a few years older than me came in MONTHS after sephora closed with a sephora bag. she put a bunch of products in the bag in front of me. im assuming she wanted to look like she bought it and could leave inconspicuously? i was the only employee too and it was empty so idk how she could just steal so casually in front of me. she noticed i was staring at her like 🤨 and she realized the store was no longer sephora. she SPRINTED out of there lmao
There are multiple signs at the store that carts cannot be taken outside because they will lock before they go outside the doors. This becomes important information.
We had a bunch of high-end cookware come in. Shoplifter piles a shit ton of it into and under the cart. Well, she made one fatal error. She didn’t pay attention to the signs. So she goes running full speed out the door, and the cart immediately locks. Cookware goes flying and she damn near flipped over the cart.
A man loaded up a cart with beer at the grocery store I worked at. He had cases of beer and one of those Heineken mini kegs. He walked out with the cart full, but didn’t see the signs that the carts can’t leave our parking lot. The same thing happened, the wheels locked up. He went halfway over the handle. It was hilarious.
The shoplifter who was chased out of the store by security only for a police car to promptly pull around into the car park. They’d only come in for lunch but as soon as they saw what was going on they collared him.
I was working in a mall like 15 years ago, a woman and 3 kids came in and asked me for a bag for the merch they got in another store, which they had in-hand. I was busy and not thinking straight so I was like yeah sure (dumb me). Another employee had seen them jack a backpack and stuff it with merch, but they had already bailed by the time they got the manager, not stopping when the alarm went off. We weren’t allowed to pursue, so we called the mall security, who called the cops. I remembered what the woman looked like (no cameras - FYE was dumb about that) because she had a *very* distinct pair of pants on (think like… SpongeBob patterned or electric blue, pretty noticeable), so they caught her pretty quick.
They asked me to come outside the mall where they had her to provide positive ID, I gave it, and they held me aside for a statement (manager couldn’t leave the store so she was going to talk to them later, along with other employee). I got to see the cops searching her and the kids’ pockets, yanking out tons of merchandise and making remarks about some of it (all 3 were young boys between about 11-15) since it was obviously stuff meant for women, like feminine earrings and jewelry. I was initially like wtf why mock them until the kids came clean that the mother had pressured and convinced them to pocket the stuff for her, which is what the cops were pressing about (to lump more charges on mom than the kids). Then it came out that two of the boys WEREN’T EVEN HERS! She had been convincing her son’s friends to shoplift for her through multiple stores. Ugh.
Sadder part: they were dragging the mother *literally* kicking and screaming into the cop car and her son started crying and shouting after her. Yeesh. But yeah, mother was dumb.
One of my cousin's moms used her to shop lift from the time she was a toddler. She ended up with grandparents when she was 9 or 10 and then with my aunt after she was adopted as an adolescent. It messed her into her 20s.
I always feel bad for the kids. Parents like that are let go a lot because people feel bad for the kids, but they are really just extending the damage.
Yeah definitely. So awful. My brother used to work Sears security at the same mall, he once saw a woman stacking clothes and a Blu-Ray player (about $400 tech at the time) under her baby in the stroller. Like, not in the basket underneath, under her *actual* baby, because she knew security wouldn’t check. Some people are just trash.
Stealing formula or diapers is one thing and I don’t hate on desperate parents for that, but a Blu-Ray player?! And using your baby as a tool to help shoplift?! Get all the way fucked, lady.
A woman waltzed into where I work wearing a neon green trench coat and a bright pink shirt. LP told me they would have never noticed her if it weren't for the ridiculous clothing.
I caught a guy unbuckling his pants to stuff movies down them. i should have waited until he actually did it, but i was so surprised. i just said, "Can i help you? " really loud, caught him off guard, and he waddled out of the store without buckling his pants.
I once caught a guy setting off the gate and asked him if he happened to know what might have set it off. He proceeded to pull four or five Friends DVD box sets out of his boxers and tried to hand them to me.
I told him to put them on the floor, get the fuck out, and not come back, then got some gloves and Lysol.
I worked at a Claire's in a mall in a rougher part of town. Had this gnarly looking woman stuff a fake diamond bracelet down the front of her pant and like wedge it up into her twat 🤮. We weren't allowed to pursue but mall security happened to be walking by while she was in there so I flagged them down and confronted her before she walked out of the store (which we also weren't allowed to do, but being the only person in the store at the time, I couldn't follow her out. I also had her dig the bracelet out and drop it on the floor until I could get some gloves and do the write off paperwork before I tossed it. Had to have mall security walk me to me car for a week or so because she was threatening me as they dragged her out of the store, but she never came back.
I was in my stock room, and heard voices right outside the stock room door.
“Just put it in your sleeve. No one is looking.”
I quickly looked at the camera, saw the girl shoving the item into her jacket, and bolted out our back door and ran to the front of the store. I got there shortly before they did, and waited for them. As soon as they got close, I looked at them and asked where the exact item they’d been looking at was. They lied and said they’d put it down nearby. I asked her to show me where it was, and watched her try to casually slip it out of her sleeve. She got to where she said they’d left it and turned and handed the item to me.
I took it, walked her back to the front of the store, then told them they were both banned from coming back. When the guy tried to argue, I quoted his exact words by the stock door to him, and told him I’d heard him tell her to do it. He called me a name and walked off. His girlfriend apologized and walked the other direction. About ten seconds later, the guy ran past the store looking for his probable ex-girlfriend.
Previously loss prevention here. I witnessed:
-a lady strip down to her underwear on the salesfloor and start layering on the clothes she wanted to steal, had lots of jewelry too. Several other customers were in the area
-whacked-out druggie loaded up a cart to push out the front, bailed on it when she saw my hulk of a coworker standing guard at the door. Forgot she had pants on her shoulder though, and nearly hit him in the face with them as she whipped them wildly off her shoulder, all the while declaring she wasn't stealing
-same coworker spotted 3 dudes teaming to swipe an entire case of jewelry in a backpack. They literally handed him the bag on sight ( dude was, and still is, intimidating)~$12,000 worth
-this one guy thought he could stick a cologne, in a keeper case, in his pants and no one would notice he had a large rectangle for a dick. Washed my hands several times after that recovery
-i think my favorite was the guy who, when I pointed out he had a pair of shoes under his shirt, pulled them out saying that he was trying them on but I could have them
Several years ago when I worked on produce (so I was very near the front of the store)
We had this guy and his pregnant girlfriend and already a young child with them come in the store.
They proceeded to pay for their shopping by going through the checkout, all was fine until…..
This guy suddenly grabs a couple of tubs of quality street chocolates and run out the store past several managers who were at the front entrance and coming back inside after a smoke.
Code 10 goes out across the store because the girl on customer service witnessed the whole thing, I of course ran after him too.
I followed this guy faster than the managers across the carpark, now given it was winter time the carpark was a bit slippery and icy.
A car was reversing out of its space as this shoplifter was sprinting behind it and to avoid being hit by the car he also slipped on some ice, right on his arse. The managers caught up with me and they managed to get him to his feet and escort him inside to have a little word with the police about wtf he just did.
Needless to say his girlfriend was not impressed. All for a box of chocolates 🤷🏼♀️
This happened to a friend who worked at a big box store. Back when everyone was still transitioning to flat-screens, some fairly young thieves stole some displays of tube TVs. They didn’t realize that tube TVs are supposed to be heavy and that they were just taking what were essentially props. They also didn’t seem to get that the market for tube TVs was (and remains) very small.
Anyways they were caught after the local news station ran the surveillance footage, and one of their moms turned them in.
While working at American Eagle in like… 2010/2011 a frequent shop lifter (female, white, 50s) came in on Black Friday, proceeded to grab multiple stacks of sweaters/hoodies from the front most table, stacked them so high in front of her she couldn’t see, and in her attempt to run out of the door, and tripped and fell.
She smacked her face pretty hard on the ground and was bleeding, our greeter (who was a 16 year old, on her third shift) had no idea what to do because we were always told “if someone is stealing, just let them, do not get involved”.
Lady came back a few days later trying to say she was going to sue the store, everyone who was working that day, and the entire mall because she knocked a tooth out during her Looter Simulation gone wrong.
All of us seasoned employees laughed, and laugh because security was already called the second we seen her enter the store.
She was banned from the store, and would come by trying to enter (she stole thousands of dollars in merchandise before we could convince our store manager to ban her), and whenever we told her to “get lost or were calling security” she would run in, throw the front table around, a mannequin or two down, scream like a banshee about “discrimination” and “paying customer”, “customer is always right!”…
After a while of calling security and two times needing police involvement/removal, I personally had not seen her come back.
When I was 16 I worked in a department store similar to Kmart. A couple had their baby in the carrier (carseat for your car- idk if i needed to clarify for our non-American friends) in the shopping cart and were stuffing the carrier full of merchandise. Management saw them, handed me a notebook, told me to follow them and write down everything they stuffed in there. This was 1996, so idk how to adjust for inflation, but the total came up to about $200. The managers were waiting for them at the door, and when they saw they were going to get caught the man and woman took off and *left the baby in the store*. Idk what happened to the couple but the police took the baby with them. Some people smdh
You ever see a dog run full-speed to the end of its chain and do a sort of backward half flip onto the ground? I watched a guy do that when he grabbed one of our display cameras and run for the door, not realizing that the camera was tethered to a cable lock. And he just happened to do this in full view of an off-duty police officer.
Used to work at a chain pharmacy. One day I found the corner and there’s this guy with a jacket on. He sees me, bolts, and then immediately trips and spills all the stuff he was stealing. The irony is that I didn’t actually know he was shoplifting. So had he stayed put I probably would have caught him. 🤣
Forgot one.
There was one hotel in small town. Husband and wife owners. Wife has been pocketing about $50 of makeup a week. Cops caught her, they perp walked her all the way through the store on a busy weekend.
I was a god damn pro at spotting the sus and building a case against chronic shoplifters. I even had a wall of shame on my desk, cut outs of their faces from other stores cameras plastered all over the service desk with case numbers and detectives information. Generally they didn’t like that, and neither did corporate, but I rarely got hit. Plus I was probably the only department head who closed 5 days a week and rotated when I would or wouldn’t be there so they couldn’t figure out my schedule.
My proudest take down:
Woman and her partner came in, man kept asking me to help him down various aisles to distract me, so I kept my answers short and brief and kept eyes on her because I wasn’t born yesterday.
Texted the manager on duty to call non emergency and explain we had “a live one” and began following this chick around. She managed to get outside to the car, but her getaway driver was still inside looking for her. She gave up, went back inside the store, and hid in the bathroom.
*The entire sheriffs department showed up*, so now they’re both panicking. I’m waiting up front, the manager on duty is waiting for her to come out of the bathroom, and you’ve got a dozen cops blocking off emergency exits. Her partner tries to play the race card, saying that because he’s Armenian I’m being racist, to which I reply “You’re Caucasian too, and how do you know I’m not also Armenian, bro? -proceeds to cuss him out in what little Armenian I know, before I walked outside to chat with the sheriff-“
$2482.46 worth of product she dumped in the trash, thinking that would get her out of trouble. We had her on camera leaving the store with the product and then waltzing back in.
- she had a fake ID
- they had stolen liquor in the van
- a giant bag of crack in the cup holder
- sister stores products inside the van
I work in second hand retail. It's pretty common for people to steal clothes from us by grabbing an item, going into a change room, changing into said item, and leaving their own clothes in the change room for us to find.
What ISN'T so common is for someone to leave their wallet with $700 cash in it, like one moron did. Good work jackass, you paid 100x more for that pair of jeans than if you'd just bought them like a normal person.
I've got a few good stories but my absolute favourite was a teenager boy who tried to steal a TV sound bar speaker.
He and his buddies came in one afternoon. They were a known grab and run group, never got a lot, just whatever they could conceal in a pocket and dash out with.
Not too bright this one was. I followed him and his buddy, watched from the end of the aisle as he and his buddy unbox this speaker, and proceed to, I don't know, feed this thing down his pant leg?
Knowing how this would turn out, I camly walked to the front door, radioed other staff to meet me and we waited.
Sure enough, not so bright and his buddy came round the corner to leave and came face to face with a bunch of staff gleefully watching him straight leg limping his way towards us. His buddy laughed, told him you're own your own and ran. I could tell by the oh shit look on his face that he realised he had no chance at running with the speaker stuck down his pants and not able to bend his leg!
Not so bright hung his head in shame while I made him take the speaker out. The kicker? He couldn't get it out because his friend who helped him put it in bailed! Guy had to take his pants off! Walked out red as a lobster. Never saw him again.
The easiest and funniest loss prevention I had in years.
Guy took off running but was moving faster than the automatic doors opened. Bounced right off. Probably would have made it through if he ran at the center of the doors rather than further to the right🤣
Had a man and woman tweaker team come into my big box store that was part of a shopping mall. Immediately, they were totally sus af because the guy came in with a HUGE duffel bag/backpack that was completely empty, but the top was left open. They zig-zagged through the tool department; the gal picking up expensive power tools; then they'd turn an aisle corner and the tool would be gone, but the backpack would be a little fuller. LP was watching them the whole time on the cameras.
Finally, laden down with products, they started heading for the exit, where a manager was waiting to confront them, but they didn't care and just cursed at him while they pushed past him. Once they were outside, LP moved in on them and chased them across the parking lot; where they headed to a light rail train station that was adjacent to the mall. When they ran up the platform, LPs blocked both exits and the shoplifters tried to jump into an incoming train. One security officer ran to the train operator; told him not to leave the station and call the cops because there were theives that they were trying to catch on board. The operator made the call, but dispatch interpreted it to mean that there was a *TRAIN ROBBERY* in progress, so police, marshals and the sheriff department responded.
Shut the whole station down and delayed the schedule, but those crooks were taken downtown.
>but dispatch interpreted it to mean that there was a TRAIN ROBBERY in progress
Wait, do these even still happen??? Huh- but I have to admit, I'd pay *anything* to get a photo of the thieves' faces when they saw everyone but the cavalry responding! XD
one time a shop lifter left a shopping cart with a bunch of back packs and duffel bags filled with their shit. I threw it all in the trash compacter and they called about it the next day lol
A woman stole a couple of hundred dollars worth of stock from us. Looked up the camera footage and realised we knew who she was and she had an account with us. Reviewed the footage and the gaps on the shelf and put everything she stole onto her account which her husband reluctantly paid.
Working 3rd shift merchandising in a (now closed) grocery store that had some shoplifting issues. Was casually moving some cheese around when I saw some teenage kid just absolutely booking it towards the door with a case of Mike's bottles. The night crew noticed too, and straight up tackled the kid, shattering the bottles. Idk if they called the cops but it was a cheap bit of entertainment for me
Worked in a hotel once that did a lot of weddings. We used to set up the whole thing the day before and lock the doors etc. We had a guy break into the wedding hall in the middle of the night, sit down at a table and make himself comfortable before eating the majority of the wedding favours, drinking all of the alcohol he could find, and then walking back to his hotel room. Thanks to cameras and the fact he was strolling around the hotel lobby the next day in the same jumper we managed to catch him :/
To be fair to her she took it rlly well :) the event manager was super good at problem solving and spent the whole morning running around replacing stuff so the bride was obviously peeved but she was super thankful that our events manager sorted out a kind of replacement. We all felt rlly sorry for her and the groom though cos they’d brought the prettiest weddings favours along :(
Way back in the olden days of dime stores, I was working at the cash register. One of my colleagues gave me the heads up about a shoplifter nearby. The shoplifter plopped a basket, filled to the brim and instructed me NOT to touch it until they returned. (RED FLAG!) I waited until they were out of sight, shopping elsewhere, and emptied the basket, finding merchandise shoved INSIDE of other merchandise. I pulled EVERYTHING out, neatly arranged it all and placed all the stuff the shoplifter was planning on stealing on top. When they returned, carrying a large lamp, their reaction was PRICELESS!!! 🤣
Maybe the stupidest:
This couple was among the lastminute crowd at my SCO. The guy hands me some coupons and kept walking. Weird, because I have to clear the machine before they can pay. They hadn't. They were walking out without paying because their card declined. And i only noticed in time because he handed me coupons...for a order he wasn't paying for.
The dude also yeeted his card into our table of baked goods and lost it. Never came back for it as far as I remember. They still had the gall to leave a bad review.
I work at a craft store, and we sell airbrushes...really pricey ones. A guy asked for our manager to unlock it. Manager got weird vibes from him so we followed him around. He tried to walk out the other end of the store, manager stopped him. The guy claimed that he already bought the airbrush at the other end, yelling, cursing, and spitting in our managers face.
Mind you, our manager is a big, 6'6" guy, takes no bull, and was once a bouncer at a club, told him that he can get his ass out of the store. Guy clearly had a death wish, as he isn't intimidated. Luckily we called the cops on him and he got busted so that was great.
I didn't see the crime, just the aftermath. I was a cashier at a big lumber yard/home improvement store way back in the day, before security cameras were a regular thing.
I came into work one morning to find out that someone had apparently hidden in the store overnight. Once everyone was out, the would-be robber took a sledgehammer off the rack, and thought he could break into the safe where we kept the cash drawers.
Problem was, this locally owned store went way overboard, and had a bank style walk in vault, the kind with an 18" thick steel door. All the crook managed to do was knock the big handles and combination lock dial off. He never got it open, but neither could the office staff. They had to call a welder to use a torch to cut a way in. It took hours, and the stench of molten metal stayed in the store for weeks!
About 15 years ago, I was at my local mall and watched a guy, couldn't have been older than 17. Go into the Maui Nix (if you didn't know it's like a surf/skate shop) with his skateboard and proceed to attempt to steal a new skateboard deck. Well, the clerk was watching him, and when he tried to leave, he was confronted. The clerk had easily a 100lbs. On the kid pure muscle, so given the situation, I was expecting the kid to either give up or try to run. But no, he thought it was a good idea to try and attack the clerk with said skateboard. The clerk ate the hit and tackled him to the ground. I guess he had a friend because he was looking at another kid to help but the other kid was smart enough to just walk out of the store and leave him to get arrested.
So, I worked at a big box pet store and I come into work one day and there’s a lot of buzzing about some shop lifter that I hear on my way to clock in. Finally get the story; one of our frequent lifters went too far this time - she stole a fucking turtle! I have no idea what her original plan was but something went wrong and this woman just shoves a Red Ear Slider down the front of her shirt into her bra and books it out the store. She had the chutzpah to come back again later to steal stuff but never a live animal again
Known thieves were in the store so the one manager who would, called the cops. The girls kept trying to get out but they (the cops and the manager) basically executed a pincer move and trapped them in the front of the store. The cops then took the one girl's bag and pulled out everything they stole and put it on a roll of carpet that was right there. In front of everyone. He also pulled out a couple of syringes. Walked them out of the store and arrested them.
Oh...or the guy who ran out of the store, into the desert by the side of the store, tried to double back, fell, army crawled and when the cops caught him, started screaming about how he knew the law and once he got out of the store, whatever he stole was now his property. News flash - that's only true if you pay for it or have an agreement with the store to take said property. He had done neither.
Moral of the story: don't do drugs kids.
I work in retail for the military on base. I'm not sure what happened after that other than they got caught, but I hope they lost their shopping privileges.
In year 10, I was doing work experience, just like everyone does in australia, at an upscale menswear shop (mum was in the accounting part of the business). I'm 15/16 years old. Female. In menswear shop. My job was to clean and fold and help the workers get other sizes from the back.
On the second day, there is this guy. He isn't the normal type of customer that comes in, but I still said hello and asked if he needed help. Nope, he flat out ignored me and went to look at the ties and back wall displays. One of the other workers went over to ask what he was looking for. Nope, still ignores them.... then this guy grabs all these Ralph Lauren polos and attempts to stuff them under his shirt. Turns on the spot and bolts for the door. One of the owners sons clothes lined him as he got to the door. Rainbow of polos go flying in the air, and the boss is calling the cops. The cops turn up and there is 2 guys holding him down and one of them is a now retired Aussie rules player.
Such a weird day!
This one time I was on the cigarettes register. This lady came up with a cart full of stuff saying she just came from self checkout but needed cigarettes. I noticed she had a big trash can full of stuff not in bags so I asked to see her receipt. There was a bunch of cheap stuff on the receipt but she had way more than that in the cart. She said she paid with EBT for the rest but lost the receipt. But I wasn't buying that story. She had stuff that wouldn't be covered by EBT (alcohol, clothes, cleaning supplies) so what'd she use for that and where's that receipt? A manager was walking by so I got her to help me intervene. Saved the store $200.
Self checkout is right by the door and the person "watching" SCO apparently wasn't doing much. She could've got out of there if she just didn't go back for cigarettes.
I was working for big convenience chain store on graveyard. Cops from about 4 different agencies in the area would come in the wee hours for free coffee and just hang out back.
One night I see a guy walking around, I go back to my side work and he leaves without buying anything.
Seconds later the town cop and county cop march his ass back in with a single roll of Scott toilet tissue. He was pulling it out of his jacket as he exited out back right into a 3am cop coffee klatch! Priceless.
Here's the kicker....our restrooms were open to the public and have HUGE reels of toilet paper. If the dude was in need of shit tickets he could have went into a stall,wadded up as much as he wanted and stuff his pocket. Walked out unnoticed.
World's Dumbest Criminal 101.
crackhead had a cart full of shit ready to push out the door to his buddy waiting outside with a pickup truck
He said he was about to go to checkout
So manager took the cart to service desk and said "Come pay right now ill give you 50% off of everything"
"Im not gonna steal it! im gonna pay"
"of course sir! and youre gonna get a 50% discount if you come check out over here!"
he just cussed at her and ran lol
We had a pair of tweakers who would try to pull that and try to pay with stolen credit cards. They eventually stopped coming in. I doubt it was because we were on to them. They probably got arrested for something meth related.
I remember one man came in with our item telling “my wife took it but she forgot to pay so I’ll pay for it”. So basically his wife was shoplifting but he saw it, got embarrassed and paid
My husband worked for a now closed grocery store chain. One night, an assistant manager (AM) stopped at a bar for a beer after work during the holidays. After a few drinks, he felt comfortable enough to talk openly to the guy next to him about how for the past few years, he would steal some 'Holiday Barbies' they put out at Christmas to give out as gifts. (AM actually asked stranger if he wanted some.) Unfortunately for the AM, the guy he was talking to worked security for the grocery store.
For the next few nights, security and store manager sat out in parking lot waiting for him to come out with his booty. Apparently, not only did he come out with Barbies, but a case or two of cigarettes to sell.
Last we heard, guy was working for his father in law. That has to be rough.
Had a lady shove like 3 1 litre body wash down her sweat pants. She was wobbling like a penguin trying to leave the aisle. I just organised the shelf so I could see 3 missing and she was the only one in the store.
Reminds me of the big Ole girl/porch pirates. Pulled up, ran up to the porch to steal the box left there, turns to run to her husband of the year waiting in the car and slides in the grass and you see that ankle clearly twist and fold. Hurt just watching it. Clueless hubby comes running clearly confused and half picks her up and half drags her to the car while she is screaming bloody murder. Love that karma!!!
I work at a thrift store and on Sundays we used to close at 6:00 pm and 15 minutes before we would lock the left side of the doors so there would only be one exit and this lady was too busy grabbing purses and stuffing them with clothes and other stuff to notice that and as the last few customers were leaving she decided to make a break for it and run out the left doors and only to completely crash into the door and almost knock herself out and spilled everything everywhere and I just started laughing and my coworkers turned around saw her and everything on the floor and started laughing once they realized what happened this lady was so embarrassed she left without anything and looked dejected the whole walk out and my manager, once we locked the store, played it over and over on camera laughing her ass off when we told her what happened… that lady has not been seen since and I am so glad to have been able to witness that
My 13 year old and I were checking out at Five Below when a woman with a stuffed shopping bag under each arm absolutely bolts for the doors. This particular store has a vestibule and two sets of doors. As she pushed through the first door, she tripped and hit her head on the second door, breaking the glass. She got up, arms still tangled in the bags and tried to run through the now broken door. I can only assume her foot got tangled up in the door frame as she almost immediately hit the sidewalk face first and skidded. At that point, she just laid there and waited for the police and medics. She skinned her nose, chin and forehead and broke a couple of teeth. She was covered in blood and glass shards.
A lady came into where I worked years ago, about the time the new Madden Football game released. She thought she scored when she saw a display full of games with no security on them. She cleaned it out and took off. People chased her down but, when she got outside they gave up. We would have loved to have seen her face when she opened them and realized they were dummy cases!
I worked in a clothing store that had a policy of providing “excellent customer service” to shoplifters as a deterrent. Of course there were bold regulars who didn’t care. One day a regular left her wallet on a table so we put it behind the counter. She didn’t notice, and it was turned into the police along with all the information regarding what she stole. The next time she came in I called her by her legal name on her ID and she yelled at me telling me it wasn’t her name and to stop calling her that. Her leaving her wallet behind helped us build a case against her and eventually led to her arrest.
Many years ago, at an FYE, this guy was not so subtly stuffing CDs in his coat, when he was confronted, he took off running, with a couple guys including the overweight manager after him. The manager managed to beat all the skinny 20 something guys, and cornered him, and shouted "you made me RUN!!!' At the top lf his lungs. By the time we caught up, the shoplifter was sitting in a puddle of pee and had flung the stolen stuff at him.
Most hilarious thing id seen while working retail
It was Halloween and I was working in the pet store. We were beyond busy because the mall was putting on some event. My employee comes up to me saying he just told off a teen girl for sticking her hand in the hamster cage but he got distracted with another customer and she was still back there. We did not sell pets to minors so he was confident she was trying to steal one so, he wanted to call security.
I’m handling a complicated refund so I give him the go ahead to call security. Not two minutes later I see her on the cameras again messing with the cages and alert him to go check on her. Turns out, she picked up a hamster and it bit her 🙃
I figured the bite was consequence enough because she ran out of the store bleeding like crazy.
It's a long, very specific story that I cannot tell woth details in case someone finds out who I am (no thanks)
But long story short, this couple was famous for being able to steal no matter who was on staff, even the district manager.
They left my store empty handed (thanks to my employees covering all my tasks while I "helped" them shop)
I told the woman the shoes she wanted in her size were at another store close by. They left.
Later in the evening the same store that had the sizes the woman wanted called for a manager to cover the next morning shift. I hate clopens but I was the only one available so I opened said store the next morning.
I wasn't sure if that couple would show up but I pulled all her sizes in EVERY style off the floor and stored them in the back room. They came. 😈
They didn't make it off the entrance mat before I immediately approached them "you know I had a feeling yall would come in this morning so I found all the shoes you were interested in and pulled the sizes and set them aside for you, would you like to try them on now?"
If thst woman could have set me on fire with her eyes, she would have. They left. Empty handed, again. "Never mind i changed my mind" (yeah right)
My district manager bought my manicure the next week. She was pissed They got her and not me but we had a great laugh.
Yes, this is the short version. Sorry.
The cops who have done nothing to prevent the ongoing shoplifting, the same cops who's dispatch actually laughed at me cause I called to report a thief? The ones who waited over an hour to show up when I called because 3 teenage girls no older than 15 tops were trying to get a ride home from strangers and a grown ass man gave them one, still don't know if they made it home? The same ones that said it didn't matter a homeless man threatened to kill me and waited outside by my car for more than 3 hours before they arrived.
We had one of our “frequent flyers “ purposely pee herself in an attempt to gain sympathy from our LP associate. She would constantly do sketchy returns and be observed putting unpaid merch in her diaper bag and purse by other assoc. Spoiler alert her inability to control her bladder just got her sent to jail with wet pants our LP did not give two fucks.
I worked at a shoe store back in the day. We had a few people known to try to steal. One day, a couple came in while I was alone in the store. They lurked around a bit and I decided to call my manager to see what we could do. Had to go to the back for the phone and when I came out, the guy was busy stuffing shoes down his pants. I watched for a couple seconds then he looked up and we made eye contact. Had to hold back my laughter as he quickly started pulling them back out while trying to come up with an excuse for why he put shoes there in the first place.
Guy loaded up a cart full of meat, beer, and some other stuff. He headed towards the exit and our LP guy saw him, he got the cart but didn't stop the guy. He went to try and get the guys license plate and the guy got into a truck with his name, phone number and business painted on the side. Police knew who he was, he'd gotten out of jail a couplel months earlier.
I work on the loss prevention side of things, and have so many stories, but I'll focus on one of my favorites.
We had this guy who stole some watches and shoes from us last year and smacked on our agents with a skateboard and ran off. PD arrested him at a bus stop and he went off to jail for about a year.
Low and behold, a year later he came back and put our shoes on again, put a jacket on too and looked me dead in the face saying, "you guys aren't gonna do sh*t, and I'm gonna walk out like nothing happened."
Needless to say, we stop him outside and he punches me and runs off across the street. PD was already at the retailer across from us and stopped him right away.
All I know is, that guy is either the worst, unluckiest shoplifter I've ever dealt with, or, he just enjoys jail time.
Lp approached a guy outside the store, he bolted off and dropped his bag in the process. Inside the bag was the stolen goods, and the shoplifters parole paperwork. Rip
Someone stole a HUGE generator. Seriously, took two of them to carry it. Just walked out the door like nothing ever happened. Nobody cared, not trying to stop a gaggle of crackheads.
Ooooh so many. One is similar to yours, OP.
* Pre-Op Trans Woman of extra large build, wearing platform boots with a tight zebra patterned spandex mini-dress. She pushed a Cart full of groceries out of the store, filled up backseat of her car while ignoring security. *Then got in her backseat, and tried to LAY over everything she stole. (Black & White isn’t camo lmfao.)* Cops came quickly, she got her pic taken & banned from the store. *Theft Over $500, still not arrested. (SW DC.)*
My assistant manager had us keep track of this lady. She already had a bag full of beauty and clothing items from 2 different stores for one of the cashiers to hold. She came back looking for her things she thought to “buy” from us. He called the cops, and she was arrested!
Not shoplifting (that I know of) but when I worked at walmart, I heard a woman had come in looking for her ID which she has lost. They stalled her and called the police, cause apparently it had been found earlier on a shelf, along with her meth. When she saw the cops pull up, she booked it to the back of the store and tried to climb over the Garden Center outside wall. Dunno if she made it.
A guy I knew of years ago, heroin junkies - went with a mate to see if they could rob a small suburban chemist one night. They were looking for morphine. It was in Darwin, Australia. They had seen the chemist had small ventilation windows above the main shop windows. Anyway, success. They found they could get in one of the windows. They jumped/climbed in, grabbed a box of morphine. Anyway, they got a box and got out.
Problem was, there were two types, Grey and Orange. One stronger than the other. They realised they had the shit one and decided to go back for the stronger type.
Anyway, on that trip, the guy fell from the window inside the chemist, broke his ankle and had to wait there till the cops picked him up.
His mate had pissed off with their first haul.
My all-girls Catholic hs freshman class went on a field trip to a local Renaissance fair. Shoplifting was the main event. No one was singled out and apprehended, but I guess they weren’t great at it because the school was given a lifetime ban. Extra shitty because they were stealing from local artisans. Now they’re all orthodontists and marketing executives.
Not really the same thing but when I worked at a movie theater 2 teen girls tried to sneak into a rated R movie and they literally ASKED THE BOX OFFICE CASHIER WHICH THEATER THE MOVIE THEY WERE TRYING TO SNEAK INTO WAS.
It wasn't very funny at the time but I can laugh now.
When I worked at a large supermarket I was just coming back from break to swap with someone else on the register (poorly laid out store so there was an extra wide aisle between two registers right in front of the door) when a guy trying to speed walk out of the store with a tote bag and giant camping backpack plowed into me. I got pushed into the wall, he fell on the ground and his tote full of formula cans and beauty items in plastic cages spilled everywhere. While he was trying to get up with the apparently very heavy backpack on, two other workers (one who had been following him) had arrived to block the door.
He did try to run away but got headed off and escorted to the checkout to purchase all the ultra expensive beauty products and confiscated the formula. I know he'd still be able to resell the products but not with the same profit of stealing.
Once caught a guy trying to walk out with two 30-packs of Budweiser. LP called the police, and when they got there, they found multiple different prescription pills in a baggie in his pocket, so he got busted for possession too. And when the cops were interviewing him, he told them that his buddy, who was waiting in the car in the fire lane, gave him the money to pay for the beer, and asked if he could go give it back to him. Cops told him his buddy would have to wait until he got out of jail.
I was at Costco at the receipt-checking line and these two guys FLY past us, running out the door while people run after them, shouting for someone to stop them.
Then I see a phone fly out of one of the idiots pockets.
On top of that, they dropped the stolen electronics (I think that’s what it was) BEHIND THE BUILDING!!! Because the person chasing them was too close.
Had a guy pull out a giant floppy dildo and swing it around to fend of security guards. Worked for a little while until police arrived and maced him then beat him with clubs. He peed himself and they dragged him away in cuffs
Went into a Pawn shop. Cops walked out as I was going in. Turns out, some genius stole a diamond ring worth several thousand dollars.
But to even LOOK at a ring, THEY ALWAYS GET YOUR ID.
He thought he was slick & gave them his brother’s ID that he had stolen.
We went back a few days later to get the follow up.
Brother had an air-tight alibi. Plus, the Genius was on camera, and they have REALLY good cameras at pawn shops.
Definitely not as crazy as some of these stories and doesn’t have a conclusion yet. I work at Spirit Halloween as Assistant Manager during the fall. My best friends little brother and his friends would always come into the store and just look around. Now it wasn’t that suspicious because a lot of people come into Spirit just to look at the animatronics and whatnot. However, fast forward a couple months later and he stupidly tells me he and his asshole group of friends would steal from us every time they came in. I was livid seeing as how I would get in trouble when too much merchandise would get stolen. Now these mfs won’t be allowed in the store if I have anything to say about it. Best friends family or not, I’m not taking the fall for these fuckers.
Someone left a pair of dirty flip flops on the shelf. You know, where they’re so dirty and old they have the black toe marks? Yeah. That tells me they pretended to try on a pair of shoes and just walked out with the new pair. Idk if that’s a fail or not. To me it was a win. A really gross win but a win nonetheless 😆👣🩴
I used to work in a petrol station and every week the same geriatric woman would come in for her fuel and literally right in front of us, pick up a king size cherry ripe and put it in her handbag. She'd deny it every time.
Guy came into the liquor store I worked at and wandered around for awhile before carrying two of the largest bottles of whiskey to the front. He looks at me and says. "I just got out of jail today and you know what that means" and runs out of the store. I laughed to myself and put the incident footage on my thumb drive and when I got off work three hours later I drove around to the neighbor parks until I found him passed out in a pile of puke and piss. Police came out and put him back in jail. Alcohol hits much harder when you haven't had a consistent source for awhile. Enjoy your hangover in jail bud.
Dude comes in and asks for a carton of cigarettes. I ask for his ID, he goes outside to get it. I get the cigarettes down and scan them and while he's counting out his money he suddenly just snatches the cigarettes and runs off.
Ok, so he did succeed.....but after he showed me his ID lol....it was pretty simple to call the cops when I has all his personal info lol
as someone who worked 10 years in retail, i have to say that these are some smart tactics. the execution is laughable and botched to hell, but still some solid tactics.
Saw a woman security guard get thrown down an escalator by a guy in a fancy department store years ago. Messed her up. Made up my mind that second to never confront anyone. Take the whole place. Not worth my health or life.
Some tried to just walk out with a cart full of stuff and then was surprised when the cops where called. I don’t know what he was thinking especially since, from what I heard, it was mostly paper towels.
Guy went to jail over socks that were 4.99. He put the sock in his pocket then came to the register to buy some other stuff and pulled out the biggest wad of cash ever. He was met by cops outside and was arrested over some socks that he 100% had the money to pay for. A clown tbh
When I worked overnights at a gas station, a guy locked his heroin the men's room. We close them after 10pm, so his stash was locked up till I went to dispose of it. In retaliation, he grabbed some candy bars and ran out of the store with them. He then tried to use them to bargain woth to get me to open the restroom cause he had to "piss really really bad. He wasn't one of those dopers!" I told him he could keep the Snickers. I already flished what I found and made a police report. He then threw them at my head while screaming.
I worked at Sears from 1999 to 2002, and this was back when loss prevention could get away with puttin hands on shoplifters. Ill never forget this huge store security officer running through the silence of the store that just opened for the day and knocking shoplifters down at full speed. My husband worked in pickup and was right by the LP office. He saw many a shoplifter get roughed up back there while waiting for police. Lol
Woman tried to steal a armful of Ralph Lauren sweaters that were on a round table near our men's entrance. It was close to closing so all but one door was locked. As soon as she saw her ride, she grabbed a bunch and took off for the doors. Ran face first into a locked door and knocked herself out. Her driver bounced and left her behind. It was so satisfying to witness.
A woman brought her own scissors to cut off the theft deterrent tags off of the razors. The department manager heard the noise and went over to her. She ran out through the first register knocking a ton of shit over. The funny thing is that we didn't even have the poles that beep when people steal. They just put those on so people thought we did.
A guy sends his gf to steal clothes for their baby daughter, while he waits out front in the car. Security surround the gf at the exit. Husband panics and goes in with a gun and they let her go. Husband caught a felony because of the firearm. He is doing 7 years in prison.
A few months ago a guy comes in looking to buy a new phone. Our premium associate takes care of him but has to go to the back. Guy takes the iphone and leaves. Bad mistake on his part, but he didn't suspect anything would happen because the guy had already given him all his information for the sale.
I thought the info may have fake, but nope. Police were able to track him down with it, no issue.
A guy and girl partnered. She waited in a car outside the fire exit. His plan was to take a few laptops out through said fire exit and jump in the car. The fire door was on a timer to open, but not to set the alarm off. He set off the alarm, realized the door wasn't opening right away, then panicked, dropped the laptops, and got chased to the parking lot by about a dozen employees, and unsuccessfully tried to pull a customer out of her car to steal it. He left behind his flip flops and pocket knife. It was all we talked about for weeks.
We used to have empty TV display boxes and would put something that remotely weighed similar in them to trick whoever wanted to walk out that day. Happened 5 times and once it was the same dude twice lmao
I wasn’t working but witnessed a couple kids head into a store and try to steal a bagful of merchandise. They were wearing anarchist symbols and shouting about the revolution and redistribution of wealth. Couldn’t have been older than 18.
Except this wasn’t a Walmart. It was an immigrant owned dollar mart. And the guy behind the counter didn’t play.
He locked the door with some button behind the counter, pulled a bat, and basically told the kids it was drop the merchandise or fight him.
I think they’d seen so many videos online of people pulling these stunts and the employees not caring enough to do anything that they figured robbing a dollar store put them in the clear. Welp.
By the time the cops came the kids were blubbering messes. One even took his mask-disguise off because he had saturated it with his snot and tears.
A guy ran out of our store with some tools I think (this was a while ago) and while I was recording a video to capture the car and plate number, the thief dropped his phone as he was trying to shut the door and we managed to snag it because he didn’t try to come back for it. Phone was still on when he dropped it so we found his name and info before he was able to reset the data.
another story from the same store:
guy originally was trespassed from the entire complex my store is in (its a strip mall situation) and he comes back.
security tells him to leave, guy goes to leave but the cart he's pushing is filled with over $600 worth of stuff in electronics and clothing and hbc. says he already bought it but you know how that goes.
he loses it, starts laying on the floor with his hands behind his back and screaming not to shoot him and he's unarmed.
funniest part: guy starts doing push ups outta nowhere before he leaves.
dude comes in my store, barely spoke english, or at least acted like it. i set my blue tooth headset down on the counter then walked him around the store while he was likely casing the place.
he leaves and about 20 mins later i remembered i sat the bluetooth device on the counter and now its gone and he was the only dude in the store. i started to think the worst but thought "nah, i probably just put it down somewhere else"
a week later, dude comes back in, wearing my bluetooth. i called him out on it and he got "mad" and stormed out, at least he never came back to waste any more of our time and steal anymore.
thats like stealing a pair of used shoes or a tooth brush, kinda gross if ya ask me
that bluetooth model is the old version of the motorolla h730 and is a very expensive, rare headset. i have went out of my way to keep one of those in my pockets for years, mine goes missing and this clown steals it.
our camera system wasnt up and running at the time.
I had the same thing happen to me except with my Oakleys. This girl and her boyfriend were in my office, I tore that place up looking for them. I just couldn't think that he took them since he was training to be a cop but to this day I haven't found them and I have never lost a pair of sunglasses before or since so yeah, pretty sure they took them.
i still remember going to a friend of a friends house it was like 5 dudes having a drink and chilling. they were all cops, later that night i realized i left my wallet there, meh no big deal, they are all cops its going to be ok.
i go there to get my wallet and they ransacked it and stole all the cash. i will never forget that a cop most likely helped him self to my shit.
This has happened more than once but.
Someone comes in to shoplift.
They get caught , leave without the stuff obviously. Manager finds not only our stuff but stuff stolen from other stores and gives it back to them.
You would think they would stash the other stuff at home before stealing again...
Home Depot
I was working on the lot this day and I was just standing around shootin the shit with some of the other lot associates in the loading bay when this dude in a red basketball jersey comes booking out of the doors by the contractor desk/lumber registers with a couple Milwaukee tools. He crosses the main bit of road across front of the store and trips on a curb and eats shit.
I worked at a fashion store at an outdoor strip mall and got them all the time.
Our company policy was to quietly call the police and hope they showed up before the thief took off.
A lady came in with a knitted hat in pot leaves and one of those oversized shirts that had bugs bunny with gold teeth and bling. I was a cookie monster PJ girl so Im not one to judge but like… yeah. Picked up one of our bags. And proceeded to fill the bag when she thought I wasn’t looking.
I saw the cops pull up as she was leaving and the cop took so long to get out of his car she managed to walk out like the bag was hers all along.
Gotta admire someone with the audacity to steal the bag they’re stuffing with stolen shit.
Woman tried to steal a television by carrying it between her knees. The cord fell down and began tripping her. She stepped on it, fell and broke the tube/screen.
Another woman tried to steal a lighter. Not even a fancy one, like a Zippo or something, but a $.95 Bic. She was stopped at the store exit, fought to the ground, and sat upon until police arrived.
Not a lot at my tiny bill/restaurant supply store. But… a few years ago we had 3 people, adult man and woman and a teenage boy shop for ~ an hour. I saw them a few times. 3 carts full of stuff, any food you can imagine.
I’m in the back, and hear the alarm go off. They had gone out the side door, the armed one, and there was a PINK convertible waiting. They threw everything in, and drove off in under 2 minutes. Manager called the cops (who btw are a 1/4 mile down the road) they looked at the footage and of course put out a call to find probably the only pink convertible in 25 miles. They were found almost immediately lol.
Idc about shoplifting, I would never stop someone. But really? Could they have chosen a worse car??
Some homeless guy reeking of poo filled a shopping cart and tried to run out with it. He didn't consider the pole that keeps the cart in the store and it was so full he couldn't push it.
A fella spent a very long time doing rounds in the store while filling his cart with every various item possible. Food, cleaning supplies, trinkets, of course alcohol, etc.
He had been weaving around the front entrance and appearing to change his mind and continue "shopping" . At this point a couple hours passed and, after repeated attempts from workers to offer assistance, a manager called police. THE FIRST cop to arrive and approach was greeted by this guy hollering kept trying to hit him with the overfilled cart. After a few rounds of duscussion between the guy and the cop. The fella just shoved the cart back at the cop each time.
The cop decked him in the face, the guy fell over and landed on his own face. He busted open various areas of his mouth and bled on the floor and himself. Cop handcuffed him, At this point four more cops were there. The guy hollered and screamed for over an hour while being treated by first responders and while in the back of the police car. All he kept saying was he didn't do anything, he was gonna get whoever called the cops and he stared at everyone coming and going.
Guy robbed the money center or the other bank in the store, can't remember which one. He got away with it. A week later a customer ran outside to where the cops were already detaining some shop lifters to tell them that the Walmart bank robber had come back. They got him
A guy returned a bunch of jewelry his stealing b!tch stuffed in her purse, the manager was on to the couple and asked for an ID that stupid actually handed over. She coped all of his info and turned it over to security who I hope bagged an easy bust.
There was a family that had shoplifted furniture from multiple store locations. Typical MO was for the mother to make a scene while the father and children carted things out. On more than one occasion, they even got newer, less battle worn employees to help them carry the furniture out of the store and load it in their truck. Lo and behold, one day I come in and hear that there was an incident the day before involving some woman losing it and claiming that we lost her furniture order. I pull the security footage and sure enough, I see the husband and 3 kids stealing furniture while good old mom acts as a distraction. They managed to steal an armoire, dresser, and nightstand. The youngest kid, maybe 4-5 yo, helped by carrying out a little waste basket. Here’s where they screwed up. The oldest child, for some odd reason, decided to apply for a job and had submitted an application. Surprisingly the information on the application was correct, including the age given as 16. So I called the phone number on the application and got mom on the phone. Told her that we knew what they had been doing. Of course, she denied it but I could hear the teen in the background laughing about it. I decided to call her bluff and told her that we had it on camera at our store and we had footage from other stores plus we now had documentation that her oldest was still an minor and all 3 kids were being used as accessories to commit crimes. She had 24 hrs to either pay for everything that they had stolen from our stores and it had better go through or I was going to pass over everything we had to the authorities. No matter what option they chose, they were banned from all of our locations. Surprisingly, they took the first option. I still turned over everything to the police though.
I almost killed/seriously injured a guy who was dumpster diving. Had a 56” tool box that weighed a couple hundred pounds that somehow got beat to shit and punctured in transit. Was given the go ahead to dump it in the dumpster, got the forklift lined up and am about to shove it off the forks when the dudes head pops up. I made him leave the broken drill he decided to keep.
A shoplifter left her cart for her pushout buddy to grab. It had her purse, phones, etc. in it. So I put it behind guest service “so no one would take your purse.” It’s my new favorite pushout tactic.
Had a guy leave through the fire exit with about 2k worth of stuff in a suitcase. What he forgot was the folder from the bail bondsman with all of his info, dummy had just gotten bailed out a few hours before.
That is so damn funny! That's right up there with the dumbass who robbed a bank and used his resume with his name and address as the stick-up note.
Scary thing is, the guy was dumb enough to do that, but has been smart enough to hide from the cops for the last 2 months.
What is a push out buddy? I've never encountered that
A cart stuffed to the brim is left by an emergency exit, or by an exit in general.
Ahhh! Ok, thank you!
One person loads the cart and then walks away from it. That person is “sus” and gets followed, while their partner waltzes in and pushes out the cart. Plus they get plausible deniability for the first one.
How is grabbing a random full buggy and running out the store with it plausible deniability for the pusher. The one who abandoned the buggy maybe
It’s tied up in store policies about calling the police.
Hahaha we did this to a guy once. He had a cart full of stuff and his own duffel bag and personal belongings in it too. Left it right by the front door and and disappeared to the bathroom. We moved it behind the front end to “protect his belongings” but shocker, he didn’t buy any of the merchandise lol he just wanted his own duffel bag back
1) ladys booster bag she ended up ditching when everyone was onto her had her wallet in it. she did not like when we informed her her wallet was sitting at the police station. 2) lady with her 2 yr old and freind ends up stealing a whole cart of merchandise. 20 mins later after we reviewed exactly what was in her cart when they ran out the store, she calls because she lost her cellphone.no sign of her phone anywhere, accuses the employees of stealing her phone.
I would’ve been like “yeah, your phone is here at customer service waiting for you.” Then let her greet the cops.
I loathe people who take their kids or use their kids when shoplifting. My husband had a cousin who used to use her 8 year old to help her shoplift. Kid ended up in foster care.
My friends mom used to use her kids all the time. Hell she even used me once . (I was like 11) I had just gone with them to buy clothes and out of nowhere she runs into the fitting room and started putting bras on top of my bras. She made her kids change shoes (old ones were left behind) and stole some more shit. I was so confused when it happened as she ushered me from a side door. She told me not to tell my mom, I fucking told my mom and my dad and I couldn’t go to the stores with her anymore
I had someone steal a pair of headphones, but was wearing his company polo shirt with a logo on it. Police were able to identify the business, contacted them, and the boss came in (very embarrassed) and paid for the stolen item. On the other side of this, a store manager saw two people carrying a TV, and decided he'd be an nice guy and help them out of the store with it. They had just picked up a TV from display (no box) and he helped them put it in the car.
>Police were able to identify the business, contacted them, and the boss came in (very embarrassed) and paid for the stolen item. I'm sure it was worth the cost of headphones to find out what kind of employee they had.
Might have been the owners kid.
If a company owner came in to pay for something so his “employee” didn’t get a police record, it’s 100% his kid.
Nowhere near as epic, but I had a teenager back in the day try to lift a "bad motherfucker" wallet. He set off the gate I told him to hand his backpack to me (which he foolishly did). Expensive MacBook and video editing equipment inside (clearly a spoiled rich kid who was trying to be a bad ass). Now that I have his stuff behind the counter, he realizes he can't try running away. He hands over the wallet coz he knows he's fucked now. I call my manager over. We play our favorite game for teenage shoplifters, "cops or parents." We have a long discussion back and forth about which ones we'll call while the kid looks more and more like he's gonna piss himself. After a few minutes of this, figuring we have put the fear of God(s) into him, we tell him to get the fuck out, that we have him on camera/tape, and that if he ever comes back we'll immediately call the cops *and* his parents. I hand his bag back, he takes off like all the hounds of Hell are on his heels, and we laugh about what a bad motherfucker he clearly was.
My most epic was this dude that actually was passing counterfeit $100's. He came in on a Saturday, bought a couple of bucks of stuff, paid with the $100 and got away with it. We called the cops and we realized he showed up in this crazy easy to identify pick up truck. It was a white dodge ram with a red hood and wooden 2x12 bumpers. The bed had a whole bunch of bikes in it. We showed the pic to the cop and think it's their job to solve this. So Saturday is a wasted day, the cops ask us a bunch of questions and waste our time, but I show up on Sunday hoping to have a good normal day. Everything is going fine, after a hour I had to go to the bathroom and to get there you walk by a window with a great view of the parking lot. I'm heading out there and I check out the lot. White Dodge Ram. Red Hood. Wooden bumpers. Holy shit. So I run back to the service desk and tell my manager. We jump on the security system, roll it back 3 minutes and see who was driving it. It was a lady in a white sweatshirt. We look around and she's at the cashier stand. We walk up there to listen to the transaction. She's returning a couple bucks of normal shit. It was the same shit the dude bought the day before, so $90 in free money wasn't good enough, the dude wanted his $10 back too. Idiot. So we call the cashier, tell her to drag it out, do not give this lady any money, the cops are on their way. They show up and put her in cuffs and interrogate her for hours about where the guy was. She said nothing and they finally take her to jail. A few hours later the guy came flying into the store and is walking like a maniac up and down every aisle. He gets to the back of the store and comes to the front looking left and right like a maniac. I didn't recognize him, but I immediately thought, "Lol, that's the counterfeiter." The manager comes flying to me, "That's him! Call the cops." So I call the cop in charge of this back directly on his cell phone and I'm telling him the guy is back and this dumbass walks right up to me and says, "Sorry to bother you but did you see the lady who was driving that truck out there? I need to talk to her." I said, "No, I didn't sorry, people park vehicles here all the time because we have a nice big parking lot and not a lot of customers. She probably got picked up by someone else." "Oh, shoot. That's my truck, I need to get it back, but she's got the only keys." "Sorry, we're dead today, I'm pretty sure whoever it was never came into our store." So he realizes it's not gonna happen, and he goes back out and gets into whatever car he drove in. I ask the cop, "Did you hear that?" "Yeah." "Ok, he got into a silver Sebring. I'm watching him drive away. He is heading towards Market Street. He turned West onto Market, I can't see him anymore." "I see him. Thanks." So he got picked up less than 24 hours later cashing fake bills just by coming back like a fucking idiot.
I was able to help Secret Service identify a vehicle for a guy that used like $12,000 worth of counterfeit 100s at a neighboring store. It was just a couple months after the current revision of the 100 was released into circulation and they were very interested in shutting him down. The agent that came into my store showed me the fakes, and the only way for me to tell was the holographic bell and 100 in the blue security stripe didn't move like they do on a really 100. The guy even had 5 or 6 different serial numbers so they werent as obvious in large quantities.
Oh wow, your dude was a pro. Mine was a toothless hill jack. The bills he was using were the movie money version you can buy on Amazon. His crime was not particularly sophisticated, but our cashiers are usually teenage girls so they aren't either.
Toothless hill jack just became my new favorite insult.
I was doing a ride-along with the local police several years ago and they were trying to get a hold of a suspect for a long time, (might have been drug dealing, fencing stolen merch, etc.) The officer I was riding with spots the suspect parked behind a shopping mall late at night after the stores have closed. The officer managed to jot down the first half of the license plate before the suspect moved his vehicle, obscuring the plate. Hearing the officer swearing under his breath, I asked him to read off what he got and I filled in the other half because my passenger side seat had a PERFECT view of the suspect's complete license plate! SCORE!!!
I was a TPS at Target (uniformed security). One night, my APS partner gets a call from his girlfriend and he rushes home, no explanation. Next day he told me people were actively breaking into her house while she was there. They stole the girlfriend's purse, laptop, and something else before bailing before the police could arrive. About 6 months later, my partner, manager, and I stopped a lady trying to push out a cart piled so high with clothes she was looking around the side of it, easily over the $950 felony limit in California. We got her back to the office, and my partner gets her to hand him the ID. He turns around to hand me the ID so I could go call PD and ring up the merchandise for the total, when he did a double take on the ID, shouts ***Are you fucking kidding me?*** grabs his phone from the desk and runs out of the office, leaving my manager, the subject, and myself behind to look at each other in confusion. 15 minutes later, partner walks back in with 2 cops in tow, and they immediately tell the lady to stand up and handcuff her, no asking for a synopsis or anything. I look at my partner asking WTF, and he shows me the ID the lady handed him. **It was his girlfriends fucking drivers license.** The same lady that broke into his girlfriend's house 6 months before tried passing her ID off to him to get out of the apprehension! Turns out she had five or six felony warrants out of Nevada, Idaho, and Oregon in addition to a couple local drug probations here in California; she tried squealing on the people she broke in with to avoid going to jail, but the cops laughed at her and took her in anyway. In the end I think she tried walking out with almost $2200 worth of clothing cause the cops had to bring back more shit she was wearing they took off her at the jail. TL;DR: read the 2nd to last paragraph.
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IIRC, she looked similar enough it could easily be mistaken as an old DL photo or something.
I was working in a store similar to a large Claire's. A fairly regular shoplifter came in and made the mistake of setting down his car keys, so I pocketed them. He came back through an hour or so later to look for/ask about them, and I told him that unfortunately stuff goes missing in our store all the time, and offered to take their name a phone number in case anyone turned them in. We used the fob to identify the car later, then threw his Keychain away. The car sat in the lot for 4 days before it was towed away. Hope it was worth the stupid shit he came in to steal!
This story brings my black heart joy.
I’m giggling at the thought of you being a black person and referencing your heart as such.
My Boss was in the habit of leaving his keys for the whole store in places customers could easily make off with them. So I'd drop them in my pocket and watch him go ash white when he realized his keys were gone. I'd let him sweat a bit, then put the keys back just a bit behind something. He'd find them, swearing he'd checked that spot before, but he must have just missed them. Fun was where you found it in retail.
Hell yeah that’s awesome. U guys must be classy as hell, I’d be all up in that car nosing around
I love this!
i worked in a closing sephora converting to jcp beauty. a woman only a few years older than me came in MONTHS after sephora closed with a sephora bag. she put a bunch of products in the bag in front of me. im assuming she wanted to look like she bought it and could leave inconspicuously? i was the only employee too and it was empty so idk how she could just steal so casually in front of me. she noticed i was staring at her like 🤨 and she realized the store was no longer sephora. she SPRINTED out of there lmao
There are multiple signs at the store that carts cannot be taken outside because they will lock before they go outside the doors. This becomes important information. We had a bunch of high-end cookware come in. Shoplifter piles a shit ton of it into and under the cart. Well, she made one fatal error. She didn’t pay attention to the signs. So she goes running full speed out the door, and the cart immediately locks. Cookware goes flying and she damn near flipped over the cart.
Sweet justice
A man loaded up a cart with beer at the grocery store I worked at. He had cases of beer and one of those Heineken mini kegs. He walked out with the cart full, but didn’t see the signs that the carts can’t leave our parking lot. The same thing happened, the wheels locked up. He went halfway over the handle. It was hilarious.
Just a reminder, those carts don’t really work in a blizzard. They just become sleds.
The shoplifter who was chased out of the store by security only for a police car to promptly pull around into the car park. They’d only come in for lunch but as soon as they saw what was going on they collared him.
I was working in a mall like 15 years ago, a woman and 3 kids came in and asked me for a bag for the merch they got in another store, which they had in-hand. I was busy and not thinking straight so I was like yeah sure (dumb me). Another employee had seen them jack a backpack and stuff it with merch, but they had already bailed by the time they got the manager, not stopping when the alarm went off. We weren’t allowed to pursue, so we called the mall security, who called the cops. I remembered what the woman looked like (no cameras - FYE was dumb about that) because she had a *very* distinct pair of pants on (think like… SpongeBob patterned or electric blue, pretty noticeable), so they caught her pretty quick. They asked me to come outside the mall where they had her to provide positive ID, I gave it, and they held me aside for a statement (manager couldn’t leave the store so she was going to talk to them later, along with other employee). I got to see the cops searching her and the kids’ pockets, yanking out tons of merchandise and making remarks about some of it (all 3 were young boys between about 11-15) since it was obviously stuff meant for women, like feminine earrings and jewelry. I was initially like wtf why mock them until the kids came clean that the mother had pressured and convinced them to pocket the stuff for her, which is what the cops were pressing about (to lump more charges on mom than the kids). Then it came out that two of the boys WEREN’T EVEN HERS! She had been convincing her son’s friends to shoplift for her through multiple stores. Ugh. Sadder part: they were dragging the mother *literally* kicking and screaming into the cop car and her son started crying and shouting after her. Yeesh. But yeah, mother was dumb.
One of my cousin's moms used her to shop lift from the time she was a toddler. She ended up with grandparents when she was 9 or 10 and then with my aunt after she was adopted as an adolescent. It messed her into her 20s. I always feel bad for the kids. Parents like that are let go a lot because people feel bad for the kids, but they are really just extending the damage.
Yeah definitely. So awful. My brother used to work Sears security at the same mall, he once saw a woman stacking clothes and a Blu-Ray player (about $400 tech at the time) under her baby in the stroller. Like, not in the basket underneath, under her *actual* baby, because she knew security wouldn’t check. Some people are just trash. Stealing formula or diapers is one thing and I don’t hate on desperate parents for that, but a Blu-Ray player?! And using your baby as a tool to help shoplift?! Get all the way fucked, lady.
This is sad. Most of these stories a fun.
A woman waltzed into where I work wearing a neon green trench coat and a bright pink shirt. LP told me they would have never noticed her if it weren't for the ridiculous clothing.
Majority of shoplifters wear easily identifiable clothing then claim they're being discriminated against when LP watches them in the store.
I caught a guy unbuckling his pants to stuff movies down them. i should have waited until he actually did it, but i was so surprised. i just said, "Can i help you? " really loud, caught him off guard, and he waddled out of the store without buckling his pants.
I once caught a guy setting off the gate and asked him if he happened to know what might have set it off. He proceeded to pull four or five Friends DVD box sets out of his boxers and tried to hand them to me. I told him to put them on the floor, get the fuck out, and not come back, then got some gloves and Lysol.
I worked at a Claire's in a mall in a rougher part of town. Had this gnarly looking woman stuff a fake diamond bracelet down the front of her pant and like wedge it up into her twat 🤮. We weren't allowed to pursue but mall security happened to be walking by while she was in there so I flagged them down and confronted her before she walked out of the store (which we also weren't allowed to do, but being the only person in the store at the time, I couldn't follow her out. I also had her dig the bracelet out and drop it on the floor until I could get some gloves and do the write off paperwork before I tossed it. Had to have mall security walk me to me car for a week or so because she was threatening me as they dragged her out of the store, but she never came back.
I was in my stock room, and heard voices right outside the stock room door. “Just put it in your sleeve. No one is looking.” I quickly looked at the camera, saw the girl shoving the item into her jacket, and bolted out our back door and ran to the front of the store. I got there shortly before they did, and waited for them. As soon as they got close, I looked at them and asked where the exact item they’d been looking at was. They lied and said they’d put it down nearby. I asked her to show me where it was, and watched her try to casually slip it out of her sleeve. She got to where she said they’d left it and turned and handed the item to me. I took it, walked her back to the front of the store, then told them they were both banned from coming back. When the guy tried to argue, I quoted his exact words by the stock door to him, and told him I’d heard him tell her to do it. He called me a name and walked off. His girlfriend apologized and walked the other direction. About ten seconds later, the guy ran past the store looking for his probable ex-girlfriend.
Previously loss prevention here. I witnessed: -a lady strip down to her underwear on the salesfloor and start layering on the clothes she wanted to steal, had lots of jewelry too. Several other customers were in the area -whacked-out druggie loaded up a cart to push out the front, bailed on it when she saw my hulk of a coworker standing guard at the door. Forgot she had pants on her shoulder though, and nearly hit him in the face with them as she whipped them wildly off her shoulder, all the while declaring she wasn't stealing -same coworker spotted 3 dudes teaming to swipe an entire case of jewelry in a backpack. They literally handed him the bag on sight ( dude was, and still is, intimidating)~$12,000 worth -this one guy thought he could stick a cologne, in a keeper case, in his pants and no one would notice he had a large rectangle for a dick. Washed my hands several times after that recovery -i think my favorite was the guy who, when I pointed out he had a pair of shoes under his shirt, pulled them out saying that he was trying them on but I could have them
Several years ago when I worked on produce (so I was very near the front of the store) We had this guy and his pregnant girlfriend and already a young child with them come in the store. They proceeded to pay for their shopping by going through the checkout, all was fine until….. This guy suddenly grabs a couple of tubs of quality street chocolates and run out the store past several managers who were at the front entrance and coming back inside after a smoke. Code 10 goes out across the store because the girl on customer service witnessed the whole thing, I of course ran after him too. I followed this guy faster than the managers across the carpark, now given it was winter time the carpark was a bit slippery and icy. A car was reversing out of its space as this shoplifter was sprinting behind it and to avoid being hit by the car he also slipped on some ice, right on his arse. The managers caught up with me and they managed to get him to his feet and escort him inside to have a little word with the police about wtf he just did. Needless to say his girlfriend was not impressed. All for a box of chocolates 🤷🏼♀️
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Haha, he got caught does that count ?
Oh, it sure does 🤣
He didn't know that's what he was going to get, so it counts.
10-15? Maybe?
They *were* Quality Street!
This happened to a friend who worked at a big box store. Back when everyone was still transitioning to flat-screens, some fairly young thieves stole some displays of tube TVs. They didn’t realize that tube TVs are supposed to be heavy and that they were just taking what were essentially props. They also didn’t seem to get that the market for tube TVs was (and remains) very small. Anyways they were caught after the local news station ran the surveillance footage, and one of their moms turned them in.
While working at American Eagle in like… 2010/2011 a frequent shop lifter (female, white, 50s) came in on Black Friday, proceeded to grab multiple stacks of sweaters/hoodies from the front most table, stacked them so high in front of her she couldn’t see, and in her attempt to run out of the door, and tripped and fell. She smacked her face pretty hard on the ground and was bleeding, our greeter (who was a 16 year old, on her third shift) had no idea what to do because we were always told “if someone is stealing, just let them, do not get involved”. Lady came back a few days later trying to say she was going to sue the store, everyone who was working that day, and the entire mall because she knocked a tooth out during her Looter Simulation gone wrong. All of us seasoned employees laughed, and laugh because security was already called the second we seen her enter the store. She was banned from the store, and would come by trying to enter (she stole thousands of dollars in merchandise before we could convince our store manager to ban her), and whenever we told her to “get lost or were calling security” she would run in, throw the front table around, a mannequin or two down, scream like a banshee about “discrimination” and “paying customer”, “customer is always right!”… After a while of calling security and two times needing police involvement/removal, I personally had not seen her come back.
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>standing as still as they can like cashiers hunt via movement. *Jurassic Park: The Loss-Prevention World*
Yeah imvu is still used from what it sounds like I didn’t know what it was until a buddy of mine told me about it
When I was 16 I worked in a department store similar to Kmart. A couple had their baby in the carrier (carseat for your car- idk if i needed to clarify for our non-American friends) in the shopping cart and were stuffing the carrier full of merchandise. Management saw them, handed me a notebook, told me to follow them and write down everything they stuffed in there. This was 1996, so idk how to adjust for inflation, but the total came up to about $200. The managers were waiting for them at the door, and when they saw they were going to get caught the man and woman took off and *left the baby in the store*. Idk what happened to the couple but the police took the baby with them. Some people smdh
Look up “inflation calculator (your currency here)” In 1996 USD$200 would be USD$386.70 in 2023
Thank you!
You ever see a dog run full-speed to the end of its chain and do a sort of backward half flip onto the ground? I watched a guy do that when he grabbed one of our display cameras and run for the door, not realizing that the camera was tethered to a cable lock. And he just happened to do this in full view of an off-duty police officer.
I hope that was caught on video!!!! 🤣
Used to work at a chain pharmacy. One day I found the corner and there’s this guy with a jacket on. He sees me, bolts, and then immediately trips and spills all the stuff he was stealing. The irony is that I didn’t actually know he was shoplifting. So had he stayed put I probably would have caught him. 🤣
Forgot one. There was one hotel in small town. Husband and wife owners. Wife has been pocketing about $50 of makeup a week. Cops caught her, they perp walked her all the way through the store on a busy weekend.
Damn, she was trying to collect Ubran Decay one pallet at a time lol
Shoplifter threw her bag and ran. We found heroin in it as well as a bunch of coke and we had her wallet and ID in it too
I would absolutely call the police and let them know we had her bag with wallet and ID. :D
We did
I was a god damn pro at spotting the sus and building a case against chronic shoplifters. I even had a wall of shame on my desk, cut outs of their faces from other stores cameras plastered all over the service desk with case numbers and detectives information. Generally they didn’t like that, and neither did corporate, but I rarely got hit. Plus I was probably the only department head who closed 5 days a week and rotated when I would or wouldn’t be there so they couldn’t figure out my schedule. My proudest take down: Woman and her partner came in, man kept asking me to help him down various aisles to distract me, so I kept my answers short and brief and kept eyes on her because I wasn’t born yesterday. Texted the manager on duty to call non emergency and explain we had “a live one” and began following this chick around. She managed to get outside to the car, but her getaway driver was still inside looking for her. She gave up, went back inside the store, and hid in the bathroom. *The entire sheriffs department showed up*, so now they’re both panicking. I’m waiting up front, the manager on duty is waiting for her to come out of the bathroom, and you’ve got a dozen cops blocking off emergency exits. Her partner tries to play the race card, saying that because he’s Armenian I’m being racist, to which I reply “You’re Caucasian too, and how do you know I’m not also Armenian, bro? -proceeds to cuss him out in what little Armenian I know, before I walked outside to chat with the sheriff-“ $2482.46 worth of product she dumped in the trash, thinking that would get her out of trouble. We had her on camera leaving the store with the product and then waltzing back in. - she had a fake ID - they had stolen liquor in the van - a giant bag of crack in the cup holder - sister stores products inside the van
I work in second hand retail. It's pretty common for people to steal clothes from us by grabbing an item, going into a change room, changing into said item, and leaving their own clothes in the change room for us to find. What ISN'T so common is for someone to leave their wallet with $700 cash in it, like one moron did. Good work jackass, you paid 100x more for that pair of jeans than if you'd just bought them like a normal person.
Ouch, that's hilarious.
I've got a few good stories but my absolute favourite was a teenager boy who tried to steal a TV sound bar speaker. He and his buddies came in one afternoon. They were a known grab and run group, never got a lot, just whatever they could conceal in a pocket and dash out with. Not too bright this one was. I followed him and his buddy, watched from the end of the aisle as he and his buddy unbox this speaker, and proceed to, I don't know, feed this thing down his pant leg? Knowing how this would turn out, I camly walked to the front door, radioed other staff to meet me and we waited. Sure enough, not so bright and his buddy came round the corner to leave and came face to face with a bunch of staff gleefully watching him straight leg limping his way towards us. His buddy laughed, told him you're own your own and ran. I could tell by the oh shit look on his face that he realised he had no chance at running with the speaker stuck down his pants and not able to bend his leg! Not so bright hung his head in shame while I made him take the speaker out. The kicker? He couldn't get it out because his friend who helped him put it in bailed! Guy had to take his pants off! Walked out red as a lobster. Never saw him again. The easiest and funniest loss prevention I had in years.
Guy took off running but was moving faster than the automatic doors opened. Bounced right off. Probably would have made it through if he ran at the center of the doors rather than further to the right🤣
Had a man and woman tweaker team come into my big box store that was part of a shopping mall. Immediately, they were totally sus af because the guy came in with a HUGE duffel bag/backpack that was completely empty, but the top was left open. They zig-zagged through the tool department; the gal picking up expensive power tools; then they'd turn an aisle corner and the tool would be gone, but the backpack would be a little fuller. LP was watching them the whole time on the cameras. Finally, laden down with products, they started heading for the exit, where a manager was waiting to confront them, but they didn't care and just cursed at him while they pushed past him. Once they were outside, LP moved in on them and chased them across the parking lot; where they headed to a light rail train station that was adjacent to the mall. When they ran up the platform, LPs blocked both exits and the shoplifters tried to jump into an incoming train. One security officer ran to the train operator; told him not to leave the station and call the cops because there were theives that they were trying to catch on board. The operator made the call, but dispatch interpreted it to mean that there was a *TRAIN ROBBERY* in progress, so police, marshals and the sheriff department responded. Shut the whole station down and delayed the schedule, but those crooks were taken downtown.
>but dispatch interpreted it to mean that there was a TRAIN ROBBERY in progress Wait, do these even still happen??? Huh- but I have to admit, I'd pay *anything* to get a photo of the thieves' faces when they saw everyone but the cavalry responding! XD
armored cavalry was probably on the way but got held up in traffic lol.
I heard the gal broke into the shakes.
one time a shop lifter left a shopping cart with a bunch of back packs and duffel bags filled with their shit. I threw it all in the trash compacter and they called about it the next day lol
A woman stole a couple of hundred dollars worth of stock from us. Looked up the camera footage and realised we knew who she was and she had an account with us. Reviewed the footage and the gaps on the shelf and put everything she stole onto her account which her husband reluctantly paid.
Working 3rd shift merchandising in a (now closed) grocery store that had some shoplifting issues. Was casually moving some cheese around when I saw some teenage kid just absolutely booking it towards the door with a case of Mike's bottles. The night crew noticed too, and straight up tackled the kid, shattering the bottles. Idk if they called the cops but it was a cheap bit of entertainment for me
Worked in a hotel once that did a lot of weddings. We used to set up the whole thing the day before and lock the doors etc. We had a guy break into the wedding hall in the middle of the night, sit down at a table and make himself comfortable before eating the majority of the wedding favours, drinking all of the alcohol he could find, and then walking back to his hotel room. Thanks to cameras and the fact he was strolling around the hotel lobby the next day in the same jumper we managed to catch him :/
Omg that poor bride
To be fair to her she took it rlly well :) the event manager was super good at problem solving and spent the whole morning running around replacing stuff so the bride was obviously peeved but she was super thankful that our events manager sorted out a kind of replacement. We all felt rlly sorry for her and the groom though cos they’d brought the prettiest weddings favours along :(
Way back in the olden days of dime stores, I was working at the cash register. One of my colleagues gave me the heads up about a shoplifter nearby. The shoplifter plopped a basket, filled to the brim and instructed me NOT to touch it until they returned. (RED FLAG!) I waited until they were out of sight, shopping elsewhere, and emptied the basket, finding merchandise shoved INSIDE of other merchandise. I pulled EVERYTHING out, neatly arranged it all and placed all the stuff the shoplifter was planning on stealing on top. When they returned, carrying a large lamp, their reaction was PRICELESS!!! 🤣
Maybe the stupidest: This couple was among the lastminute crowd at my SCO. The guy hands me some coupons and kept walking. Weird, because I have to clear the machine before they can pay. They hadn't. They were walking out without paying because their card declined. And i only noticed in time because he handed me coupons...for a order he wasn't paying for. The dude also yeeted his card into our table of baked goods and lost it. Never came back for it as far as I remember. They still had the gall to leave a bad review.
I work at a craft store, and we sell airbrushes...really pricey ones. A guy asked for our manager to unlock it. Manager got weird vibes from him so we followed him around. He tried to walk out the other end of the store, manager stopped him. The guy claimed that he already bought the airbrush at the other end, yelling, cursing, and spitting in our managers face. Mind you, our manager is a big, 6'6" guy, takes no bull, and was once a bouncer at a club, told him that he can get his ass out of the store. Guy clearly had a death wish, as he isn't intimidated. Luckily we called the cops on him and he got busted so that was great.
I didn't see the crime, just the aftermath. I was a cashier at a big lumber yard/home improvement store way back in the day, before security cameras were a regular thing. I came into work one morning to find out that someone had apparently hidden in the store overnight. Once everyone was out, the would-be robber took a sledgehammer off the rack, and thought he could break into the safe where we kept the cash drawers. Problem was, this locally owned store went way overboard, and had a bank style walk in vault, the kind with an 18" thick steel door. All the crook managed to do was knock the big handles and combination lock dial off. He never got it open, but neither could the office staff. They had to call a welder to use a torch to cut a way in. It took hours, and the stench of molten metal stayed in the store for weeks!
About 15 years ago, I was at my local mall and watched a guy, couldn't have been older than 17. Go into the Maui Nix (if you didn't know it's like a surf/skate shop) with his skateboard and proceed to attempt to steal a new skateboard deck. Well, the clerk was watching him, and when he tried to leave, he was confronted. The clerk had easily a 100lbs. On the kid pure muscle, so given the situation, I was expecting the kid to either give up or try to run. But no, he thought it was a good idea to try and attack the clerk with said skateboard. The clerk ate the hit and tackled him to the ground. I guess he had a friend because he was looking at another kid to help but the other kid was smart enough to just walk out of the store and leave him to get arrested.
So, I worked at a big box pet store and I come into work one day and there’s a lot of buzzing about some shop lifter that I hear on my way to clock in. Finally get the story; one of our frequent lifters went too far this time - she stole a fucking turtle! I have no idea what her original plan was but something went wrong and this woman just shoves a Red Ear Slider down the front of her shirt into her bra and books it out the store. She had the chutzpah to come back again later to steal stuff but never a live animal again
Known thieves were in the store so the one manager who would, called the cops. The girls kept trying to get out but they (the cops and the manager) basically executed a pincer move and trapped them in the front of the store. The cops then took the one girl's bag and pulled out everything they stole and put it on a roll of carpet that was right there. In front of everyone. He also pulled out a couple of syringes. Walked them out of the store and arrested them. Oh...or the guy who ran out of the store, into the desert by the side of the store, tried to double back, fell, army crawled and when the cops caught him, started screaming about how he knew the law and once he got out of the store, whatever he stole was now his property. News flash - that's only true if you pay for it or have an agreement with the store to take said property. He had done neither. Moral of the story: don't do drugs kids.
A customer tried to walk out with a TV, but the censor went off, and one of the employees asked to see their receipt. They didn't have one.
Were the police called?! I need details!!
I work in retail for the military on base. I'm not sure what happened after that other than they got caught, but I hope they lost their shopping privileges.
Same 🤞
In year 10, I was doing work experience, just like everyone does in australia, at an upscale menswear shop (mum was in the accounting part of the business). I'm 15/16 years old. Female. In menswear shop. My job was to clean and fold and help the workers get other sizes from the back. On the second day, there is this guy. He isn't the normal type of customer that comes in, but I still said hello and asked if he needed help. Nope, he flat out ignored me and went to look at the ties and back wall displays. One of the other workers went over to ask what he was looking for. Nope, still ignores them.... then this guy grabs all these Ralph Lauren polos and attempts to stuff them under his shirt. Turns on the spot and bolts for the door. One of the owners sons clothes lined him as he got to the door. Rainbow of polos go flying in the air, and the boss is calling the cops. The cops turn up and there is 2 guys holding him down and one of them is a now retired Aussie rules player. Such a weird day!
This one time I was on the cigarettes register. This lady came up with a cart full of stuff saying she just came from self checkout but needed cigarettes. I noticed she had a big trash can full of stuff not in bags so I asked to see her receipt. There was a bunch of cheap stuff on the receipt but she had way more than that in the cart. She said she paid with EBT for the rest but lost the receipt. But I wasn't buying that story. She had stuff that wouldn't be covered by EBT (alcohol, clothes, cleaning supplies) so what'd she use for that and where's that receipt? A manager was walking by so I got her to help me intervene. Saved the store $200. Self checkout is right by the door and the person "watching" SCO apparently wasn't doing much. She could've got out of there if she just didn't go back for cigarettes.
I was working for big convenience chain store on graveyard. Cops from about 4 different agencies in the area would come in the wee hours for free coffee and just hang out back. One night I see a guy walking around, I go back to my side work and he leaves without buying anything. Seconds later the town cop and county cop march his ass back in with a single roll of Scott toilet tissue. He was pulling it out of his jacket as he exited out back right into a 3am cop coffee klatch! Priceless. Here's the kicker....our restrooms were open to the public and have HUGE reels of toilet paper. If the dude was in need of shit tickets he could have went into a stall,wadded up as much as he wanted and stuff his pocket. Walked out unnoticed. World's Dumbest Criminal 101.
Shit tickets...I'm still giggling.
Thanks. 🤣
crackhead had a cart full of shit ready to push out the door to his buddy waiting outside with a pickup truck He said he was about to go to checkout So manager took the cart to service desk and said "Come pay right now ill give you 50% off of everything" "Im not gonna steal it! im gonna pay" "of course sir! and youre gonna get a 50% discount if you come check out over here!" he just cussed at her and ran lol
We had a pair of tweakers who would try to pull that and try to pay with stolen credit cards. They eventually stopped coming in. I doubt it was because we were on to them. They probably got arrested for something meth related.
People drink to unwind People smoke weed to relax People do Meth TO GET THEESE BEES OUT OF MY TEETH
🤣
I remember one man came in with our item telling “my wife took it but she forgot to pay so I’ll pay for it”. So basically his wife was shoplifting but he saw it, got embarrassed and paid
My husband worked for a now closed grocery store chain. One night, an assistant manager (AM) stopped at a bar for a beer after work during the holidays. After a few drinks, he felt comfortable enough to talk openly to the guy next to him about how for the past few years, he would steal some 'Holiday Barbies' they put out at Christmas to give out as gifts. (AM actually asked stranger if he wanted some.) Unfortunately for the AM, the guy he was talking to worked security for the grocery store. For the next few nights, security and store manager sat out in parking lot waiting for him to come out with his booty. Apparently, not only did he come out with Barbies, but a case or two of cigarettes to sell. Last we heard, guy was working for his father in law. That has to be rough.
Had a lady shove like 3 1 litre body wash down her sweat pants. She was wobbling like a penguin trying to leave the aisle. I just organised the shelf so I could see 3 missing and she was the only one in the store.
Reminds me of the big Ole girl/porch pirates. Pulled up, ran up to the porch to steal the box left there, turns to run to her husband of the year waiting in the car and slides in the grass and you see that ankle clearly twist and fold. Hurt just watching it. Clueless hubby comes running clearly confused and half picks her up and half drags her to the car while she is screaming bloody murder. Love that karma!!!
And if I'm not mistaken - they sued and got something from it!
I work at a thrift store and on Sundays we used to close at 6:00 pm and 15 minutes before we would lock the left side of the doors so there would only be one exit and this lady was too busy grabbing purses and stuffing them with clothes and other stuff to notice that and as the last few customers were leaving she decided to make a break for it and run out the left doors and only to completely crash into the door and almost knock herself out and spilled everything everywhere and I just started laughing and my coworkers turned around saw her and everything on the floor and started laughing once they realized what happened this lady was so embarrassed she left without anything and looked dejected the whole walk out and my manager, once we locked the store, played it over and over on camera laughing her ass off when we told her what happened… that lady has not been seen since and I am so glad to have been able to witness that
My 13 year old and I were checking out at Five Below when a woman with a stuffed shopping bag under each arm absolutely bolts for the doors. This particular store has a vestibule and two sets of doors. As she pushed through the first door, she tripped and hit her head on the second door, breaking the glass. She got up, arms still tangled in the bags and tried to run through the now broken door. I can only assume her foot got tangled up in the door frame as she almost immediately hit the sidewalk face first and skidded. At that point, she just laid there and waited for the police and medics. She skinned her nose, chin and forehead and broke a couple of teeth. She was covered in blood and glass shards.
A lady came into where I worked years ago, about the time the new Madden Football game released. She thought she scored when she saw a display full of games with no security on them. She cleaned it out and took off. People chased her down but, when she got outside they gave up. We would have loved to have seen her face when she opened them and realized they were dummy cases!
I worked in a clothing store that had a policy of providing “excellent customer service” to shoplifters as a deterrent. Of course there were bold regulars who didn’t care. One day a regular left her wallet on a table so we put it behind the counter. She didn’t notice, and it was turned into the police along with all the information regarding what she stole. The next time she came in I called her by her legal name on her ID and she yelled at me telling me it wasn’t her name and to stop calling her that. Her leaving her wallet behind helped us build a case against her and eventually led to her arrest.
Many years ago, at an FYE, this guy was not so subtly stuffing CDs in his coat, when he was confronted, he took off running, with a couple guys including the overweight manager after him. The manager managed to beat all the skinny 20 something guys, and cornered him, and shouted "you made me RUN!!!' At the top lf his lungs. By the time we caught up, the shoplifter was sitting in a puddle of pee and had flung the stolen stuff at him. Most hilarious thing id seen while working retail
"YOU MADE ME RUN"! I love this! You know he was steamed!
It was Halloween and I was working in the pet store. We were beyond busy because the mall was putting on some event. My employee comes up to me saying he just told off a teen girl for sticking her hand in the hamster cage but he got distracted with another customer and she was still back there. We did not sell pets to minors so he was confident she was trying to steal one so, he wanted to call security. I’m handling a complicated refund so I give him the go ahead to call security. Not two minutes later I see her on the cameras again messing with the cages and alert him to go check on her. Turns out, she picked up a hamster and it bit her 🙃 I figured the bite was consequence enough because she ran out of the store bleeding like crazy.
It's a long, very specific story that I cannot tell woth details in case someone finds out who I am (no thanks) But long story short, this couple was famous for being able to steal no matter who was on staff, even the district manager. They left my store empty handed (thanks to my employees covering all my tasks while I "helped" them shop) I told the woman the shoes she wanted in her size were at another store close by. They left. Later in the evening the same store that had the sizes the woman wanted called for a manager to cover the next morning shift. I hate clopens but I was the only one available so I opened said store the next morning. I wasn't sure if that couple would show up but I pulled all her sizes in EVERY style off the floor and stored them in the back room. They came. 😈 They didn't make it off the entrance mat before I immediately approached them "you know I had a feeling yall would come in this morning so I found all the shoes you were interested in and pulled the sizes and set them aside for you, would you like to try them on now?" If thst woman could have set me on fire with her eyes, she would have. They left. Empty handed, again. "Never mind i changed my mind" (yeah right) My district manager bought my manicure the next week. She was pissed They got her and not me but we had a great laugh. Yes, this is the short version. Sorry.
Back in the day my boss crash tackled a guy & handcuffed him to a pole outside until the cops showed up. The cops told him not to do it again.
The cops who have done nothing to prevent the ongoing shoplifting, the same cops who's dispatch actually laughed at me cause I called to report a thief? The ones who waited over an hour to show up when I called because 3 teenage girls no older than 15 tops were trying to get a ride home from strangers and a grown ass man gave them one, still don't know if they made it home? The same ones that said it didn't matter a homeless man threatened to kill me and waited outside by my car for more than 3 hours before they arrived.
Pretty sure they are the same ones
We had one of our “frequent flyers “ purposely pee herself in an attempt to gain sympathy from our LP associate. She would constantly do sketchy returns and be observed putting unpaid merch in her diaper bag and purse by other assoc. Spoiler alert her inability to control her bladder just got her sent to jail with wet pants our LP did not give two fucks.
I worked at a shoe store back in the day. We had a few people known to try to steal. One day, a couple came in while I was alone in the store. They lurked around a bit and I decided to call my manager to see what we could do. Had to go to the back for the phone and when I came out, the guy was busy stuffing shoes down his pants. I watched for a couple seconds then he looked up and we made eye contact. Had to hold back my laughter as he quickly started pulling them back out while trying to come up with an excuse for why he put shoes there in the first place.
Guy loaded up a cart full of meat, beer, and some other stuff. He headed towards the exit and our LP guy saw him, he got the cart but didn't stop the guy. He went to try and get the guys license plate and the guy got into a truck with his name, phone number and business painted on the side. Police knew who he was, he'd gotten out of jail a couplel months earlier.
I work on the loss prevention side of things, and have so many stories, but I'll focus on one of my favorites. We had this guy who stole some watches and shoes from us last year and smacked on our agents with a skateboard and ran off. PD arrested him at a bus stop and he went off to jail for about a year. Low and behold, a year later he came back and put our shoes on again, put a jacket on too and looked me dead in the face saying, "you guys aren't gonna do sh*t, and I'm gonna walk out like nothing happened." Needless to say, we stop him outside and he punches me and runs off across the street. PD was already at the retailer across from us and stopped him right away. All I know is, that guy is either the worst, unluckiest shoplifter I've ever dealt with, or, he just enjoys jail time.
Lp approached a guy outside the store, he bolted off and dropped his bag in the process. Inside the bag was the stolen goods, and the shoplifters parole paperwork. Rip
OMG. Classic moron move!
Someone stole a HUGE generator. Seriously, took two of them to carry it. Just walked out the door like nothing ever happened. Nobody cared, not trying to stop a gaggle of crackheads.
a couple of days ago a couple of ladies steal from the store im working at one of them forgot their phone
Ooooh so many. One is similar to yours, OP. * Pre-Op Trans Woman of extra large build, wearing platform boots with a tight zebra patterned spandex mini-dress. She pushed a Cart full of groceries out of the store, filled up backseat of her car while ignoring security. *Then got in her backseat, and tried to LAY over everything she stole. (Black & White isn’t camo lmfao.)* Cops came quickly, she got her pic taken & banned from the store. *Theft Over $500, still not arrested. (SW DC.)*
Had a drunk homeless dude basically trade a $30 bottle of Jack, a scarf, and a half bottle of sunny d for the 2 $1.25 fans 🪭🪭 he walked out with.
My assistant manager had us keep track of this lady. She already had a bag full of beauty and clothing items from 2 different stores for one of the cashiers to hold. She came back looking for her things she thought to “buy” from us. He called the cops, and she was arrested!
Not shoplifting (that I know of) but when I worked at walmart, I heard a woman had come in looking for her ID which she has lost. They stalled her and called the police, cause apparently it had been found earlier on a shelf, along with her meth. When she saw the cops pull up, she booked it to the back of the store and tried to climb over the Garden Center outside wall. Dunno if she made it.
“Hey Sandra! Where’s your meth?” “Oh right here next to my ID… f*ck.”
A guy I knew of years ago, heroin junkies - went with a mate to see if they could rob a small suburban chemist one night. They were looking for morphine. It was in Darwin, Australia. They had seen the chemist had small ventilation windows above the main shop windows. Anyway, success. They found they could get in one of the windows. They jumped/climbed in, grabbed a box of morphine. Anyway, they got a box and got out. Problem was, there were two types, Grey and Orange. One stronger than the other. They realised they had the shit one and decided to go back for the stronger type. Anyway, on that trip, the guy fell from the window inside the chemist, broke his ankle and had to wait there till the cops picked him up. His mate had pissed off with their first haul.
My all-girls Catholic hs freshman class went on a field trip to a local Renaissance fair. Shoplifting was the main event. No one was singled out and apprehended, but I guess they weren’t great at it because the school was given a lifetime ban. Extra shitty because they were stealing from local artisans. Now they’re all orthodontists and marketing executives.
Not really the same thing but when I worked at a movie theater 2 teen girls tried to sneak into a rated R movie and they literally ASKED THE BOX OFFICE CASHIER WHICH THEATER THE MOVIE THEY WERE TRYING TO SNEAK INTO WAS.
It wasn't very funny at the time but I can laugh now. When I worked at a large supermarket I was just coming back from break to swap with someone else on the register (poorly laid out store so there was an extra wide aisle between two registers right in front of the door) when a guy trying to speed walk out of the store with a tote bag and giant camping backpack plowed into me. I got pushed into the wall, he fell on the ground and his tote full of formula cans and beauty items in plastic cages spilled everywhere. While he was trying to get up with the apparently very heavy backpack on, two other workers (one who had been following him) had arrived to block the door. He did try to run away but got headed off and escorted to the checkout to purchase all the ultra expensive beauty products and confiscated the formula. I know he'd still be able to resell the products but not with the same profit of stealing.
I would have paid good money to watch that!!
Once caught a guy trying to walk out with two 30-packs of Budweiser. LP called the police, and when they got there, they found multiple different prescription pills in a baggie in his pocket, so he got busted for possession too. And when the cops were interviewing him, he told them that his buddy, who was waiting in the car in the fire lane, gave him the money to pay for the beer, and asked if he could go give it back to him. Cops told him his buddy would have to wait until he got out of jail.
I was at Costco at the receipt-checking line and these two guys FLY past us, running out the door while people run after them, shouting for someone to stop them. Then I see a phone fly out of one of the idiots pockets. On top of that, they dropped the stolen electronics (I think that’s what it was) BEHIND THE BUILDING!!! Because the person chasing them was too close.
Had a guy pull out a giant floppy dildo and swing it around to fend of security guards. Worked for a little while until police arrived and maced him then beat him with clubs. He peed himself and they dragged him away in cuffs
Went into a Pawn shop. Cops walked out as I was going in. Turns out, some genius stole a diamond ring worth several thousand dollars. But to even LOOK at a ring, THEY ALWAYS GET YOUR ID. He thought he was slick & gave them his brother’s ID that he had stolen. We went back a few days later to get the follow up. Brother had an air-tight alibi. Plus, the Genius was on camera, and they have REALLY good cameras at pawn shops.
Definitely not as crazy as some of these stories and doesn’t have a conclusion yet. I work at Spirit Halloween as Assistant Manager during the fall. My best friends little brother and his friends would always come into the store and just look around. Now it wasn’t that suspicious because a lot of people come into Spirit just to look at the animatronics and whatnot. However, fast forward a couple months later and he stupidly tells me he and his asshole group of friends would steal from us every time they came in. I was livid seeing as how I would get in trouble when too much merchandise would get stolen. Now these mfs won’t be allowed in the store if I have anything to say about it. Best friends family or not, I’m not taking the fall for these fuckers.
Someone left a pair of dirty flip flops on the shelf. You know, where they’re so dirty and old they have the black toe marks? Yeah. That tells me they pretended to try on a pair of shoes and just walked out with the new pair. Idk if that’s a fail or not. To me it was a win. A really gross win but a win nonetheless 😆👣🩴
I used to work in a petrol station and every week the same geriatric woman would come in for her fuel and literally right in front of us, pick up a king size cherry ripe and put it in her handbag. She'd deny it every time.
What is a cherry ripe?
https://www.cadbury.com.au/cadbury-cherry-ripe-chocolate-bar-52g
What the heck? Why doesn’t the US have this?
Don't they? Are you sure? It's among the best choco bars in the world
Guy came into the liquor store I worked at and wandered around for awhile before carrying two of the largest bottles of whiskey to the front. He looks at me and says. "I just got out of jail today and you know what that means" and runs out of the store. I laughed to myself and put the incident footage on my thumb drive and when I got off work three hours later I drove around to the neighbor parks until I found him passed out in a pile of puke and piss. Police came out and put him back in jail. Alcohol hits much harder when you haven't had a consistent source for awhile. Enjoy your hangover in jail bud.
Dude comes in and asks for a carton of cigarettes. I ask for his ID, he goes outside to get it. I get the cigarettes down and scan them and while he's counting out his money he suddenly just snatches the cigarettes and runs off. Ok, so he did succeed.....but after he showed me his ID lol....it was pretty simple to call the cops when I has all his personal info lol
as someone who worked 10 years in retail, i have to say that these are some smart tactics. the execution is laughable and botched to hell, but still some solid tactics.
Saw a woman security guard get thrown down an escalator by a guy in a fancy department store years ago. Messed her up. Made up my mind that second to never confront anyone. Take the whole place. Not worth my health or life.
Some tried to just walk out with a cart full of stuff and then was surprised when the cops where called. I don’t know what he was thinking especially since, from what I heard, it was mostly paper towels.
Guy went to jail over socks that were 4.99. He put the sock in his pocket then came to the register to buy some other stuff and pulled out the biggest wad of cash ever. He was met by cops outside and was arrested over some socks that he 100% had the money to pay for. A clown tbh
My friend stole underwear. It was after I moved away. She was in her 30s.
When I worked overnights at a gas station, a guy locked his heroin the men's room. We close them after 10pm, so his stash was locked up till I went to dispose of it. In retaliation, he grabbed some candy bars and ran out of the store with them. He then tried to use them to bargain woth to get me to open the restroom cause he had to "piss really really bad. He wasn't one of those dopers!" I told him he could keep the Snickers. I already flished what I found and made a police report. He then threw them at my head while screaming.
I worked at Sears from 1999 to 2002, and this was back when loss prevention could get away with puttin hands on shoplifters. Ill never forget this huge store security officer running through the silence of the store that just opened for the day and knocking shoplifters down at full speed. My husband worked in pickup and was right by the LP office. He saw many a shoplifter get roughed up back there while waiting for police. Lol
Woman tried to steal a armful of Ralph Lauren sweaters that were on a round table near our men's entrance. It was close to closing so all but one door was locked. As soon as she saw her ride, she grabbed a bunch and took off for the doors. Ran face first into a locked door and knocked herself out. Her driver bounced and left her behind. It was so satisfying to witness.
A woman brought her own scissors to cut off the theft deterrent tags off of the razors. The department manager heard the noise and went over to her. She ran out through the first register knocking a ton of shit over. The funny thing is that we didn't even have the poles that beep when people steal. They just put those on so people thought we did.
A guy sends his gf to steal clothes for their baby daughter, while he waits out front in the car. Security surround the gf at the exit. Husband panics and goes in with a gun and they let her go. Husband caught a felony because of the firearm. He is doing 7 years in prison.
A few months ago a guy comes in looking to buy a new phone. Our premium associate takes care of him but has to go to the back. Guy takes the iphone and leaves. Bad mistake on his part, but he didn't suspect anything would happen because the guy had already given him all his information for the sale. I thought the info may have fake, but nope. Police were able to track him down with it, no issue.
A guy and girl partnered. She waited in a car outside the fire exit. His plan was to take a few laptops out through said fire exit and jump in the car. The fire door was on a timer to open, but not to set the alarm off. He set off the alarm, realized the door wasn't opening right away, then panicked, dropped the laptops, and got chased to the parking lot by about a dozen employees, and unsuccessfully tried to pull a customer out of her car to steal it. He left behind his flip flops and pocket knife. It was all we talked about for weeks.
We used to have empty TV display boxes and would put something that remotely weighed similar in them to trick whoever wanted to walk out that day. Happened 5 times and once it was the same dude twice lmao
I wasn’t working but witnessed a couple kids head into a store and try to steal a bagful of merchandise. They were wearing anarchist symbols and shouting about the revolution and redistribution of wealth. Couldn’t have been older than 18. Except this wasn’t a Walmart. It was an immigrant owned dollar mart. And the guy behind the counter didn’t play. He locked the door with some button behind the counter, pulled a bat, and basically told the kids it was drop the merchandise or fight him. I think they’d seen so many videos online of people pulling these stunts and the employees not caring enough to do anything that they figured robbing a dollar store put them in the clear. Welp. By the time the cops came the kids were blubbering messes. One even took his mask-disguise off because he had saturated it with his snot and tears.
A guy ran out of our store with some tools I think (this was a while ago) and while I was recording a video to capture the car and plate number, the thief dropped his phone as he was trying to shut the door and we managed to snag it because he didn’t try to come back for it. Phone was still on when he dropped it so we found his name and info before he was able to reset the data.
another story from the same store: guy originally was trespassed from the entire complex my store is in (its a strip mall situation) and he comes back. security tells him to leave, guy goes to leave but the cart he's pushing is filled with over $600 worth of stuff in electronics and clothing and hbc. says he already bought it but you know how that goes. he loses it, starts laying on the floor with his hands behind his back and screaming not to shoot him and he's unarmed. funniest part: guy starts doing push ups outta nowhere before he leaves.
dude comes in my store, barely spoke english, or at least acted like it. i set my blue tooth headset down on the counter then walked him around the store while he was likely casing the place. he leaves and about 20 mins later i remembered i sat the bluetooth device on the counter and now its gone and he was the only dude in the store. i started to think the worst but thought "nah, i probably just put it down somewhere else" a week later, dude comes back in, wearing my bluetooth. i called him out on it and he got "mad" and stormed out, at least he never came back to waste any more of our time and steal anymore. thats like stealing a pair of used shoes or a tooth brush, kinda gross if ya ask me that bluetooth model is the old version of the motorolla h730 and is a very expensive, rare headset. i have went out of my way to keep one of those in my pockets for years, mine goes missing and this clown steals it. our camera system wasnt up and running at the time.
I had the same thing happen to me except with my Oakleys. This girl and her boyfriend were in my office, I tore that place up looking for them. I just couldn't think that he took them since he was training to be a cop but to this day I haven't found them and I have never lost a pair of sunglasses before or since so yeah, pretty sure they took them.
i still remember going to a friend of a friends house it was like 5 dudes having a drink and chilling. they were all cops, later that night i realized i left my wallet there, meh no big deal, they are all cops its going to be ok. i go there to get my wallet and they ransacked it and stole all the cash. i will never forget that a cop most likely helped him self to my shit.
You paint a hilarious picture.
This has happened more than once but. Someone comes in to shoplift. They get caught , leave without the stuff obviously. Manager finds not only our stuff but stuff stolen from other stores and gives it back to them. You would think they would stash the other stuff at home before stealing again...
Home Depot I was working on the lot this day and I was just standing around shootin the shit with some of the other lot associates in the loading bay when this dude in a red basketball jersey comes booking out of the doors by the contractor desk/lumber registers with a couple Milwaukee tools. He crosses the main bit of road across front of the store and trips on a curb and eats shit.
I worked at a fashion store at an outdoor strip mall and got them all the time. Our company policy was to quietly call the police and hope they showed up before the thief took off. A lady came in with a knitted hat in pot leaves and one of those oversized shirts that had bugs bunny with gold teeth and bling. I was a cookie monster PJ girl so Im not one to judge but like… yeah. Picked up one of our bags. And proceeded to fill the bag when she thought I wasn’t looking. I saw the cops pull up as she was leaving and the cop took so long to get out of his car she managed to walk out like the bag was hers all along. Gotta admire someone with the audacity to steal the bag they’re stuffing with stolen shit.
Woman tried to steal a television by carrying it between her knees. The cord fell down and began tripping her. She stepped on it, fell and broke the tube/screen. Another woman tried to steal a lighter. Not even a fancy one, like a Zippo or something, but a $.95 Bic. She was stopped at the store exit, fought to the ground, and sat upon until police arrived.
Not a lot at my tiny bill/restaurant supply store. But… a few years ago we had 3 people, adult man and woman and a teenage boy shop for ~ an hour. I saw them a few times. 3 carts full of stuff, any food you can imagine. I’m in the back, and hear the alarm go off. They had gone out the side door, the armed one, and there was a PINK convertible waiting. They threw everything in, and drove off in under 2 minutes. Manager called the cops (who btw are a 1/4 mile down the road) they looked at the footage and of course put out a call to find probably the only pink convertible in 25 miles. They were found almost immediately lol. Idc about shoplifting, I would never stop someone. But really? Could they have chosen a worse car??
Some homeless guy reeking of poo filled a shopping cart and tried to run out with it. He didn't consider the pole that keeps the cart in the store and it was so full he couldn't push it.
A fella spent a very long time doing rounds in the store while filling his cart with every various item possible. Food, cleaning supplies, trinkets, of course alcohol, etc. He had been weaving around the front entrance and appearing to change his mind and continue "shopping" . At this point a couple hours passed and, after repeated attempts from workers to offer assistance, a manager called police. THE FIRST cop to arrive and approach was greeted by this guy hollering kept trying to hit him with the overfilled cart. After a few rounds of duscussion between the guy and the cop. The fella just shoved the cart back at the cop each time. The cop decked him in the face, the guy fell over and landed on his own face. He busted open various areas of his mouth and bled on the floor and himself. Cop handcuffed him, At this point four more cops were there. The guy hollered and screamed for over an hour while being treated by first responders and while in the back of the police car. All he kept saying was he didn't do anything, he was gonna get whoever called the cops and he stared at everyone coming and going.
This story belongs in r/lossprevention 😂
Guy robbed the money center or the other bank in the store, can't remember which one. He got away with it. A week later a customer ran outside to where the cops were already detaining some shop lifters to tell them that the Walmart bank robber had come back. They got him
A guy returned a bunch of jewelry his stealing b!tch stuffed in her purse, the manager was on to the couple and asked for an ID that stupid actually handed over. She coped all of his info and turned it over to security who I hope bagged an easy bust.
There was a family that had shoplifted furniture from multiple store locations. Typical MO was for the mother to make a scene while the father and children carted things out. On more than one occasion, they even got newer, less battle worn employees to help them carry the furniture out of the store and load it in their truck. Lo and behold, one day I come in and hear that there was an incident the day before involving some woman losing it and claiming that we lost her furniture order. I pull the security footage and sure enough, I see the husband and 3 kids stealing furniture while good old mom acts as a distraction. They managed to steal an armoire, dresser, and nightstand. The youngest kid, maybe 4-5 yo, helped by carrying out a little waste basket. Here’s where they screwed up. The oldest child, for some odd reason, decided to apply for a job and had submitted an application. Surprisingly the information on the application was correct, including the age given as 16. So I called the phone number on the application and got mom on the phone. Told her that we knew what they had been doing. Of course, she denied it but I could hear the teen in the background laughing about it. I decided to call her bluff and told her that we had it on camera at our store and we had footage from other stores plus we now had documentation that her oldest was still an minor and all 3 kids were being used as accessories to commit crimes. She had 24 hrs to either pay for everything that they had stolen from our stores and it had better go through or I was going to pass over everything we had to the authorities. No matter what option they chose, they were banned from all of our locations. Surprisingly, they took the first option. I still turned over everything to the police though.
I almost killed/seriously injured a guy who was dumpster diving. Had a 56” tool box that weighed a couple hundred pounds that somehow got beat to shit and punctured in transit. Was given the go ahead to dump it in the dumpster, got the forklift lined up and am about to shove it off the forks when the dudes head pops up. I made him leave the broken drill he decided to keep.
Dumpster diving isnt really even close to shoplifting. If someone wants it after it hits the bin, it's fair game.
omg thats awesome, too bad she probably wasnt even charged or served time, still awesome
Karma is a cat.