Seriously?

[scarletjul]

At the store where I work, we as employees are not allowed, under nearly all circumstances, to intervene when we witness a theft.

We are only allowed to treat the thief as a normal customer, ie ask "Did you find everything? Can I help you?"

We are not allowed to ask them to pay for their item (even those at the cash register, where I work.). We are not allowed to say "Do you have a receipt for that?". We are not allowed to write down their name, description, or license plate number. We are not under any circumstance allowed to stop them in any way.

Because that is "the job of loss prevention."

The problem is, by the time an employee learns of a theft (whether by witnessing or by another customer asking about it), and we manage to contact loss prevention, it's too late.

The only time we can intervene with a theft is :
1.) We are loss prevention staff and we are there at the time of the theft (which we are not, and since loss prevention does not actively walk around the store, they are often not there).
2.) We are personally requested by loss prevention to intervene (ie, they've seen someone on camera pocketing many big-ticket items around the store, etc. )

The bottom line is, the only way to prevent these sorts of losses is thru having integrity. Unfortunately, with small product such as food or blind bags (trading cards are prone to this, too) people assume that the company makes a large enough profit to "absorb" these losses. Which, we don't. When many people have this mentality the costs add up - which is why theft raises cost for everyone.

Please, please: as small as one BB pony may be, it hurts everyone if you decide to steal. It's not that hard to learn the codes for the ponies you want!

(And, as someone mentioned, this is called "shrinkage" / "shrink", because it "makes profits shrink." But shrinkage includes things like ordering too much stock, having to put items on clearance, damaged stock, lost/stolen stock, returned items, etc.)

That is the SAME exact policy at my store. I work at meijer and I think the policy is absolutely ridiculous. I've witnessed theft so many times and can't do anything. If the beeper on the doors goes off, I'm not allowed to follow them through the doors or look at their receipt or nothing. Sometimes people stop and all I'm allowed to do is tell them it's okay to go. A manager or greeter is the only person that can look at their receipt or stop them.. It's ridiculous.

When I used to work retail, for 7 years at 3 different stores, we had a similar policy.  We couldn't do anything until they physically walked out the door with the merchandise - and then we still couldn't do anything; it was up to mall security.  Stupid policy but I think it was meant to protect the company from being sued.

People stealing product from stores bugs me to no end especially cheap items and thrift store items because then the product is already cheap; odds are you're just stealing it because you can.  I can't count how many DVD boxes I've opened at Savers only to find them empty.  And I've run into the same problem with blind bagged items at Target and the like, where people will methodically rip open bag after bag and steal the tiny product inside.

I find it disheartening, really.  What could possess you to steal a $2 item?  And *if* it is for your kid - what are you teaching them?

[keikokukien]

Oh this strikes a nerve. :/ Someone does this at my local walmart alot and I've found just the bags and cards in isles on the other side of the pet section before. I used to work at a local book store that's a major chain bookseller. It was just disheartening to find empty wrappers for books and gift but a daily routine. You can't find these people but you can definitely find where they went. :/ The top most stolen things were blank journals, comics, and Bibles! Why would you steal these things? Same people that steal miniature toys and justify it as "well they are cheap so it doesn't mean anything."

[Leopard_Print_Unicorn]

When I worked at the mall in college we had a similar policy, but in one case, I personally saw a small child (maybe 3 or 4 years old) take some small items off the shelf and put them in their jacket.

Since I witnessed it, I was allowed by policy to confront them. The child was so young, I assumed that they did not know the difference between right and wrong. I thought I would politely let the mother know what the child had done, I would get the items back, and the child would receive an age-appropriate lesson from the parent about why stealing is bad. That's what had happened before in other places where I had worked. I remember at least one case where a horrified parent brought their ~5 year old back to my store to apologize and return a $0.25 piece of candy he had taken.

Wrong!! This particular parent became offended by my suggestion that the child had taken something off the shelf. When I pointed out one of the items in plain view hanging out of the child's pocket, she reluctantly let me take that item back but refused to search her child for the other missing items. What kind of lesson does this teach? It's ok to steal, but don't get caught!

Oh yeah and my favorite part is that while major retail chains tie employees hands about not being able to confront shoplifters, if shrinkage is over a certain percent, it is assumed to be internal theft and a heated investigation begins into all employees. Not like we didn't routinely have to have our purses and bags searched before we left already.

[dxgirly]

I find at empty packages every shift I work at Walmart. And I work electronics, so the total values of the stuff stolen can really add up. People make me sick.

[StarlightGaze]

I was looking through a blind bag box at TRU and one of the ponies fell out of the package... Somebody must have opened it, but at least it wasn't stolen.

Isn't most stuff that's ordered to stores paid to the company beforehand? Like if Walmart wants a box of blindbags, they have to pay Hasbro the cost, and then they have to make all that money back by selling them.  If that's true and stores don't stop people from stealing from them, then that's their loss when it comes to shrinkage.

[RockinPrettyBeats]

Unfortunately, stealing is all over the teenage culture. Kids steal from each other at school and even friends steal from friends.

I had a couple girls steal from me when I was in high school. It made me feel horrible and I couldn't trust anyone after that. I do wonder if the girls and boys that steal from each other simply grow out of it or have problems in their adult lives?

Ugh, I also remember someone stealing my wallet in high school in class. I have no idea how they did it. It was horrible. God, bad memories...

I know for a fact that some parents teach their kids to steal. I've even seen a mom and a dad (separate household) say that stealing is only stealing when you "get caught".

Otherwise it's just taking something. Yup, it happens. Heck, I knew a girl who would go shoplifting with her aunt. Some people are trash.

[Water_Fire]

It really is trashy, isn't it?

I worked in a Claire's as a teenager, and every day I'd come into work and find items ripped off their cards and just left there. Because they were cheap, it was OK to steal them. Ugh.

Come to think of it, I bought a couple of blind bags the other day and when I got in the car I realised one of them was already open (but still had it's pony, thankfully!) Why do people think it's ok to open things when they haven't paid for them?!

[zora]

i have seen that before, too with fillys!

[starrypawz]

Ugh. X.x it's sickening. I remember when the Dollymix  ponies we're around finding a bag that had been ripped open but they'd left it behind. I also once was in a Tesco Metro and a guy was walking around the store with a brownie and just eating it there and then and didn't pay, yet the staff did nothing although everyone could see and they have security guards. I've also been in say the supermarket and found multipack food things for say crisps or biscuits where someone has opened them up and taken a packet out and put them back on the shelf, really
I've noticed a lot of shops put stuff like trading cards behind the till so you have to ask for them, maybe they should do something like that with BB ponies?

[Desert Rose]

Fortunatly I haven't seen that happening around here. There's been two stores in my city who have had Blind Bags and they were all sealed up. I've also been to a toystore in Copenhagen - Denmark which has the Blind Bags and same thing there - all of them neatly sealed up as they should be

It might be that the MLP's aren't such a big thing here, cuz' the Blind Bag boxes are put in very remote areas of the stores where I've found them and it would have been really easy for anyone to open the Blind Bags and take the pony.

I think it's horrible though to hear how this is a common problem for so many here. Honestly, opening Blind Bags and steal the item inside is just downright pathetic >.< People seriously need to be taught morals and a basic lesson of what is right and wrong wouldn't hurt either.

About 5 years ago our basement was broken into where I kept most of my Bratz dolls and MLP merchandise and - of course - lots of other things. And untill this day there are some Bratz dolls I know I had that I can't find (including the very first one I got that got me into collecting Bratz ), nor can I find all my G1 plush MLP's
I remember comming down in the basement and seeing everything thrown about and what panic I felt. I was crying my eyes out fearing the worst, that the majority of my collections had been stolen. Fortunatly after going through everything it was only abit that was missing.
But still, untill this day it haunts me and I'm still upset over the things I lost. How people can go around stealing is beyond me. It's disgusting, hurtfull, wrong and pathetic

[Gogobinsin]

Unfortunately, stealing is all over the teenage culture. Kids steal from each other at school and even friends steal from friends.

Also police officers steal from police officers. My brother-in-law is an officer and unless he locks things away in a locker at the station, other officers will steal his stuff. He's had a nice pair of leather gloves he used for riding his motorbike stolen as well as a small torch he used at work. If you can't trust the law who can you trust?

[sweetstuff]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who finds this behavior upsetting. It's good to know there are other people out there who abide by honesty.

Most of the walmarts in my area won't even stock the mlp blind bags, and this is no doubt the reason

That's my fear. My local walmart only had one box of the Wave 1, so I never had any chance of getting more of the ponies I wanted from that one. Never saw any of wave 2/3. Then wave 4 pops up and somehow I doubt they'll order another box if they had at least 5 stolen (I bought 5  on Monday - should have bought more).

It just spoils it for the rest of us. I'm not trying to collect the whole series, just some of the ones that catch my attention and I let my little girl play with the "horseys".

[Mandy85]

A few months ago my local TRU had a half full box of blind bags and every single bag had been cut open with a sharp edge, like a razorblade or pocketknife. That bit of info, coupled with the fact that the box was positioned above average child eye-level on the shelf would have me believe an adult or teen was the culprit. Half of the bags still had ponies inside, while the others (mostly glittered ponies) were missing with their cards still intact.

While on vacation recently, I stopped by another TRU and when I saw that they had just put out a fresh box, I decided to go over and check the codes to find the one I was looking for. An employee came over and eyed me suspiciously, asking if I needed help. I told him I was checking the codes for a particular one and he told me that they've been having trouble with people tearing open the bags. I assured him I wouldn't be doing so, we had a bit of a laugh at how ridiculous some people can be over a $3 MLP toy, and he left me alone.

I'm sure there's cases where children are stealing them as well, but my first instinct is that they're not the average ones doing it.

If you think thats bad...Im sure you would be disgusted by the amount o women using their baby strollers to steal. At least 3 at my store alone. :/ they think because they have a baby with them they will not be arrested..wrongo people they zip tie you up and parade you past the front just like everyone else, then they have you call someone to pick your kid up. I rarely see this at my store our loss prevention guys are really good.

So true! I've caught/seen others catch so many women with baby carriages using them as a means to steal while working in retail, it's truly disgusting what some people will stoop to.

[RockinPrettyBeats]

Fortunatly I haven't seen that happening around here. There's been two stores in my city who have had Blind Bags and they were all sealed up. I've also been to a toystore in Copenhagen - Denmark which has the Blind Bags and same thing there - all of them neatly sealed up as they should be

Same here, I haven't seen any of the packages opened with ponies OR other items. Maybe I'm really oblivious and miss it though. I've been known to not notice things. But still, I'm very surprised to hear that so many have come across empty packages.

It must be a huge problem :-/

[popyduggan]

I wish the bags were just transparent, I just spent over $65 for a bundle of 24 at target and spent around $10 of that on duplicates just because I misread a 1 as a 2 or 6 as an 8 or a 3 on the inside flap code, while i'm doing this it totally looks like i'm stealing them btw.

I think it would be nice because at $3 a piece, they're not exactly giving them away, then again "mystery" figures are just a gimmick anyways so blah.

The only things I see stolen at my Walmart are Pokemon cards and Marvel/DC mini figures, thankfully the MLP shoppers aren't a-holes, though the Marvel/DC figs have about 250 pieces in the pdq tube so that's got to be a kick in the crotch to find what you want.