Share your crazy theft/shoplifting stories!

[CherryAcid]

A few stories to tell;
At uni i was a xmas temp as a pound store i ahted it we had the stupid "how much is this"? questions and people paying for 2 items by a cheque. Anyway this really shady looking guy put his basket of stuff near the till to be rung up and he was taking some of the items out and puttin them in his pocket, i couldnt tell completely but i watched him again and sure enough as i was ringing things up he was putting other stuff in his pockets. Just as he was leaving i asked him very loudly if he wanted a bag for the stuff in his products, security got him in the end lol

A friend of mine used to work in a little food shop and she had people walk in the shop pick up a sandwich and wolf it down then go open a can and neck that and walk out of the shop!

On another note when i worked in a busy nightclub people used to put there glass under the pumps and fill up all the time and theyd give me such an attitude when id take the glass of them. Id get people say they give me a 20 when it was 10 and they would be all high and mighty. Well i would actually ring up the till and cash it up which took a good 15 mins especially if its busy and they would declare me a liar when the till was balanced. I'm like "im sober your drunk and the till isnt over, do u think i would cash up in front of you if i was ripping you off"?

 

[Sanayhs]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jjjenko One of my friends claims she steals MAC eyeshadows from the counter all the time, but I have no idea how she can pulls it off. Is it really that easy to steal MAC eyeshadows from the counter? I worked at a grocery store before, and I am apalled by the amount of parents who use strollers to steal stuff! It's rediculous!

It is. I know someone who has obtained most of her makeup that way.

My boyfriend works at a grocery store, and one day a guy walks over to the meat department, loads up a basket with about $500 worth of meat and RUNS. A few employees took after him and they did catch him, but it was pretty funny, especially at a location mostly patronized by older folks. The guy didn't even make it out of the parking lot.

 

[iadoremac]

 

[Flowitu]

Quote:

Originally Posted by II3rinII ugh! sunday we were short staffed and crazy busy and in the middle of the mayhem a customer came up and said " hey some girls just stole one of those palletes" she pointed a a display we have of filled 15 pan palettes, we had 4 and sure enough there was one missing. she told me they were teen girls with a victoria secret bag and they just walked in grabbed it (it was displayed on a "cube" right by the entrance) and ran off toward the center of the mall. i was so pissed but i cant do anything, we arent allowed to follow them or even say anything to them, especially if we dont see it happen. what pisses me off even more is i had to write up an incident report about what happened, grrrrrr i wish i had seen them! back in the day i worked in a restaunt and we chased a couple of dine and dashers! it was crazy!! these girls dipped on my friend and she took off after them, along with a busser and of all people the regional manger who was visting. they ran across a busy highway and around a best buy, the 3 girls split one headed toward the mall and the busser followed her while my friend and the manager ran to the back side of best buy. the car audio guys were installing some equipment in a jeep and saw them running they asked if they needed help and julie said "follow those girls" they all jumped in the jeep and sped around the stores parking lot, cutting the two girls off behind another store, one girl through her hands on the hood of the jeep and said all out of breath "i aint gonna run no mo". meanwhile our busser is running through jcpennys now with the security guards in hot pursuit of the last girl, which they get. back the restaraunt the cops had been called and the girls were arrested and we all had a hell of a story to share!!

That reminds of of CELEBS who "quietly" stole away without having to pay for dine fees. I forgot the names-wish I had, but it's ridiculous. And I've heard of a one-time-past-her-fame actress demanding the restaurants she's been to serve her free food, as if they were her own. Yeah, I could care less if they're divas or wanting a discount, but pressing people for free stuff (and not just a free gift), who do they think they are?

 

[miss_bailey]

So one time I was at my friends boyfriends friends house or something (someone i didint know personally anyway) and they had this HUGE flat screen TV and I was like WOAH that thing is massive how much did it cost? And hes like "nothing" and then proceded to tell me how him and his friend walked into a deparment store picked it up and walked out with it, across the road and straight into their house.
No one stopped them or looked twice at them!
I couldnt believe it.

 

[iadoremac]

Quote:

Originally Posted by miss_bailey So one time I was at my friends boyfriends friends house or something (someone i didint know personally anyway) and they had this HUGE flat screen TV and I was like WOAH that thing is massive how much did it cost? And hes like "nothing" and then proceded to tell me how him and his friend walked into a deparment store picked it up and walked out with it, across the road and straight into their house. No one stopped them or looked twice at them! I couldnt believe it.

OH MY GOSH!!! you've got to be kidding.

its ridiculous but deliciously evil. i love that.

 

[miss_bailey]

haha not kidding! my mum even later told me that she read about it in the newspaper but they never found he people and i was just like "oh thats terrible..." haha.

 

[sinergy]

i used to work in a grocery store when i was younger and i would freak out on the woman who would fill their diaper bags with meat!they would take huge bags put them in their buggies and just randomly drop stuff in there i guess. there were these two sisters that used to do it all the time, it took awhile for the store to catch onto them.


also my mom has some crazy stories about people stealing computers and stuff from walmart, she is an assistant manager there. Like someone mentioned about the tv and just walking out with it, people do that kind of thing! they use someone to distract and run out of the store with a buggy full of electronics that they can pull off the shelf! one guy they chased all the way past the gas station..he just kept going!

 

[metal_romantic]

At training for Priceline, they told us about a nice pregnant lady who used to come in regularly. After some time, an employee realized that she had been pregnant for 12 months. They caught her shoplifting by dropping items down her shirt. The items then dropped into a padded metal cage strapped to her belly. Such an elaborate and well executed plan... except for that one small detail... lol.

 

[kuuipo415]

lol the things people will do to get free stuff...but at the same time it kind of pisses me off because I'm a piss poor student who actually works hard and pays every penny for everything while these jerks just walks out the door with them!

 

[metal_romantic]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kuuipo415 lol the things people will do to get free stuff...but at the same time it kind of pisses me off because I'm a piss poor student who actually works hard and pays every penny for everything while these jerks just walks out the door with them!

Yeh! I know the feeling! Some things look so easily steal-able but I can't steal because of those damn morals I have. Lol. So then I have to actually pay while people with less of a conscience and lipstick-eating freaks get it for free! Oh, the agony!

 

[xxManBeaterxx]

My mom used to work in this huge safeway grocery store and she would tell me all these crazy stores. There was this one time, three big samoan men walked into the store. One man had a small carrying basket and proceeded to the meat section, he then added about a dozen or so steaks into his basket worth about 350 dollars. The other man had another small carrying basket and went straight to the wines, and he grabbed like 5 or 6 bottles of expensive wine. And the thrid man was used for distraction. Well my mom was observing all of this and told the manager what was going on. But by the time she got a hold of the manager, the men all walked out of the store without purchasing anything, this is a very very very busy safeway so i can understand if nobody spotted them leaving. So my mom went on the announcment thing and said "code red, code red" which means there was a theft and they just left the store. So this small skinny bagger guy ran out of the store to try to stop them, but the woman who was the get away driver kicked him in the balls, and one of the men nearly pulverized his face into nothingness and they all jumped into their truck and sped off. And well more workers from the store went outside and got their license plate, and the police caught them. The bagger guy suffered a broken nose. My mom was all like, You crazy or what??!? You a small 5'5" asian dude trying to fight with a 6 foot something 250 pound samoan man??!

 

[spectrolite]

Okay this is kind of weird and long. A few nights ago I had a dream that a regular customer at my shop was a shoplifter and she got caught by the police. I could not make out the face of the person in the dream, I just knew they were female. I remember waking up feeling really hurt and kind of upset by the dream because I'd hate to think that someone I consider to be a nice person could be so awful. Anyways - shook it off. It's just a dream right? So fast forward to today:

This woman comes in who is a fairly regular customer. She ALWAYS buys up big - I'm talking like $1000 per visit and she did not disappoint today. Shes a little bit strange, very jumpy - kind of hyperactive, and kind of melancholy. Definitely has some issues and today she seems like really... weird. Shes a doctor and I cant help but think that shes dipping into the medicine cabinet at her practice! So she spends $900 today and says that she will be back in 20 minutes because she needs to go to Borders and then bring her car around. So I'm like no worries and wait for her to come back.

I go on a break for around 40minutes and when I get back her big pile of stuff is still there. I ask my co-worker why it's still there and she tells me the woman never came back. So a few hours later she's *still* MIA and I move her stuff to the store room cos its in the way. Then, a few minutes later I see a cop come in he approaches the counter with a bag of stuff. He asks if I recognize anything from the bag and I pull out about 6 things - a few books, and some cards. So he tells me that Borders called the police because they had caught a woman in the shop shoplifting earlier and Borders told him that the things might belong to us. So I ask him how the shoplifter looks and his description is hilarious (his Scottish accent did not help!). He's like "Shes 5'10 and at first thought you'd think shes a man but if you look again you can see its actually a woman with dark eye makeup." It seriously does not sound like anyone who was in the store lol.. He was really funny >_<

Anyways I go home for the day and get a call from the girls at the shop saying that the police rang again and that the woman had a receipt from our shop from today showing that she'd purchased a large number of items and it turns out that it is neurotic Dr.Lady! I was like Ohhhhhhh! That's why she never came back. She got arrested :|... Why would someone with all that money (she paid us $900 cash!) shoplift a few measly items?? She seemed pretty proficient - all of the security stickers were removed and we didn't even see her take anything but spent so much time with her in the store helping her pick things to buy. And the weirdest part is - my dream came true! So now my co-worker is calling me The Oracle and says I should start baking cookies for people.

 

[sexxystarr1009]

I worked at a children's clothing store and mothers would come in with there strollers and stuff clothes under there babies. and then there was this older couple that often came in and returned large amounts of clothes (same size, same type, etc) without a receipt. and of course there are the customers who come in with large shopping bags and just dump piles of clothes off the front table)

 

[metal_romantic]

After a trip to the supermarket, Mum discovered a melted block of cheese underneath my brother when he was little, sitting in his pusher (stroller?). Lol. I bet little kids do this all the time though.

 

[metal_romantic]

Quote:

Originally Posted by miss_bailey So one time I was at my friends boyfriends friends house or something (someone i didint know personally anyway) and they had this HUGE flat screen TV and I was like WOAH that thing is massive how much did it cost? And hes like "nothing" and then proceded to tell me how him and his friend walked into a deparment store picked it up and walked out with it, across the road and straight into their house. No one stopped them or looked twice at them! I couldnt believe it.

Haha, that may be bad and wrong, but it is still funny!!

At an induction for a dept. store this guy told us to make sure we watch customers carefully at the entrance/exit as when he worked at K-Mart he watched the security footage and was shocked to see a man walk out with a VCR (it was a long time ago, lol) and the staff member standing there checking bags etc. didn't even seem to notice. What was more shocking is that the same theif decided he's like a new TV to go with his newly aquired VCR, so he went back into the store a short time later and stole a TV the same way- just by walking out the front. To make it even funnier, it was a very large TV and he was struggling a bit to carry it by himslef, so was walking slowly.

When we were kids, my friend and I saw a man running down the street with a VCR down his pants (well, shoved down the front of his unzipped jeans and the rest poorly concealed under his T-shirt) and a remote in his back pocket, running for his life.

 

[metal_romantic]

This isn't a theft story... but I felt the need to share it nonetheless.
For a very short time I worked in a supermarket (couldn't stand it, lol) and an old woman with a white beard (like a wizard) came to my checkout to buy the largest orange I had ever seen. It was 500 grams, so obviously it was half the cost of the per kilo price (we calculate the price by the kilogram). She was very unhappy and voiced her opinion that I shouldn't be charging that much for an orange. I politely suggested she choose a smaller orange, but she was obviously unhappy as she told me she was a witch and that she would put a spell on me. I just said "okay". I couldn't think of anything else to say. It was just too weird. Lol.

 

[KJBarbie]

My only question for shoplifters is this:

If you're bold enough to steal a used tester....and the product is sitting right behind the tester, Why the heck didn't you just take the new product?

 

[metal_romantic]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KJBarbie My only question for shoplifters is this: If you're bold enough to steal a used tester....and the product is sitting right behind the tester, Why the heck didn't you just take the new product?

Good point. I don't get it either.

Maybe some people think that stealing a tester isn't "real" stealing, like they might think that it doesn't matter because it's "free"? (I know it's not, but some people might justify it that way). Or maybe they just think that if they got caught they wouldn't get into real trouble if it was just a tester? You still hope that the used tester they stole will give them some nasty bacteria though...

 

[KJBarbie]

Quote:

Originally Posted by metal_romantic Good point. I don't get it either. Maybe some people think that stealing a tester isn't "real" stealing, like they might think that it doesn't matter because it's "free"? (I know it's not, but some people might justify it that way). Or maybe they just think that if they got caught they wouldn't get into real trouble if it was just a tester? You still hope that the used tester they stole will give them some nasty bacteria though...

I'm not going to be one of those hypocritical ppl that says "I've NEVER stolen anything" I will admit when I was younger, because all of my friends were doing it, I tried it. SO not my thing. I felt so guilty even having the stuff I remember sneaking a lipstick back into a store.

But I do remember my reasoning being that if you stopped me for suspected shoplifting, anything without store packaging or labeling (price tags, wrapping, etc) was brought in to compare colors and Id like to see you prove otherwise. So you'd think people would grab an actual product so that a "tester" label wouldn't give them away as much and they could claim it as previously owned