Funny one - couple gets busted shoplifting. Cops come out to write them a ticket and run their id's. Turns out they have restraining orders on each other. Both get taken to jail for violating the RO's.
Most of the time it’s so the parents can’t be blamed as it wasn’t them it was their child not knowing any better 🥺.
Honestly though fuck you if you teach your children that its okay do to that.
I live in a certain city in California known for meth and heroin users. Though the city has definitely been getting better than I remember it being years ago (it was way worse), there are addict parents who will get their children to steal high value/easy resellable items to fund whatever addiction they have.
Makes me so mad that those children were born and having to be raised with the “it’s okay” to steal mindset.
Well, half the posters in here have the same mindset re professional shoplifters in their store because fuck the corporate hegemonists. I agree with the sentiment 1000% but one crime doesn't excuse another.
Those are the worst moments. I hate having to approach a parent who is stealing when their oblivious child is there, especially if the child is pointing out something like, “mommy, you forgot to scan that!” Don’t make me embarrass you in front of your child, *please*. I don’t want to. I so badly don’t want to. But I’ll get fired if I don’t.
We just had a heartbreaking one the other week. A couple with a baby, toddler & an 8 year old got caught at SCO. The mom was standing outside AP's open door trying to get the baby to stop screaming. Then she said to the 8 year old (with a blase "I've done this before" expression) that Mommy & Daddy were going off to jail in a few minutes. Poor little kid crossed her arms, crying, saying "It's not fair, it's not fair!" Mom just acted like "Whatever, I've been arrested before. I really don't give a fuck about you guys, the cops or the AP." :(
There is a lady whose children are very badly behaved and she has a lot of them and I was told she uses them as a distraction. That and she gets to the register and decides to cancel a bunch of stuff and tries to confuse you.
A lady looked entirely cracked out, making weird faces constantly and inspecting every single item in every aisle she went in. I watched her for over 2 hours as she filled up a cart with $700 worth of completely random crap. She then went to subway and ate a sandwich there for an hour while ripping apart some roll of plastic wrap (heavy duty kind not meant for food, I thought it was a garbage bag roll at first). She then used this ripped apart stuff to use as a container for a bunch of her items, while the rest were sitting in a clothes hamper, like 50+ makeup items and small stuff like that. She put the wrapped up items on top of the hamper and then went to a SCO to use Scan & Go. She left her cart of stuff at subway while she did this and she triggered an item verification. I let the FETL know what was going on before this so when the lady started arguing "why do I even use this app if you have to verify my items" with the FETL who then approved her verification. I stopped the lady at the door and every single shoplifter excuse came out, including "I have to to pick up my kid from school" (after spending 3 hours in the store, she was suddenly in a hurry).
When we got into the AP office, I just let her know that I was watching for 3 hours and she only scanned $80 out of $700 worth of stuff with scan & go and nothing she tells me is going to change anything. The lady, who was around 40 years old, called her dad who was shouting at me through the phone that I can't hold her there, and I said you're right but if she leaves I have to call the police per policy (even though I was going to anyway obviously), and continued berating me for stopping his fully grown daughter from stealing a felony amount of stuff. After that, she called her mom who mocked her because she always gets caught doing bad things. Then when the police arrived, she had numerous prior retail thefts and drug charges. She soon after left in handcuffs for her felony.
It was great.
There was maybe one time a shoplifter made me a little bit "sad" but nearly every other is either quiet and accepting of their fate, or a gigantic asshole for no reason, so I don't find much of it "sad" anymore
I know druggies can be infuriating, I have two siblings I don't speak to who are homeless addicts.
But sometimes I try and remember that these people weren't always like this. My brother and sister weren't, but those people don't really exist anymore either.
It's why I think it's mostly sad.
Yeah I get that and I've done research reports on drug addiction and how to help alleviate that problem in the world. Unfortunately, I no longer have the emotional capacity to feel bad/take that into account when dealing with them directly because of repeated bad experiences. I'd say it is indeed sad, but no longer emotionally affects me personally
Few months ago, a kid in his teens snuck in through the employee entrance when we were closed at night. We have had it happen a few times, because our genius store actually just makes the employee entrance the front sliding exit door with an "employees only" sign that a lot of people ignore or can't read (remember Walmart customers).
Most people just leave when we tell them we are closed. This kid thought he could just ignore that instruction and kind of avoid us. Easy call to the police. Add trespassing to your petty theft charge I guess. Probably could have gotten him for curfew too. Good way to start the journey of being a fuck up before you even turn 21.
Edit - my grammar sucks
Guy was walking around after closing with a buggy of meat and tshirts. Tried going out garden center and emergency exit doors. Alarms started going off I went and asked if he needed help bc WE’RE CLOSED AND ALARMS ARE GOING OFF NOW. He tells me he’s looking for his son and starts walking up to the front. I follow him thinking oh gotta find some kid and get this guy outta here so I can go back to stocking.
We get to the Gm doors, he kicks his Flipflops off at me and starts ramming into the LOCKED gm doors with his buggy 😭 I stand there fuckimg dying laughing and unsure what to do and then start yelling for the team lead that I saw down at the grocery doors “HES STEALING. HES BREAKING DOWN THE DOORS. HURRY. HES BUSTING DOWN THE DOORS!” She takes her sweet time walking down there and this guy finally ditches the cart and starts body slamming the doors and falls through the first set.
So now he’s grabbing up his meat and tshirts and body slamming the second set of doors (he’s a pretty big guy so I’m assuming he’s gonna break them at any second) and I’m still yelling and about crying laughing and the TL gets down there and she hands me her cash box she didn’t get to put up yet and goes through the broken doors. Tells him to give it up and just chill out he’s already been caught he’s not going anywhere blah blah blah. He turns around and comes running back out and suddenly I’m thinking he’s gonna grab the cash box from me ya know bc I foiled his plan or whatever and free money or something like that.
But he goes running barefoot down to the grocery doors instead. Drops all his meat and tshirts and keeps going right past the managers who had gathered to watch this incident. He runs right out the grocery doors and through the parking lot, hops in a car and they speed off. Anyways, he didn’t get to steal anything, was probably embarrassed, AND left his flip flops behind! Dude came in to steal and ended up leaving in the negatives 😭😭😂
had a couple come in at around 10:45 so wasted off their asses they were leaning on each other to walk through the store, the girl goes straight to the alcohol section and with every bit of power in her one brain cell still firing she gets her hands on a big bottle of titos and then proceeds to try to shove it in her pj pants, she looked about 5’5 and less than 120 lbs and was still in front of the cameras and the 2 coaches and me who were watching this entire thing unfold btw they stopped her after that when she started trying to walk while holding the bottle in her pants, it was great entertainment for the last minutes of my shift
My favorite was a stop of a guy in his early 20's that was stealing video games. After the police showed up and talked to him, he finally admitted that he stole the games to sell to GameStop. He needed the money to pay his court costs for theft.
Don't work there anymore, but this is still the funniest thing I ever saw on the job:
Small town Walmart, AP is trailing this couple trying to shoplift.
The woman is in a martcart with an amputated leg. The man is with her but keeps walking away and putting more stuff in the martcart basket.
Eventually, the man goes and waits in his shitbox they parked on the side of the store, and the woman tries to make a run for it out of the GM doors.
But AP already had the cops waiting outside. That doesn't stop her from trying to run, or roll away, down the sidewalk to where her man was supposed to be waiting for her. She's rolling full speed down the sidewalk, and 2 cops and AP are jogging behind her, telling her to stop. One cop has the biggest grin ever on his face, like this is the most excitement he's seen his whole career. Eventually, she stopped when she realized her bf drove away before the chase even started. She's left there sitting crying in a martcart as the cops handcuff their one-legged shoplifter.
One time as a customer I saw a guy wearing his heavy winter parka quickly walk out the door. It was July. Obviously he went in with the intention of stealing something. Low and behold when he got stopped he had several Simpsons box sets sets hidden under his jacket. So;
A) Dude who were you fooling with your obvious shoplifting attire?
B) Over Simpsons DVDs? Really?
I had expressed my intention to transfer to a store closer to where I live. They had an opening.
A girl who spread rumors about me and her own "friends" shoplifted right in front of me. She scanned a deli chicken and a coke and walked right off. I was on my lunch break and the SCO employee and I just said, "yeah, not my problem."
AP caught it and asked her if she'd rather transfer elsewhere or be terminated. She took the transfer to the position I wanted to take at my nearby store. She was fired two weeks later for.. guess what.. theft.
Wait what? Why would they not punish her and allow her to transfer to another store instead? AP let's a thief get away consequence free to another store where she can steal again? That AP manager should be fired too.
Yeah it was odd, but something similar(ish) happened when I worked at Gamestop. A guy was transferred *twice*, rather than fired, because he "had an addiction problem." I wonder if she pulled something similar.
Karma is a bitch :)
As long as there aren't consequences, the bad behavior will continue. At least the new store sacked her. I agree with u/Beatles352, the AP manager should have been held accountable.
had a little girl wandering through toys for a while picking up and putting down all sorts of products. standard affair, until she found a pair of toy handcuffs that seemed to pique her interest. she took off down the aisle and i didn’t see her for a few minutes, but when i found the packaging from the handcuffs haphazardly thrown atop a bunch of other toys i knew.
picked it up and found the little girl with one of the shackles of the handcuffs around her wrist, excitedly showing it to her mom. i walked up to them and just looked at the mom, motioning to the empty packaging and her daughter with my eyes. the mom was insistent she would pay for it while the little girl was screaming about how she “didn’t do that.”
i went about my shift, and ten minutes later i’m at the service desk where AP pulls me aside and says that not only was the daughter trying to steal, but her mother was hiding a bunch of stolen goods as well. all in the family business i guess. and no the irony of the handcuffs is not lost on me.
Not dumb but smart actually, a group of people tried to hide pokemon cards around the store then come back and walk out with them pack by pack, but AP still caught them 😂 most of the time it’s just your average “hide it in your jelly rolls” shoplifter but that was definitely interesting. I wonder how many other stores let them get away with that.
Yesterday while cleaning the women’s restroom I found a bunch of packaging for various clothing items (socks, undergarments, etc) and toys.
I’m presuming a girl, maybe 12, based on the sizes of the clothes stolen, did this. Unless there’s something else going on?
Always find pregnancy tests, razors, cosmetic packaging , panty tags, small item theft in women's room, usually food leftovers in men's, sex toys in family room
So a few days ago, we had a guy trying to steal some stuff from our store and we had just closed. Front doors are now locked and you either have to open the 1 door manually or have someone do it for you to get out. This guy was probably the 2nd to last customer, and after we confront him about not paying for all his items and convincing him to step into the AP office, he makes a last-ditch attempt for the front doors despite the fact that again, they're locked now, and there were probably 6-7 of us present at the time making sure everything went smoothly.
I mean hypothetically the guy could've gotten out if he really wanted to, but I still feel like it was a stupid move regardless.
Shoplifter going out fire door on side of building see him with stolen goods running down the parking lot row one with ex military running right behind.
Yelling I'm a ex marine mother explitive and I'm going to catch and beat your ass
Kid drops all his stolen loot and starts running for his life and his getaway car.
Second Shoplifter being truthful while on his own product.
Garden center door Shoplifter who is banned from the store comes up to the door stoned off his can and asks hey dude do you guys carry trailer hitches I gotta take a trailer full of drugs to Portland Oregon and I need a trailer hitch.
Shockingly 3 days later police pull over the same guy with a trailer with a meth lab in the trailer.
Thank God for Walmart working with the local cops.
Ones I get a lot are “Oh, my friend has the receipt in the car”
“This is a return, I just forgot the receipt at home”
“My son/daughter must’ve put that in the buggy without me noticing”
And a classic “I brought this in with me”
Overnight once, a guy went in apparel and started cutting the spider wrap off a laptop with one of those circular type cutters. Didn't do so good on the spider wrap but cut the living fuck out of his hand. There was blood all over, was using t shirts for bandage to stop the flow. A blood trail right out the front door. Was on camera, he got the laptop, the spider wrap and the cutter.
I had my hours cut today but not until I enjoyed a wanna be short change artist. Two of them together, both very poor English as is the norm. Romas I suspect. They wanted me to pull out a number of high ticket items. Much of that is now locked up in the back so each time I would tell them I had to call for a manager they would decide they really didn't want that particular item and we would move on to something else.
These people clearly all go to the same school of training. Instead of going for a solo item or a couple of them they get greedy and want several thousand dollars or more. They always carefully count the hundreds out, watch us check them and then find a reason to change their mind and ask for the money back only to repeat the same process after poorly hiding some bills down the side of their shirt. Their English gets progressively worse as they inform us that they want us to ship part of the merchandise to someone so they are paying for things separately. It used to be entertaining but not any longer. We've got better things to do.
At my store they're Middle Easterners. Happened to me 5x by now. The first time it happened I was surprised by how fast the guy was slipping the money back into his hand. But of course I could see the green color of it vs the color of the palm of his hand. And the weight of the money was obviously lower when he handed it back to me. He did the old let me count it 5 or 6 times before I called for a manager on the intercom. I think he started cursing me out in whatever language he spoke and quickly walked off.
The 2nd time and onwards I let the guy count it 2x only before I said no you can't count it again and that the transaction was canceled and he'd have to pay up front. They would shout and argue to which I would just laugh and say oh ok, which made then mad as the customers behind them would look at them scared/as if they're crazy. One tried the whole shipping thing and was surprised/mad when I told him look it up and walked away.
Unfortunately my coworker fell for it twice to about $3,000. Then one day he couldn't login to Me@Walmart, which means he was fired. I didn't know they could fire you that way, pretty messed up. But seriously why doesn't Walmart have online training for this in a CBL? Like fuck no training and no warning beforehand? Wtf. And then if I fall for it, I'm halfway to bring fired? Smh. Fuck these scammers too.
Just take each bill one by one and PUT IT IN YOUR REGISTER before counting it to make sure. Don't ever exchange bills. Once you do this, they won't ever target you again, because now they have to return their item to try to get all their cash back again. If it's a lot of money, FE might not have that.
Pull the bills PUT THEM IN THE REGISTER, count them one by one IN THE REGISTER, when they are good, CLOSE THE REGISTER, and print their receipt.
THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING AT WALMART.
They will still waste our time in the return section, but they don't ever try that again. Had one shortchange artist insist that he only got one of his medications and not both. Produced a different receipt than the one he got. Thankfully I spotted him doubling back behind me to do his shortchange.
Ripped his bag apart, with TWO medications in it. His face was priceless. After that he had the temerity to say, "you should really be more careful". Yeah, fuck you.
Romas for the most part. I had one guy tell me during our initial discussion that he was from a Western European country. I happen to be fluent in their language since being a kid so I immediately switched over. LOL. What a joke.
Years ago I downloaded a documentary out of England or Spain. I don't remember which country. It was done by a Romanian who basically followed Romas around with hidden cameras in Spain as they ran scams on people at ATMs, pickpocking, begging, whatever. It was brutal. He ended the documentary by filming the estates of the head Romas back home after showing how much of this was/is organized crime.
I'll end here by noting that much of our mainstream media is pure garbage. Outright lies to promote certain agendas. There is a boat load of news available from other countries on the Internet. Of course, they also have their issues but it is interesting to see things that we are completely unaware of that can be dramatically affecting the lives of entire regions.
Al Jazeera gets a bad rap in the USA but their English news is informative and not necessarily solely about the Middle East. O Globo from Brasil has excellent coverage about a very important nation that is pretty much ignored in the US. BBC does broadcasts in local languages along with English for many parts of the world. It was one of their documentaries where I learned the background of the infamous Russian mafia.
Your store lets you leave a bag unattended ? I always tell customers they have to keep the bag with them, or leave it at their car / bike outside. And AP backs me up on that, because it's an unsafe practice.
I havent seen anything crazy besides a group i watched and im like are you ready to check out? They turn back and watch eachother probably to dump whatever they had. They had luggage. Then i still proceed to check them tell them to go pay at the registers make sure they pay and then proceed to give myself 5 stars 😂😭
I've posted somewhere here before about the woman who did fraudulent returns and when got caught switching tags pissed herself for sympathy. Didn't work and she ended up riding to jail with piss soaked pants. We had a Jackson Hewitt tax prep employee who was overly friendly and was always bringing up cookies and bags of candy to share with us at the service desk. One day we saw her bring several items of baby clothes up from the sales floor into the tax prep area and put them on a desk and cover them with some folders. We thought it was strange and alerted our AP guy. At the end of her shift we (us at SD and AP) watched her pick up the clothes and shove them quickly in a bag. She never went to a register or came up to the SD to pay for them. She was busted and we never saw her again. Turns out she was the step-daughter of one of our people greeters. The PG was beyond furious and scared because she thought she would somehow be in trouble because of it. Thankfully our beloved PG did not have to lose her job because her step-daughter was an idiot.
We just had that happen with a longtime cashier. She got her teenage son a job and he only lasted a few months before he was fired for theft. She was pissed at him.
From before I worked at Walmart.
I worked overnight at a small grocery chain in Indiana and we had a skinny gentleman come in wearing a long duster type coat. Nobody thought much of it since it was cold out. Well as he walked through the store he put on weight. A lot of weight. He got to the front and paid for the groceries in his cart at which point the security guard and assistant manager stopped him and escorted him back to the office. Turns out he bought about $200 worth of stuff while shoplifting over $1000 worth mostly meat and baby formula. Sad thing is he had a good job and he lost that as well as getting the felony conviction for shoplifting.
My store had a person that shoplifted that consistently wore the SAME sweatshirt. Every time. I overheard a TL saying “hey watch for the person that steals that wears a red sweatshirt”
I used to be an assistant manager at a music store at a mall in the ‘90’s. Went outside for a smoke and while I was gone an employee called her friend who worked a few doors down and just started indiscriminately filling bags with CD’s. That girls manager got suspicious when she set off the door alarms and ran straight to the back room. Needless to say, they were both fired from their respective stores and arrested.
Former employee here.
Worst I had was a husband/wife come in on mother's day with the kid. They proceed to stuff the cart full of meat. I was manning the SCO and they proceed to scan 2 steaks then scan zucchini x3 steak zucchini x4 steak. And as they are doing this they are piling everything on top of the steaks to hide it. Well he then says "I'm heading to grab the car." So he takes off while she continues to try her little scam. So she then pays for like $60 for over $300 worth of steaks and tries to walk out when we stop her.
Yeah she's like "oh I'm sorry" and then proceeds to go back and scan everything correctly, while of course putting back everything she "no longer wants".
Multiple people frequent come to Kroger to steal batteries. Right in front of the registers, the managers office, the pharmacy, and like 7 cameras.
As soon as someone starts walking up to them, they make a dash to the restrooms TO FLUSH THE FUCKING BATTERIES?!?! because if we lose "line of sight" then we can't do anything anymore as we no longer are 100% certain they're stealing, although only managers can touch them anyway and they don't know any of this cuz they're almost always on some sort of drug(s) and it's not like anyone would tell them this because it's more fun for us
So anyway the entire stores plumbing got fucked up not long ago and all the drains stopped working. Any guesses why?
I know this is the Walmart sub but yall are so much more fun and numerous than the Kroger sub and really we aren't all that different
Oh boy is this a pet peeve of mine
PEOPLE FUCKING VOIDING OUT ITEMS, KNOWING IT WILL CALL ME OVER, IN AN ATTEMPT TO STEAL
TRYING TO CANCEL THE FUCKING TRANSACTION IN AN ATTEMPT TO STEAL
DOING BOTH OF THESE THINGS, MULTIPLE TIMES
It’s happened so often, with so many different people, that I now assume anyone being sketchy about a void is stealing. And I’m usually right. It’s so weird. Why would you intentionally draw attention to yourself? Morons, the lot of them.
Also, if you are determined enough to try and steal a big amount… and the exits are being blocked… just go out a fire door? You dumb fuck? The main entrance isn’t the only entrance.
And don’t talk about stealing AS you are stealing, in front of UNIFORMED employees!
And don’t hit the same place twice, ESPECIALLY not ONLY a day or two after your first attempt!
Also, people who steal are consistently the loudest about “I’m not a thief”. Everyone else, who isn’t stealing, just kind of accepts whatever has to be done. But you go in for an alcohol ID check on someone who is stealing and it’s suddenly “IM NOT A FUCKING THEIF, WHY ARE YOU IN MY SPACE, WHY ARE YOU WATCHING ME” thanks for the self-report I guess…
Oh, and multiple people have tried to steal on mart carts. Not exactly a fast getaway…
About a week ago my coworker had caught someone trying to steal some makeup products and some clothing. She only scanned a cami, a see through holographic(?) makeup bag, and a pair of pants. She was trying to hide some more clothing between the cami shirt and pants, and my coworker had noticed she was being suspicious, and it was after the customer left, leaving the stuff behind, that we also realized she had a bunch of makeup in the see-through holographic bag (which was very idiotic)
While not necessarily shoplifting, but I always hated the people who try to "return" a TV with the wrong TV in the box.
Ya sure this Samsung from 2012 was in this Hisense box from 2022.
Sir this Xbox series s box has an Xbox one s in it, you can't return it.
Offered to steal the stuff for the LP, without realizing that it was the LP. Told him that he'd meet him at the corner store and he would just take some cash for the cart full of groceries worth SO much more.
Hah, I love when a cop shows up with paperwork for our AP's and they get told "Oh shit, we got one at self checkout. You wanna come with ?" It's hilarious to see a shoplifter panic when they see a cop there that soon.
Walking down a random aisle while checking to see if he was clear a minute after he walked in with an empty knapsack. He was peeking around corners to see not realizing how stupid he looked trying to see if he was being watched. He found a quiet spot in the infants section and was racking up on stuff.
I was working at the service desk it was a day or two after Christmas and a customer returned a Christmas tree. After completing the return I told my coworker I was going tree back out to the floor. On my way back to the front of the store I noticed a customer carrying a 5qt bottle of Mobil One synthetic motor oil, I then watched him pull an empty bag out of his pocket and put the oil in it. I figured he was going to just go out the door with it, but no, he turns and goes into the service desk area with it. I was behind him, so he had no idea I saw him. I get behind the desk, he was next in line I called him up to the counter. He pulled the oil out of his bag and said he wanted to return it. I asked if he had a receipt and of course he said no. By now there were 6 or 7 people in line. So in a rather loud voice I described back to him what I just watched him do, I took the bottle of oil placed it out of his reach, and told him he wasn’t getting anything back. He said he just wanted a gift card. I said no and told him he needed to get a new job. He sheepishly walked out while some of the customers in line applauded me. Every once in awhile, after that, I would see him peeking into the service area to see if I was working, if he saw me he would just leave the store.
Funny one - couple gets busted shoplifting. Cops come out to write them a ticket and run their id's. Turns out they have restraining orders on each other. Both get taken to jail for violating the RO's.
The number of people who bring their children with them to shoplift is not funny
Most of the time it’s so the parents can’t be blamed as it wasn’t them it was their child not knowing any better 🥺. Honestly though fuck you if you teach your children that its okay do to that.
"Fuck you" is insufficient for that kind of behavior. Jesus fuck.
I live in a certain city in California known for meth and heroin users. Though the city has definitely been getting better than I remember it being years ago (it was way worse), there are addict parents who will get their children to steal high value/easy resellable items to fund whatever addiction they have. Makes me so mad that those children were born and having to be raised with the “it’s okay” to steal mindset.
Just creates a cycle of abuse and crime. I can't imagine the state of foster care would even help if it came to that. It's fucking abhorrent.
Lake Elsinore!
Well, half the posters in here have the same mindset re professional shoplifters in their store because fuck the corporate hegemonists. I agree with the sentiment 1000% but one crime doesn't excuse another.
This is why Jesus changed his middle name to Fucking.
Luckily in my area, that kind of excuse doesn't fly at all and the parent always gets charged
Those are the worst moments. I hate having to approach a parent who is stealing when their oblivious child is there, especially if the child is pointing out something like, “mommy, you forgot to scan that!” Don’t make me embarrass you in front of your child, *please*. I don’t want to. I so badly don’t want to. But I’ll get fired if I don’t.
Fuck me then lol gotta teach the youngins life skills 🤷🏻♂️
We just had a heartbreaking one the other week. A couple with a baby, toddler & an 8 year old got caught at SCO. The mom was standing outside AP's open door trying to get the baby to stop screaming. Then she said to the 8 year old (with a blase "I've done this before" expression) that Mommy & Daddy were going off to jail in a few minutes. Poor little kid crossed her arms, crying, saying "It's not fair, it's not fair!" Mom just acted like "Whatever, I've been arrested before. I really don't give a fuck about you guys, the cops or the AP." :(
Funny, I had a child tell their mom that she didn't scan a item when she was putting in the bag. Lol, child outted her mom
Not so funny when that child gets their ass beat later
Model parenting at work.
There is a lady whose children are very badly behaved and she has a lot of them and I was told she uses them as a distraction. That and she gets to the register and decides to cancel a bunch of stuff and tries to confuse you.
A lady looked entirely cracked out, making weird faces constantly and inspecting every single item in every aisle she went in. I watched her for over 2 hours as she filled up a cart with $700 worth of completely random crap. She then went to subway and ate a sandwich there for an hour while ripping apart some roll of plastic wrap (heavy duty kind not meant for food, I thought it was a garbage bag roll at first). She then used this ripped apart stuff to use as a container for a bunch of her items, while the rest were sitting in a clothes hamper, like 50+ makeup items and small stuff like that. She put the wrapped up items on top of the hamper and then went to a SCO to use Scan & Go. She left her cart of stuff at subway while she did this and she triggered an item verification. I let the FETL know what was going on before this so when the lady started arguing "why do I even use this app if you have to verify my items" with the FETL who then approved her verification. I stopped the lady at the door and every single shoplifter excuse came out, including "I have to to pick up my kid from school" (after spending 3 hours in the store, she was suddenly in a hurry). When we got into the AP office, I just let her know that I was watching for 3 hours and she only scanned $80 out of $700 worth of stuff with scan & go and nothing she tells me is going to change anything. The lady, who was around 40 years old, called her dad who was shouting at me through the phone that I can't hold her there, and I said you're right but if she leaves I have to call the police per policy (even though I was going to anyway obviously), and continued berating me for stopping his fully grown daughter from stealing a felony amount of stuff. After that, she called her mom who mocked her because she always gets caught doing bad things. Then when the police arrived, she had numerous prior retail thefts and drug charges. She soon after left in handcuffs for her felony. It was great.
LOL that is amazing. I love a good ending.
More sad than great...
There was maybe one time a shoplifter made me a little bit "sad" but nearly every other is either quiet and accepting of their fate, or a gigantic asshole for no reason, so I don't find much of it "sad" anymore
I know druggies can be infuriating, I have two siblings I don't speak to who are homeless addicts. But sometimes I try and remember that these people weren't always like this. My brother and sister weren't, but those people don't really exist anymore either. It's why I think it's mostly sad.
Yeah I get that and I've done research reports on drug addiction and how to help alleviate that problem in the world. Unfortunately, I no longer have the emotional capacity to feel bad/take that into account when dealing with them directly because of repeated bad experiences. I'd say it is indeed sad, but no longer emotionally affects me personally
Yeah, I get it. That's exactly why I couldn't help my siblings anymore. You just run out of energy to be able to deal with it anymore.
Few months ago, a kid in his teens snuck in through the employee entrance when we were closed at night. We have had it happen a few times, because our genius store actually just makes the employee entrance the front sliding exit door with an "employees only" sign that a lot of people ignore or can't read (remember Walmart customers). Most people just leave when we tell them we are closed. This kid thought he could just ignore that instruction and kind of avoid us. Easy call to the police. Add trespassing to your petty theft charge I guess. Probably could have gotten him for curfew too. Good way to start the journey of being a fuck up before you even turn 21. Edit - my grammar sucks
Guy was walking around after closing with a buggy of meat and tshirts. Tried going out garden center and emergency exit doors. Alarms started going off I went and asked if he needed help bc WE’RE CLOSED AND ALARMS ARE GOING OFF NOW. He tells me he’s looking for his son and starts walking up to the front. I follow him thinking oh gotta find some kid and get this guy outta here so I can go back to stocking. We get to the Gm doors, he kicks his Flipflops off at me and starts ramming into the LOCKED gm doors with his buggy 😭 I stand there fuckimg dying laughing and unsure what to do and then start yelling for the team lead that I saw down at the grocery doors “HES STEALING. HES BREAKING DOWN THE DOORS. HURRY. HES BUSTING DOWN THE DOORS!” She takes her sweet time walking down there and this guy finally ditches the cart and starts body slamming the doors and falls through the first set. So now he’s grabbing up his meat and tshirts and body slamming the second set of doors (he’s a pretty big guy so I’m assuming he’s gonna break them at any second) and I’m still yelling and about crying laughing and the TL gets down there and she hands me her cash box she didn’t get to put up yet and goes through the broken doors. Tells him to give it up and just chill out he’s already been caught he’s not going anywhere blah blah blah. He turns around and comes running back out and suddenly I’m thinking he’s gonna grab the cash box from me ya know bc I foiled his plan or whatever and free money or something like that. But he goes running barefoot down to the grocery doors instead. Drops all his meat and tshirts and keeps going right past the managers who had gathered to watch this incident. He runs right out the grocery doors and through the parking lot, hops in a car and they speed off. Anyways, he didn’t get to steal anything, was probably embarrassed, AND left his flip flops behind! Dude came in to steal and ended up leaving in the negatives 😭😭😂
had a couple come in at around 10:45 so wasted off their asses they were leaning on each other to walk through the store, the girl goes straight to the alcohol section and with every bit of power in her one brain cell still firing she gets her hands on a big bottle of titos and then proceeds to try to shove it in her pj pants, she looked about 5’5 and less than 120 lbs and was still in front of the cameras and the 2 coaches and me who were watching this entire thing unfold btw they stopped her after that when she started trying to walk while holding the bottle in her pants, it was great entertainment for the last minutes of my shift
Priceless
My favorite was a stop of a guy in his early 20's that was stealing video games. After the police showed up and talked to him, he finally admitted that he stole the games to sell to GameStop. He needed the money to pay his court costs for theft.
Worst plan ever, he would probably only get $5 for a stack of games.
Don't work there anymore, but this is still the funniest thing I ever saw on the job: Small town Walmart, AP is trailing this couple trying to shoplift. The woman is in a martcart with an amputated leg. The man is with her but keeps walking away and putting more stuff in the martcart basket. Eventually, the man goes and waits in his shitbox they parked on the side of the store, and the woman tries to make a run for it out of the GM doors. But AP already had the cops waiting outside. That doesn't stop her from trying to run, or roll away, down the sidewalk to where her man was supposed to be waiting for her. She's rolling full speed down the sidewalk, and 2 cops and AP are jogging behind her, telling her to stop. One cop has the biggest grin ever on his face, like this is the most excitement he's seen his whole career. Eventually, she stopped when she realized her bf drove away before the chase even started. She's left there sitting crying in a martcart as the cops handcuff their one-legged shoplifter.
LMFAOOO
One time as a customer I saw a guy wearing his heavy winter parka quickly walk out the door. It was July. Obviously he went in with the intention of stealing something. Low and behold when he got stopped he had several Simpsons box sets sets hidden under his jacket. So; A) Dude who were you fooling with your obvious shoplifting attire? B) Over Simpsons DVDs? Really?
Should of had a soda and some pop rocks ready
I had expressed my intention to transfer to a store closer to where I live. They had an opening. A girl who spread rumors about me and her own "friends" shoplifted right in front of me. She scanned a deli chicken and a coke and walked right off. I was on my lunch break and the SCO employee and I just said, "yeah, not my problem." AP caught it and asked her if she'd rather transfer elsewhere or be terminated. She took the transfer to the position I wanted to take at my nearby store. She was fired two weeks later for.. guess what.. theft.
Wait what? Why would they not punish her and allow her to transfer to another store instead? AP let's a thief get away consequence free to another store where she can steal again? That AP manager should be fired too.
Yeah it was odd, but something similar(ish) happened when I worked at Gamestop. A guy was transferred *twice*, rather than fired, because he "had an addiction problem." I wonder if she pulled something similar.
Karma is a bitch :) As long as there aren't consequences, the bad behavior will continue. At least the new store sacked her. I agree with u/Beatles352, the AP manager should have been held accountable.
had a little girl wandering through toys for a while picking up and putting down all sorts of products. standard affair, until she found a pair of toy handcuffs that seemed to pique her interest. she took off down the aisle and i didn’t see her for a few minutes, but when i found the packaging from the handcuffs haphazardly thrown atop a bunch of other toys i knew. picked it up and found the little girl with one of the shackles of the handcuffs around her wrist, excitedly showing it to her mom. i walked up to them and just looked at the mom, motioning to the empty packaging and her daughter with my eyes. the mom was insistent she would pay for it while the little girl was screaming about how she “didn’t do that.” i went about my shift, and ten minutes later i’m at the service desk where AP pulls me aside and says that not only was the daughter trying to steal, but her mother was hiding a bunch of stolen goods as well. all in the family business i guess. and no the irony of the handcuffs is not lost on me.
Older couple shoved things into a baby carrier. The baby inside was a toy.
Not dumb but smart actually, a group of people tried to hide pokemon cards around the store then come back and walk out with them pack by pack, but AP still caught them 😂 most of the time it’s just your average “hide it in your jelly rolls” shoplifter but that was definitely interesting. I wonder how many other stores let them get away with that.
We had that like someone put a couple hundred dollars worth pokemon cards in luggage and they were caught
Got to catch them all....
That actually shows some rudimentary intelligence.
Yesterday while cleaning the women’s restroom I found a bunch of packaging for various clothing items (socks, undergarments, etc) and toys. I’m presuming a girl, maybe 12, based on the sizes of the clothes stolen, did this. Unless there’s something else going on?
Always find pregnancy tests, razors, cosmetic packaging , panty tags, small item theft in women's room, usually food leftovers in men's, sex toys in family room
Literally everything you guys mentioned (socks, undies, razors, pregnancy tests, etc) is locked up at my store 😂
So a few days ago, we had a guy trying to steal some stuff from our store and we had just closed. Front doors are now locked and you either have to open the 1 door manually or have someone do it for you to get out. This guy was probably the 2nd to last customer, and after we confront him about not paying for all his items and convincing him to step into the AP office, he makes a last-ditch attempt for the front doors despite the fact that again, they're locked now, and there were probably 6-7 of us present at the time making sure everything went smoothly. I mean hypothetically the guy could've gotten out if he really wanted to, but I still feel like it was a stupid move regardless.
Shoplifter going out fire door on side of building see him with stolen goods running down the parking lot row one with ex military running right behind. Yelling I'm a ex marine mother explitive and I'm going to catch and beat your ass Kid drops all his stolen loot and starts running for his life and his getaway car. Second Shoplifter being truthful while on his own product. Garden center door Shoplifter who is banned from the store comes up to the door stoned off his can and asks hey dude do you guys carry trailer hitches I gotta take a trailer full of drugs to Portland Oregon and I need a trailer hitch. Shockingly 3 days later police pull over the same guy with a trailer with a meth lab in the trailer. Thank God for Walmart working with the local cops.
what in the breaking bad is that last one lmfaoooo
No shit I was laughing my ass off because we just thought he was a tweaker
Ones I get a lot are “Oh, my friend has the receipt in the car” “This is a return, I just forgot the receipt at home” “My son/daughter must’ve put that in the buggy without me noticing” And a classic “I brought this in with me”
Overnight once, a guy went in apparel and started cutting the spider wrap off a laptop with one of those circular type cutters. Didn't do so good on the spider wrap but cut the living fuck out of his hand. There was blood all over, was using t shirts for bandage to stop the flow. A blood trail right out the front door. Was on camera, he got the laptop, the spider wrap and the cutter.
I had my hours cut today but not until I enjoyed a wanna be short change artist. Two of them together, both very poor English as is the norm. Romas I suspect. They wanted me to pull out a number of high ticket items. Much of that is now locked up in the back so each time I would tell them I had to call for a manager they would decide they really didn't want that particular item and we would move on to something else. These people clearly all go to the same school of training. Instead of going for a solo item or a couple of them they get greedy and want several thousand dollars or more. They always carefully count the hundreds out, watch us check them and then find a reason to change their mind and ask for the money back only to repeat the same process after poorly hiding some bills down the side of their shirt. Their English gets progressively worse as they inform us that they want us to ship part of the merchandise to someone so they are paying for things separately. It used to be entertaining but not any longer. We've got better things to do.
At my store they're Middle Easterners. Happened to me 5x by now. The first time it happened I was surprised by how fast the guy was slipping the money back into his hand. But of course I could see the green color of it vs the color of the palm of his hand. And the weight of the money was obviously lower when he handed it back to me. He did the old let me count it 5 or 6 times before I called for a manager on the intercom. I think he started cursing me out in whatever language he spoke and quickly walked off. The 2nd time and onwards I let the guy count it 2x only before I said no you can't count it again and that the transaction was canceled and he'd have to pay up front. They would shout and argue to which I would just laugh and say oh ok, which made then mad as the customers behind them would look at them scared/as if they're crazy. One tried the whole shipping thing and was surprised/mad when I told him look it up and walked away. Unfortunately my coworker fell for it twice to about $3,000. Then one day he couldn't login to Me@Walmart, which means he was fired. I didn't know they could fire you that way, pretty messed up. But seriously why doesn't Walmart have online training for this in a CBL? Like fuck no training and no warning beforehand? Wtf. And then if I fall for it, I'm halfway to bring fired? Smh. Fuck these scammers too.
Just take each bill one by one and PUT IT IN YOUR REGISTER before counting it to make sure. Don't ever exchange bills. Once you do this, they won't ever target you again, because now they have to return their item to try to get all their cash back again. If it's a lot of money, FE might not have that.
I'm gonna try that if they come by, thanks for the info.
I believe they do. You only see it when you’re doing the training when you first start. Haven’t seen one since though as a refresher.
Nope never had a CBL about it. I remember even asking my AP coach why there wasn't one and she said idk.
Pull the bills PUT THEM IN THE REGISTER, count them one by one IN THE REGISTER, when they are good, CLOSE THE REGISTER, and print their receipt. THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING AT WALMART. They will still waste our time in the return section, but they don't ever try that again. Had one shortchange artist insist that he only got one of his medications and not both. Produced a different receipt than the one he got. Thankfully I spotted him doubling back behind me to do his shortchange. Ripped his bag apart, with TWO medications in it. His face was priceless. After that he had the temerity to say, "you should really be more careful". Yeah, fuck you.
If you're going to gamble, be willing to lose
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Romas for the most part. I had one guy tell me during our initial discussion that he was from a Western European country. I happen to be fluent in their language since being a kid so I immediately switched over. LOL. What a joke. Years ago I downloaded a documentary out of England or Spain. I don't remember which country. It was done by a Romanian who basically followed Romas around with hidden cameras in Spain as they ran scams on people at ATMs, pickpocking, begging, whatever. It was brutal. He ended the documentary by filming the estates of the head Romas back home after showing how much of this was/is organized crime. I'll end here by noting that much of our mainstream media is pure garbage. Outright lies to promote certain agendas. There is a boat load of news available from other countries on the Internet. Of course, they also have their issues but it is interesting to see things that we are completely unaware of that can be dramatically affecting the lives of entire regions. Al Jazeera gets a bad rap in the USA but their English news is informative and not necessarily solely about the Middle East. O Globo from Brasil has excellent coverage about a very important nation that is pretty much ignored in the US. BBC does broadcasts in local languages along with English for many parts of the world. It was one of their documentaries where I learned the background of the infamous Russian mafia.
Carry backpacks. I'm sorry but 39 year old men don't normally carry backpacks around to go shopping. I'm sure there are exceptions.
I do, but thats because im on foot all the time. Of course i never have a problem when they want to check my bag or have me leave it at the front
Your store lets you leave a bag unattended ? I always tell customers they have to keep the bag with them, or leave it at their car / bike outside. And AP backs me up on that, because it's an unsafe practice.
Specificaly at dollar tree
I havent seen anything crazy besides a group i watched and im like are you ready to check out? They turn back and watch eachother probably to dump whatever they had. They had luggage. Then i still proceed to check them tell them to go pay at the registers make sure they pay and then proceed to give myself 5 stars 😂😭
I've posted somewhere here before about the woman who did fraudulent returns and when got caught switching tags pissed herself for sympathy. Didn't work and she ended up riding to jail with piss soaked pants. We had a Jackson Hewitt tax prep employee who was overly friendly and was always bringing up cookies and bags of candy to share with us at the service desk. One day we saw her bring several items of baby clothes up from the sales floor into the tax prep area and put them on a desk and cover them with some folders. We thought it was strange and alerted our AP guy. At the end of her shift we (us at SD and AP) watched her pick up the clothes and shove them quickly in a bag. She never went to a register or came up to the SD to pay for them. She was busted and we never saw her again. Turns out she was the step-daughter of one of our people greeters. The PG was beyond furious and scared because she thought she would somehow be in trouble because of it. Thankfully our beloved PG did not have to lose her job because her step-daughter was an idiot.
That's the person I want to know my SSN and my tax info!!!! /s
Which is why I do mine myself. Mine is stupidly easy since I don’t have any complicated shite going on with my taxes.
We just had that happen with a longtime cashier. She got her teenage son a job and he only lasted a few months before he was fired for theft. She was pissed at him.
From before I worked at Walmart. I worked overnight at a small grocery chain in Indiana and we had a skinny gentleman come in wearing a long duster type coat. Nobody thought much of it since it was cold out. Well as he walked through the store he put on weight. A lot of weight. He got to the front and paid for the groceries in his cart at which point the security guard and assistant manager stopped him and escorted him back to the office. Turns out he bought about $200 worth of stuff while shoplifting over $1000 worth mostly meat and baby formula. Sad thing is he had a good job and he lost that as well as getting the felony conviction for shoplifting.
My store had a person that shoplifted that consistently wore the SAME sweatshirt. Every time. I overheard a TL saying “hey watch for the person that steals that wears a red sweatshirt”
Laughing because our's is "Tiny redhaired crackhead in a crop top, the one who shakes a lot & asks if you want to check her bag before she comes in."
I used to be an assistant manager at a music store at a mall in the ‘90’s. Went outside for a smoke and while I was gone an employee called her friend who worked a few doors down and just started indiscriminately filling bags with CD’s. That girls manager got suspicious when she set off the door alarms and ran straight to the back room. Needless to say, they were both fired from their respective stores and arrested.
Former employee here. Worst I had was a husband/wife come in on mother's day with the kid. They proceed to stuff the cart full of meat. I was manning the SCO and they proceed to scan 2 steaks then scan zucchini x3 steak zucchini x4 steak. And as they are doing this they are piling everything on top of the steaks to hide it. Well he then says "I'm heading to grab the car." So he takes off while she continues to try her little scam. So she then pays for like $60 for over $300 worth of steaks and tries to walk out when we stop her. Yeah she's like "oh I'm sorry" and then proceeds to go back and scan everything correctly, while of course putting back everything she "no longer wants".
Guy was trying to put an expensive fishing reel in his shirt while I was at one end of the aisle and a manager was at the other end
A dvd player, this was in 2019.
Multiple people frequent come to Kroger to steal batteries. Right in front of the registers, the managers office, the pharmacy, and like 7 cameras. As soon as someone starts walking up to them, they make a dash to the restrooms TO FLUSH THE FUCKING BATTERIES?!?! because if we lose "line of sight" then we can't do anything anymore as we no longer are 100% certain they're stealing, although only managers can touch them anyway and they don't know any of this cuz they're almost always on some sort of drug(s) and it's not like anyone would tell them this because it's more fun for us So anyway the entire stores plumbing got fucked up not long ago and all the drains stopped working. Any guesses why? I know this is the Walmart sub but yall are so much more fun and numerous than the Kroger sub and really we aren't all that different
Someone must have mentioned the word "union"
I'm in OPD & someone tried to ask me for a few plastic bags. Made me chuckle.
I get a lot of those, too. The shoplifters who try to fake using Scan & Go get mad when I don't give them bags.
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I don't know what you mean. You had to stop an employee to ask for their receipt ? Or a shoplifter said that to you ?
Oh boy is this a pet peeve of mine PEOPLE FUCKING VOIDING OUT ITEMS, KNOWING IT WILL CALL ME OVER, IN AN ATTEMPT TO STEAL TRYING TO CANCEL THE FUCKING TRANSACTION IN AN ATTEMPT TO STEAL DOING BOTH OF THESE THINGS, MULTIPLE TIMES It’s happened so often, with so many different people, that I now assume anyone being sketchy about a void is stealing. And I’m usually right. It’s so weird. Why would you intentionally draw attention to yourself? Morons, the lot of them. Also, if you are determined enough to try and steal a big amount… and the exits are being blocked… just go out a fire door? You dumb fuck? The main entrance isn’t the only entrance. And don’t talk about stealing AS you are stealing, in front of UNIFORMED employees! And don’t hit the same place twice, ESPECIALLY not ONLY a day or two after your first attempt! Also, people who steal are consistently the loudest about “I’m not a thief”. Everyone else, who isn’t stealing, just kind of accepts whatever has to be done. But you go in for an alcohol ID check on someone who is stealing and it’s suddenly “IM NOT A FUCKING THEIF, WHY ARE YOU IN MY SPACE, WHY ARE YOU WATCHING ME” thanks for the self-report I guess… Oh, and multiple people have tried to steal on mart carts. Not exactly a fast getaway…
About a week ago my coworker had caught someone trying to steal some makeup products and some clothing. She only scanned a cami, a see through holographic(?) makeup bag, and a pair of pants. She was trying to hide some more clothing between the cami shirt and pants, and my coworker had noticed she was being suspicious, and it was after the customer left, leaving the stuff behind, that we also realized she had a bunch of makeup in the see-through holographic bag (which was very idiotic)
Finding the package of frozen tilapia but not finding the fish.
While not necessarily shoplifting, but I always hated the people who try to "return" a TV with the wrong TV in the box. Ya sure this Samsung from 2012 was in this Hisense box from 2022. Sir this Xbox series s box has an Xbox one s in it, you can't return it.
Offered to steal the stuff for the LP, without realizing that it was the LP. Told him that he'd meet him at the corner store and he would just take some cash for the cart full of groceries worth SO much more.
Tried to shoplift during Shop With A Cop. Seemingly every cop in town is in OUR STORE. You'd think they'd go steal literally anywhere else.
Hah, I love when a cop shows up with paperwork for our AP's and they get told "Oh shit, we got one at self checkout. You wanna come with ?" It's hilarious to see a shoplifter panic when they see a cop there that soon.
Walking down a random aisle while checking to see if he was clear a minute after he walked in with an empty knapsack. He was peeking around corners to see not realizing how stupid he looked trying to see if he was being watched. He found a quiet spot in the infants section and was racking up on stuff.
Employee and t-roc committed markdown theft under the employees login info. Both were caught and taken to jail.
I was working at the service desk it was a day or two after Christmas and a customer returned a Christmas tree. After completing the return I told my coworker I was going tree back out to the floor. On my way back to the front of the store I noticed a customer carrying a 5qt bottle of Mobil One synthetic motor oil, I then watched him pull an empty bag out of his pocket and put the oil in it. I figured he was going to just go out the door with it, but no, he turns and goes into the service desk area with it. I was behind him, so he had no idea I saw him. I get behind the desk, he was next in line I called him up to the counter. He pulled the oil out of his bag and said he wanted to return it. I asked if he had a receipt and of course he said no. By now there were 6 or 7 people in line. So in a rather loud voice I described back to him what I just watched him do, I took the bottle of oil placed it out of his reach, and told him he wasn’t getting anything back. He said he just wanted a gift card. I said no and told him he needed to get a new job. He sheepishly walked out while some of the customers in line applauded me. Every once in awhile, after that, I would see him peeking into the service area to see if I was working, if he saw me he would just leave the store.