Retail Theft Prevention

[mountainsoft]

Theft at retail stores is getting out of hand around here. People will walk into a store, grab arm loads of stuff, and just walk out the door with it. Employees are being told not to try stopping them for safety reasons. It's all caught on camera, and with limited police enforcement it's a crime that rarely gets investigated or punished. A local news station did a story about this recently and when they asked one of the crooks about it they said something like "yeah I took it, what's your problem". Wow.

So stores are trying to take measures to minimize theft, most notably putting valuable merchandise behind locked doors or cages. I see this with liquor and AA batteries at the grocery store, as well as things like copper wire or power tool batteries at the home centers. My wife and I went shopping for jeans over the weekend and I saw a couple things I hadn't seen before.

First, all the jeans were hanging on a security cable fed through the button hole of each pair of pants. This is a major hassle for me as a shopper, and I'm sure it's a hassle for the staff who has to pull out a bunch of jeans to get the desired size off the cable. Thankfully the size I wanted was right on the end of the cable, but I didn't dare look for another pair. I was just happy they fit so I didn't have to go through that again.

Then once we checked out we got to the door and somehow set off the security alarm. Turns out the grocery cart itself is rigged with wheels that lock up if the cart doesn't pass through a register. I only had one pair of jeans so I didn't bother hauling the cart up to the counter, which is what triggered the alarm and locked up the cart wheels. I stood there wrestling with the cart trying to get back to the counter before a security guard finally came up and explained the situation. What a hassle. Next time I'll just leave the cart on an aisle somewhere, and not be nice trying to put the cart back.

Personally, I would rather see some kind of security gate or similar at the exit door than going through the hassle and expense of locking up each individual item in the store. Maybe purchase my items on one side of the gate, and have to pick them up on the other side. This would certainly make shopping faster and easier to compare items, as well as making me fell less like a criminal. I would much rather shop online than be treated that way.

It's sad what our world has come to. People have no respect or morals anymore. It has to hurt businesses, both in product losses, additional costs for security measures, and loss of business from customers who don't want to be treated like criminals.

 

[HenryD]

I would much rather shop online than be treated that way.

I've never liked in-person shopping for anything, and this is only going to accelerate the trend in online and delivery via gig workers. Fine by me, but I worry about the societal impact on people that do enjoy the retail meatspace interactions.

 

[Yoheadden]

Unfortunately, this is a major problem happening all across America. There have been countless stories of these kind of robberies here in CT. People walking out of Home Depot with a large screen tv, a grocery store with 2 carts filled with laundry detergent, etc. There is 1 Grocery store plaza that now maintains a continuous police presence to act as a deterrent from future “Attacks” on the store.

Until the retail industry comes up with new measures to counteract these behaviors, the general public are the ones that suffer from these actions.

 

[38Chevy454]

Being an engineer, I look at the root cause of things. You can't solve a problem with an effective corrective action if you do not identify the root cause. From what I can see, the problem is that criminal behavior is not being punished. Why that is happening, you can decide for yourself, there are numerous factors. There are no real consequences for shoplifting. Even if caught, the criminal is back on the street within hours.

As the local sheriff here says "crime will rise to the level that society tolerates it" and until society gets fed up enough that crime level will not decrease.

 

[Freedom56]

Mandatory long prison sentences would certainly be an effective deterrent. There should be no tolerance in a civil society for public looting and smash and grab of retail stores.

 

[Out of Steam]

It's worth noting that chain stores generally stayed away from locations in high-crime areas between the 1970s and late 1990s. Stores in such areas were usually individually owned and someone on-site at such stores was an actual owner of what was on the shelves.

The court system has largely been shut down for all but the most serious crimes since 2020. On a somewhat related note, I've noticed in the past several months that enforcement of traffic laws has returned to normal where I live.

 

[HawkeyeNFO]

In Washington, DC the fare jumpers on the Metro know that they can get away with it, so they keep on not paying. The mayor and city council de-criminalized it a couple of years ago, and now it's rampant in the District.

A lot of the politicians want to be "kinder and gentler, offering a better understanding" of and to the criminals. Pandering for votes.

 

[Car-Guy]

We went grocery shopping at our local Walmart this past weekend. As we were checking out we were talking to the cashier about the rising cost of groceries and the topic "drifted" to in store theft... This is a smaller town Walmart but still pretty good sized (for a small town). Anyway, the cashier said they lost 1/2m last year to theft at this store. That's almost 10k a week. I wish I would have asked her how many folks were caught "stealing" and what they did about it, but I didn't think to ask at that time. It's not unusual to see a police car at the front door to the Walmart so maybe they are prosecuting shop lifters they catch.

I wonder how much of their theft is "going out the back door"? They have the usual RFID tags/alarms, cameras eveywhere and typically a security guard at the front exit doors. So I doubt many high dollar items (e.g.TV's) are going out the front doors without being paid for.

I suspect a lot of their losses are at the self checkouts. Ex. Folks getting 10 items and only scanning 8 (as an example). Still 10k a week seems a lot at a smaller store for nickle and dime stuff but I guess it adds up.

Anyway, they aren't going to lose money. They just add that to the price of stuff I'm buying.

 

[dmpi]

Stores that 'qualify' their customers and post receipt checkers at the door like Costco will have less shoplifting. But even they are not immune. There's this famous YouTube video of the police staking out Costco's emergency exit waiting for the shoplifters to make a run to the car. Boy, were they surprised when they opened the door!

 

[pacergal]

Years ago, my DB was a manager at a local Walgreens. He said that employees were forbidden to go after or touch someone who was shop lifting-- too much risk for the store regarding potential injury to employee or patron, and/or resulting possible lawsuit, not so much as a worry about law enforcement.,

 

[W2R]

It's awful to hear that such theft is becoming more commonplace.

I have done nearly all of my shopping online for years, on Amazon or other online sites, so I haven't been to a retail store in forever. I live in a SFH and there hasn't ever been a "porch pirate" problem in my neighborhood (yet). So, it doesn't affect me *now*. Well, I say this but now that I think of it, I have to stay home on Monday and Tuesday because my new laptop is arriving from Amazon and they require that someone is home to receive it. But usually this is not the case.

I have no idea how hard it may be for those in assisted living or skilled nursing to depend on deliveries and somehow bring the delivered items to their room.

One of the advantages of being older, is that by now many of us already have most of what we want or need and don't have to shop so much.

 

[Teacher Terry]

I hate when items are locked up and am not going to hunt down an employee to unlock it. I just buy the items online instead. One of the few things that I can’t do that is jeans as they need to fit correctly.

No matter how nice a neighborhood you live in here unless it’s a gated community property crime is very high and porch pirating extremely high. Being in a secure building you can buzz people in on your phone or big delivery companies have a code to use.

Most of the time my packages are left at my condo door. Occasionally someone will leave a package down by the mailboxes and twice they didn’t pay attention to the address and delivered it to the back building. So if I see it’s been delivered and I don’t have it I look around.

I know many of my neighbors and if I get the wrong package I take it to the correct door as do many others. I have had people bring mine up from the lobby if they live on my floor. Once an idiot delivered at 11pm and left it outside. Luckily I got the notification and went looking for it.

 

[athena53]

I suspect a lot of their losses are at the self checkouts. Ex. Folks getting 10 items and only scanning 8 (as an example). Still 10k a week seems a lot at a smaller store for nickel and dime stuff but I guess it adds up.

Don't they have scales that prevent this? I thought that if you scanned 8 and put 10 in the bag, the disembodied voice would tell you to please scan the extra items (and an employee would likely be over to "help").

Sadly, it's a vicious circle. The alarms at the door make honest people stop, back up and try to resolve the issue. The crooks keep walking. Honest people get tired of having to find employees to unlock whatever it is they want to buy, especially if they're just browsing. Increasingly, they just go to Amazon....which is where many of the thieves sell their stolen goods.

A couple of months ago I was at the Customer Service desk of my local grocery store and a clerk reported that someone had done a "grab-and-run" after using the self-checkout. It turned out that they'd left their receipt behind and the items they'd actually scanned were paid for with an EBT card. The Customer Service guy planned to report them. Yessss!

On mail box thefts: two years ago I got a PO box for that very reason. Even when thieves don't take anything of value (gift cards, checks they can "wash") they throw away mail that's important to you. It stinks but the local authorities (police and USPS) wouldn't do much but wring their hands and express sympathy.

 

[brett]

It is an issue. But so is employee theft.

I sat beside a head of security for a large, national pharmacy chain. He had just returned from a site where they finally caught a long time cashier stealing. They had to install hidden cameras at night to do it. She was taking about $100 week from the till and had been doing so for a number of years.

He said he was very concerned about shrinkage. But the focus of his firm was on the groups of highly organized shoplifters who can steal thousands of dollars of product in a single go. Then move on to the next retailer.

The even bigger issue is white collar crime. Alas, many law enforcement agencies simply to not have the time or the expertise to take it to prosecution. Usually the firm has to do all the work for them. These can be very very large amounts.

The morale of the story is that if you are going to steal forget about boosting some razor blades, Tylenol, or a package of meat from the supermarket or 7-11. Move on to white collar crime. If caught, you will do far less time. And if you are the least bit smart you will be able to keep a large portion of your stolen property.

 

[W2R]

I hate when items are locked up and am not going to hunt down an employee to unlock it. I just buy the items online instead. One of the few things that I can’t do that is jeans as they need to fit correctly.

Same here. In retirement, I just wear "retiree wear" which to me means clothing that is fairly loose, sloppy, and/or stretchy. Examples are oversized t-shirts, stretchy gym shorts, and that kind of thing. I don't wear jeans any more. So fit is not that much of an issue, and once I have found something I like, I order more online as needed. I even buy my shoes online; my Teva Tirras are sandals with several velcro straps, so they always fit comfortably once I have the straps adjusted correctly. Frank has found some stretchy men's shoes that actually look fairly formal, but he can just slip into them without tying shoelaces or worrying about fit too much.

On mail box thefts: two years ago I got a PO box for that very reason. Even when thieves don't take anything of value (gift cards, checks they can "wash") they throw away mail that's important to you. It stinks but the local authorities (police and USPS) wouldn't do much but wring their hands and express sympathy.

Something that I love about my "Dream House" is that it has a waist high slot for mail. I just put a table inside, on the other side of the mail slot, and retrieve my mail when I want to. I love the fact that nobody takes my mail, and nobody can use mail piling up as an indication of whether or not the house is empty and vulnerable to break-ins.

 

[Car-Guy]

Don't they have scales that prevent this? I thought that if you scanned 8 and put 10 in the bag, the disembodied voice would tell you to please scan the extra items (and an employee would likely be over to "help").

I'm not a thief but I can think of a number of ways to avoid that at the scanner. I'm sure the pros or experienced crooks have many more tricks. I don't think this is the type of forum to share such "tricks".

 

[EarlyandLate]

Around Atlanta the new technique involves arson. The shoplifters gather a cart of expensive stuff and position themselves near the front of the store. Then an accomplice sets fire to some combustible merchandise. In the chaos, the shoplifter(s) run from the store with their laden carts. One Walmart has now closed permanently because this happened again as soon as it reopened from the first round.

 

[jazz4cash]

I’ve been using self scan at Sam’s Club that uses their app and your smart phone to scan. At Xmas the lines were so long it was the only way I’d shop there. When you are done your phone displays a bar code for the store personnel to scan at the exit. The line was so long the bar code had timed out by the time I got to the exit. The employee there called a supervisor (“Here’s ANOTHER ONE!”). Supervisor was sympathetic. The app shows a receipt and payment but not the special bar code. She whispered for me to just go. By the time I got to my car the special barcode reappeared.

 

[disneysteve]

Don't they have scales that prevent this? I thought that if you scanned 8 and put 10 in the bag, the disembodied voice would tell you to please scan the extra items (and an employee would likely be over to "help").

The register has no way of knowing what's in your cart.


We went to Lowe's for a few items last week. I used self checkout, as I always do whenever it's an option anywhere. I scanned 4 items, paid, and left. When we got out to the car, I discovered that I actually had 5 items. I had bought a light switch but it was small and got under a big item and I forgot it. I immediately went back in and paid for it, but there was absolutely nothing stopping me from getting in my car and driving away.


Self checkout is totally on the honor system. You can buy 6 bottles of soda and only scan 4 of them. Nobody will know unless they're watching you.

 

[old medic]

There is only one answer to stop this, But very unfortunate that it will not be addressed. Until HARSH penalties can be enforced, its only going to get worse. Next its going to be your home, and you will not have right to protect it yourself...
Well... already partially there.

 

[ncbill]

It is an issue. But so is employee theft.

I sat beside a head of security for a large, national pharmacy chain. He had just returned from a site where they finally caught a long time cashier stealing. They had to install hidden cameras at night to do it. She was taking about $100 week from the till and had been doing so for a number of years.

He said he was very concerned about shrinkage. But the focus of his firm was on the groups of highly organized shoplifters who can steal thousands of dollars of product in a single go. Then move on to the next retailer.

The even bigger issue is white collar crime. Alas, many law enforcement agencies simply to not have the time or the expertise to take it to prosecution. Usually the firm has to do all the work for them. These can be very very large amounts.

The morale of the story is that if you are going to steal forget about boosting some razor blades, Tylenol, or a package of meat from the supermarket or 7-11. Move on to white collar crime. If caught, you will do far less time. And if you are the least bit smart you will be able to keep a large portion of your stolen property.

Yep, historically it was employees though recently organized crime has been giving them a run for their money.

Employees have the most/best access (including after hours) to a store's merchandise...they know where any cameras are & so how to avoid them, plus how to exploit weaknesses in any inventory tracking system.

 

[MichaelB]

Thanks for an interesting discussion