‘How much is their lack of enforcement costing you and me?”
I guarantee it costs less than it would to stop it. Perhaps they should save their outrage for the thieves.
I can’t blame any non-security-related store employee for not going after a thief. There’s absolutely no justifiable reason to literally risk your life for that type of a job.
Talk about blaming the victim.
Where I live there are plenty of arrests and prosecutions for shoplifting at Wal-Mart. They have really good security.
” All she did was flip me off when I shouted, “Hey shoplifter, come back.”
Why didn’t the author run after the shoplifter and stop them? Maybe a good old citizen’s arrest? Duh....
To #2: Every time I use one. Instead of signing the card, I write in “Ask 4 ID”.
To find the answer we need only read two paragraphs down.
This was the first time that I had been asked for ID in a long time. I latter had to do it again at a t-shirt store! What's up with these small stores? Walmart, Target, and Home Depot in Hawaii never hassled me
The author complains about them not asking for ID and then complains when they do.
The Walmart I shop at asks for ID about one third of the time. The cash register asks at random and will not continue until the clerk has entered the DL# or a supervisor overrides it. The register also asks for an ID for all alcohol and tobaccos sales.
Walmart has it's priorities straight.
Either the powers that be at WM are really dumb, or there are things happening behind the scenes that we don't know about (i.e. agitating by activists).
We are asked for ID sometimes, but we usually shop at the same neighborhood Wal-Mart grocery store several times a week. The checkers all know us, so they override the register most of the time. One checker used to ask us every single time we saw her. It was always funny to me because it would be late at night when there were no other shoppers, and she would still ask for ID even though she recognized us. After about two months of this, she learned our names and all about our family, and she doesn’t ask for ID anymore.
At the same Wal-Mart grocery, we watched as the manager and a Hoss of a woman/worker tried to stop a shoplifter. We happened to have walked out just prior to this happening. They did manage to stop the guy, but he ran when he saw an opportunity. Hubby walked out right after this happened, so I saw it all. Hubby probably would have intervened if he had walked out first. Anywho, since that day, they have employed someone else to do the manhandling of shoplifters. He’s very good at his job. We don’t go to the big Wal-Mart that is down the street from the grocery store. I can’t imagine how much shoplifting goes on there on an hourly basis. (very close to Mexico. lots of car break-ins and purse-snatching goes on there.)
I went to Walmart last weekend and bought a Blu Ray player. As I was leaving, the siren went off, lights started blinking, and the little old lady at the door started yelling “Sir, Sir”. Frankly, I just wasn’t in the mood to prove I had actually bought what I was carrying, so I just kept on walking. No one made any effort to stop, which was probably a good move on their part. Sometimes I don’t mind proving I’m not criminal, but sometimes I do.
When chased, the fleeing shoplifter sometimes whips out a used syringe and aims to stab the pursuer. That would put a damper on Kenny’s vigilantism real quick.
When shoplifting and security gets really bad, the store hires off-duty police. It’s the only security that the aggressive thieves really respect, as the ODP is armed and has arrest powers. Hourly pay for an ODP makes them the highest-paid help in the store.
After 20+ years in Retail and upper management, I can tell people that it is not an easy task at all to stop shoplifting and other forms of theft.
Many of these theives have this stuff down to an art. The ones that are “good” and are caught do not respond well to being stopped and many times have a crew with them. The one who do go along quietly, are not the major scoring thieves.
Compund this with the fact that many DA’s will not prosecute unless the thief has made it out the door (do to the fact that until they are out the door, they still have an opportunity to pay) and the whole thing is a huge mess.
And thats a problem at a 30K square foot store. I can not imagine what it is like at a Super Wal-Mart which is easily over 200K sqr/ft.
I best of luck to all who make the attempt.
b Cool,
“Do Walmart and others promote declining values?”
I don’t know about the shoplifting, but they support Obamacare and amnesty and other distasteful liberal notions, so the answer is yes.
During busy times, the local Walmart has a big black guy checking receipts as customers leave the store. As opposed to a little old lady - I’m sure the choice is deliberate.
There was an article back around Christmas about an incident at a Walmart with a receipt check, and a customer objecting, and things got physical.
I believe a lot of Freepers shared the customer’s objection to being treated as a potential thief.
I remembered Service Merchandise many years ago. All of the items on display were in locked clear plastic cabinets. You grabbed a ticket for the particular item, go pay for it and collect it at the pickup door. I bet their theft was low. I think also they are out of business.
First an employee has to actually see the person take and hide the item.
Next they then have to follow that person through the store to make sure the item is still on the perp and not dropped.
They have to watch them go through the register and not pay.
At that point the perp can be confronted even before they leave the store. At this point the store's security person should be onto the perp also, through code and what ever signals the employee is trained to use.
The problem here is that the employee is risking their job if it turns out they are wrong!
My wife was a greeter at the Perry,Georgia Wal-Mart for 31/2 years and got an overdose of abusive customers and non-supportive managers. I’m glad she quit,even though having another income in the house was nice. It just wasn’t worth it.