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Smart strategies: Things that make our lives hard.
You might wonder why I'd just tel you this, it's because there's no structural reason for me to protect retailer I don't work for. If they don't hire me, theft is their problem not mine. Morally? story for another day.
1. Duplicate Item theft.
This is when you buy something, and steal the same item at the same time. So you might scan only one of two items on the self check out, or carry out the same shirt in a different size. on CCTV it becomes hard to prove which item you were carrying, and at what time, and to separate you from other shoppers.
If you put two chocolate bars in your pocket, pay for one, I don't have shit on CCTV. you would just say it's footage of you picking up the item you paid for. even if you were eating the chocolate bar in front of me and produced the wrapper, I cant prove how many you've got stuffed in your chipmunk face.
2. shelving.
I can't sexually assault someone in the course of a search, so if you can shove a stolen item into your anus, it's yours. I'm just not paid enough, neither are cops. I cant remove someones underwear, even if I see a phone charger in your underwear I can't photograph that, or remove that. This is why the bathroom is the epicenter of petty theft.
3. FAST theft
Stealing volumetric products rather than consumer items. petrol, oil, individual slices of bread, single batteries, one CD from a set.
This is so stupid, but we don't barcode the bread itself, the mince meat itself. If you just pull a fistfull of mince meat from a pack and put it in a plastic bag I can't prove it was even our mince meat, or how many slices of bread the bag had in it to begin with. when you see this its like...jesus christ, fml, this nigger stealing individual slices of bread from 6 different bags.
4. change ups.
Yes, still works in 2025. registers are designed so clerks can't go backwards in the process to add extra items but if someone receives cash in their hand, as a rule you can change them up. It's a punk move because you're always on CCTV and can only claim you did it by mistake if you aren't on CCTV in 20 different places trying it. But thieves move around a lot, they will still do it especially if they aren't store thieves.
5. mobbing
When you get more thieves into a single store than the store has employees. 20 kids come in at once and just start throwing items between each other. people who exchange items in their carts with other shoppers.
6. people who steal from other shoppers. they will chase you for weeks, I won't. so why do it? because you can pick the weakest marks. stealing grandmas purse in my store, walk through checkout, buy a cold drink. How the fuck am I to know who's bag you're carrying?
7. theft of not-for-sale items. stealing display items, store equipment, stealing the coat hangers, stealing the carpet, the toilet paper, things we inventory internally, and which only some staff may use. often these are trophy items thieves only steal for a joke, stole the store's step ladder, stole staff uniform, stole cafe salt and pepper shakers. But some of this stuff is legitimately valuable, even shopping carts are worth a heap, despite there being no primary buyers if someone wanted the scrap metal, yea they could steal 10k worth of shopping trolley in an hour.
8. rack raiding
This is when one person distracts a department store clerk and a second person just runs off with a whole rack of designer items, usually straight into a car. it's brazen, but the raider travels and pays a local crook to distract us. it's easy to fall into the trap of sending the whole store's security to tag a single known thief, only for some random thief to run off with a whole rack of items from the other side of the store. doesn't work on mom and pop stores, you've all probably seen the video.
9. caravan'ing
Bringing so many of your own items into the store that it takes so long to search you that security will just pay you $5 in cash not to come in. moms with strollers, armfulls of bags, often a "kit" of items that look like they were just purchased from other stores but are really just props. you get six asians with wheeled luggage and airport tags, pretend not to speak English, clerks get exited thinking these people will buy a heap of stuff. actually one has just stuffed a suitcase with a whole bunch of your shit and they all barrel through the checkout together and are carrying so much secure luggage we can't search them in any sensible way. Locking stolen items in a bag is a 4D play because I can't unlock a bag without a warrant and neither can police- that's a destructive search.