What Store Detectives Know

[SoDesuKa]

Store detectives know who comes into to steal; they can tell them at a glance. How do they know? They just know, that's all. And the shoplifters know the store detectives too. So you get this interaction between the thieves and the detectives. The detectives just cruise by to let the thieves know they've been spotted. A good thief doesn't waste any more time in that store. They just make their way out, and nobody's the wiser.

The fact that something does not take place does not mean that something wasn't about to happen.



That's a Crimestopper.

[ZombieHorde]

1. Nice fantasy.

When I was in high school, I stole all the time. Store detectives just made it more fun for me.

[Erose999]

6. Our high school security guard moonlighted as a store detective.

My friends and I were watched and followed whenever we went in to a store.

[SwampG8r]

2. another"the lack of evidence is itself suspicious" moment

[Pab Sungenis]

17. That's not the case.

There is always evidence used when a clerk or detective keeps a special eye on someone. But it's evidence that someone not trained to look for it would necessarily understand. Tools of the theft trade, suspicious behavior, and so on.

[RC]

3. If it were that easy,

a few cameras around the store would alert the Store Detectives and the thieves would find themselves in court. Shoplifting would be way down.
You've been reading too many comics.

[the other one]

4. I don't shoplift

but I can tell when the store detective is nearby checking me out. Maybe I fit a profile...

[Bluenorthwest]

5. Then how do you explain the massive losses due to retail theft?

If they 'just know' on sight, it seems the only explanation for the losses would be that the 'detectives' are party to the crime. If they 'just know' and yet allow merchandise to walk out the door, how are they not complicit?

[CanSocDem]

11. Not that long ago....

...a study suggested that employee theft constituted the biggest part of "retail theft".

.

[BanzaiBonnie]

19. How much of retail theft is from the inside?

[Ikonoklast]

28. Most retail shrinkage is due to employees.

Not shoplifters.

Employees can spot a security weakness from the inside and exploit it, far easier than any shoplifter.

[L. Coyote]

7. Stores have detectives?

Which state do you live in?

[Lucian]

8. Hmmm...so store detectives automatically "know" when someone is a shoplifter...

even before the person shoplifts? So once a person is branded a shoplifter (even if he or she isn't one), they'll be bothered by the store security and followed until they leave the store, eh?

:eyes:

[Pab Sungenis]

16. I did.

When I worked in retail there were a number of different tells you could use to spot a potential shoplifter:

* Large, loose jackets, especially during warm weather.
* Carrying in large, firm (usually paper) shopping bags. Especially if from a store not in your mall.

Those two are dead giveaways to watch the person.

You also learn which habits to spot from shoplifting teams: the spotter, the distraction, the stacker, and the lifter in your typical pro team.

When you start seeing suspicious behavior, or people that are likely solo lifters, you give them the ABSOLUTE BEST customer service you can! You engage them in conversation, you push them to buy product, you ask them questions, and if you let them alone you stay nearby and look their way regularly. Nine times out of ten they will leave and go find an easier store.

And, yes, I racially and socially profiled. In our business (music retail) the average shoplifter was a 14 year old white boy. They got customer service out the wazoo.

It doesn't stop all shoplifting, but it prevents most of the potential shoplifting.

[Lucian]

18. Yeah I got profiled at a store last week...

I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt and a hat. I went into that store to buy the same hat I had one (I needed a new one) and the employees kept coming up to me and asking me questions. I knew that they thought I was going to try to steal the hat. I had no intentions on stealing it.

I paid for my hat and walked out. I am never shopping there again. I don't like being treated like a crook when I go into a store. :grr: Especially over a $10 fucking hat.

[Diclotican]

25. Lucian

Lucian

And also tell the owner/owners and the clerk in the store, why you would never shop there again.. I have worked in a store before, And I learned by my boss, that we should try to have the same form of service to everyone, regardness of how they was dressed.. Of course, common sence is the best, to not let anything goes out the door, who are not been paid for.. But to be at service, and help others is important if you want to have customers come back again...

And yes, we did had some suspectious customers, who we had to look at more closely than others.. But for the most it was going verry well..

Diclotican

[Nye Bevan]

23. Smart. So suspected thieves get *better* customer service.

So they really don't have anything to complain about.

[HighContext]

9. I was smashed up behind a door *very* brutally at the mall once...

'Shouldn't have been behind the door!'
...was the only apology I got. And I was just standing there with my bags.
Not shoplifting. Not doing anything wrong. Guy was a total dick. Get it?

[fishwax]

10. "They just know, that's all"

Sounds reliable :rofl:

[Pab Sungenis]

20. They do have ways of knowing.

There are tells. They aren't usually advertised, however, because clerks and detectives don't want shoplifters to know how they got spotted.

[fishwax]

22. oh, I've no doubt there are some tells

perhaps fairly reliable in some cases and less so in others. I've seen people get caught red-handed. I've also been tracked around a store, and I wonder who might have been getting away with what while the folks who have followed me (who "just know, that's all") were wasting their energy. :)

[NV Whino]

12. I'm not sure of the point of this thread, but...

When I worked at a department store while I was in college, the head of a little employee thieving ring was the daughter of the personnel manager. To my knowledge, she never got caught.

[mulsh]

13. "store detectives" also know how to monitor those security cameras

places all over the stores. It helps to "just know". ya know?

[Gormy Cuss]

14. Nice post, Philip K. Dick.

[ThomWV]

15. Well, let's give "Store Detectives" guns and let them shoot first to prevent crime in the future.

"Store Detectives know who comes in to steal"

Oh really? Do they have a tattoo on their forehead that said "Thief"

What pointless nonsense.

[pipi_k]

21. Well I have a clue as to ONE way they "just know"...

I don't steal from stores...never have. Never will.

Fairly well dressed, I don't attract any attention.

However...dressed in my basic "uniform" (jeans, jean jacket, and boots) as I was 30 years ago, I did attract attention from clerks, etc., who thought I didn't notice them following me around the store.

I didn't make my way out because I was a thief who was being thwarted.

I left because I didn't like being stalked.

[deaniac21]

24. When I was 20 - 50 they follwed me around but i think they were

just checking out my ass.

[WI_DEM]

26. having worked in retail I know that they 'know' that if you are a minority or a teenager

they should keep their eyes on them. Meanwhile the middle aged white male in the electronics aile is making off with some merchandise.

[saras]

27. The picture says it all. Only in Dick Tracy is any of this even remotely resembling truth

[madmom]

29. When I was in high school, my friends and I where ALWAYS watched because

we looked like "those dirty hippies", never mind the "clean cut" kids where laughing their asses off while robbing them blind.