The surprising reality about the world of shoplifting. (Reddit Ask Me Anything)

read it ask me anything I catch shoplifters for Target ask me anything I am an assets Protection Team leader manager for target I mainly catch guests and employees stealing ask me anything edit this post is not intended to promote sharp lifting lifting is alone no I think there was a situation where a target employee tried to scam me I was getting a big lock for a storage unit and a few other things the employee scanned the lock first but put it by her register after she scanned it I noticed it right away because that's not where they normally put your items after they scan them she scanned the rest I paid and left but for some crazy reason I noticed that my bag was light the lock wasn't in the bag I walked back into the same register with my receipts she found the lock where she put it on her register but then she kept holding it I had to say see this receipt you just checked me out that lock is mine then she gave him to me I thought about it later if I hadn't noticed that I didn't have the lock is all she had to do was return that item later and take the cash it was probably only ten dollars fifteen but if you do that off him that could add up have you ever found employees running small-scale scams like this yet that's an awkward situation because there isn't much dishonest activity an employee can do with a look unless they really wanted to take it from you I'm glad you got it back without too much trouble but to answer your question yes employees stealing from guests is way more common than people think it can start small with employees stealing out of lost-and-found all the way up to promotional gift card theft we had a guest service guy who would steal promotional gift cards from guests by giving them fake ones he would activate the card or fault whatever you bought and do a quick change behind the register and give you a fake one while he kept the real one scams against guests don't last long because when it gets reported things like that automatically go to priority for AP what did the dumbest shoplifter do you or a colleague caught I had a guy stealing in the store but I was too late to make an apprehension as he was already out of the front doors I started to watch him in the parking lot and was amazed by the fact that he was coming back in after stealing this MF still gain and needless to say I apprehended him I always tell people that lifters need to get lucky every time while I need to get lucky only once as far as employee theft the dumbest thing people do is try to hand out discounts or markdown items to like one cent everything you do with the register is key logged and then it can also be matched to footage so it's very easy to catch people that way so if they step out the front doors you can't do anything I can wrestle with the lifter up until the red balls if they get into the lot I risk losing my job anything that happens to the lifter will be on me it sounds kind of backwards but their safety falls into my hands once I decide to approach them if they get hit by a car because I was pursuing into the lot I'm screwed the general consensus is that if they pass the red balls let him go when I apprehend normally it'll be right before you hit the entrance doors now that's strange here in Island we can't accuse anyone of stealing until they've left the store or we can be sued for defamation of character where my store is located concealment of any kind is illegal so that rules in our favor in most cases I agree that letting the person leave the store completely before stopping them is the best since it removes any doubt of intent target allows stops after the last register as that usually is enough to prove intent plus concealment in court concealment only is grounds for a stop or do you have to meet all five steps concealment is grounds for a police assisted stop I can't apprehend anyone without five steps if I see someone concealed and I have a bad feeling about the apprehension I will call the police and see if they can assist most times they love to come a bust some lifters so they'll pull up on the person when they're still on the floor and bring them back to the AP office so are you saying we don't get a free item for every ten we scan st. the self-checkout as our employee discount that will be the dream I never steal but I'm curious do you see me on your monitor and think oMG does this woman ever do anything besides shop at Target I do have regulars that I give names to based on their looks had this one guy who always came in with long blonde hair and I call him Thor I'll see him walking on cameras and think my man Thor and continue on with the day it's funny because you guys are my regulars but you have no idea who I am how how how much of shoplifting happens at the self-checkouts tons anyone will do it too I've checked off every age bracket when it comes to passing it self checkout we've had anything from potato chips to Dyson's being passed it's go is it something you guys expect and figure it still costs less than paying a cashier to do it yeah we expect it I mainly focus on people stealing big items through self checkout it's a game of rewarded self checkout we do train cashiers to detect certain things but honestly most don't care at all they don't get paid enough or paid to care about theft how much of the theft are you able to catch I catch around 80% with the rest going unnoticed or just not enough time to review footage most of the people I catch are repeats I'll be reviewing footage and find someone skip scanning most of the time if they're using schoo they'll use a card which allows me to see your name and info I'll have investigations run the card and send back the amount of times that person has done it before and then build a case once I'm good for prosecution I'll wait for you to come back and do it again and then apprehend it's noteworthy that idgaf about food and stupid stuff like that I'm worried about the Boosters so that time I realized I forgot to scan one of my cans of fruit and the schoo will not get me sent to jail nope you will be fine honestly I let people walk all the time with food because it's just not worth it to me is it as cool as it sounds like cause the title of asset protection sounds awesome but I'm guessing it's not as fun as it sounds lol it has its moments I would say with target AP though it has a good reputation since they're still hands on and carry handcuffs that element definitely adds to the Wild West apprehensions we sometimes get but the majority of the time it is pretty boring do you carry a quota in terms of number of shoplifters you need to stop on a periodic basis target always loved to boast about how they are a no quota company which is in fact false you will never hear a higher-ups say you have a quota but if you ain't catching you won't be there long how does it work do you walk around target or do you stay behind the cameras how much do you get paid do you dress as a regular person or like a Target employee I am usually in my office working on different tasks but always have my hotspot cameras up things like Dyson's baby formula or anything that's easily resettable or hot at the time I also keep a camera on the entrance I'll wait for indicators such as selecting a large quantity of a certain type of merchandise and then I'll hit the floor in plain clothes and use the aisles to watch you I get paid $22 HR apt l can wear anything pretty much I've won a TSS uniformed AP uniform and red and cax but opt for plain clothes usually so jeans and a hoodie how often do you have to do the whole call police and have arrested thing is it at a certain dollar amount usually fifty dollars is the amounts that we call the police on but it differs from jurisdiction and the case normal adult 18 plus stealing anything less than fifty dollars will be released as long as you have it anything over and you're taking a ride any juvenile that steals under $50 I'll give them two attempts to contact a guardian to come get them and if not they'll take a ride and if they steal anything over $50 then they're done for now I will say that I've made exceptions before at the end of the day I just want the merchandise back because that's my job personally I much rather release than do the paperwork can go to court with you I will use discretion in certain situations keep in mind everything stated above is what I do so I can't speak for other AP team members why are you more strict on juveniles it's a liability and if anything happens to the juvenile while I have them detained I can definitely be charged myself again it's just measures taken to reduce the chance of the company getting sued also most of them do not have a valid ID and I need their actual info so PD gets involved with most of our juvenile cases my dorm mate in college still address from target one time she was super paranoid and noticed someone writing her license plate down once she got in the car so she went back inside to return the item and got detained and arrested what likely would have been the outcome hashey of left and not returned for quite some time if someone cared enough to write down the plate and they work for the store odd thing to do since we can just use the cameras then most likely a police report would have been submitted if the cops working at the time wanted to they could run the registration off the car and visit the house of whoever owns the car and obviously the person would have been affiliated in some way with the lifter if they didn't want to do that then more than likely nothing would have happened unless she came in and stole again if she came back and under was arrested than the police were already on their way probably and she would have gotten pulled over thank you it was 11 years ago so maybe that could offer some explanation I always thought it was stupid that she went back in not advocating for shoplifting whatsoever but what did she expect it was a college town three hours away from our home where her car was registered lol anyway she turned out to be a real piece of work Happy Thanksgiving and thank you for this wonderful ask me anything no problem and addresses nothing to target tbh so the number of resources and time it would take to track her down in prosecutes would be ridiculous happy Thanksgiving to you too and my pleasure throw away accounts for hopefully obvious reasons anyways about six or seven years ago I was a little [ __ ] of a person and had even worse friends one day I was driving and one other person and I went into target I just used the bathroom and went back out to my car and waited for the other person she was stealing DVDs long story short cops were called and both of us got banned from the store the store took our photos and said we could be charged with trespassing if either of us ever returned to any target fast forward to today well past couple years anyway I'm no longer that little piece of [ __ ] person and actually pay for my things as a normal human I still shop at Target on occasion for certain things but whenever I go into a store I feel like I am being followed by employees they always seem to be watching me wherever I go in the store sometimes it's quite obvious that the employee is staring directly at me from the end of the aisle occasionally it's a plain clothed person doing this but they follow me around the entire store am I just being paranoid or do you guys actually have staff followed customers like this if they've had an incident before if so how do you even know that the clean-shaven and well-groomed person I am today is the same grungy little [ __ ] I was over six years ago target trespass notices last one year typically you're good since it's been a couple of years and technically you weren't involved with the theft so you shouldn't have been given a trespass in the first place we do have people follow guests around as I and one of those people but I think you're paranoid there's a chance that they remember the incident and follow you based on that but again that's a reach if you noticed you're being watched then chances are your paranoia is showing in some way you've made some kind of movement that ap doesn't like again I think you're straight to walk around freely without having to worry hey thanks for the info I assumed that it was the case but I still enjoy walking around in there and showing them I'm not a piece of [ __ ] anymore I guess I don't notice this every time I'm there but it was one time in particular that I felt really uncomfortable at the time I was pretty irritated that I even got pulled into the whole involvement but I've gotten past that I realized they were just doing their job and we were stupid kids I once accidentally walked out of a target with a jug of milk that I legit forgot to pay for realizing this in the parking lot I immediately went back inside explained the situation to CS and paid for it did I do the right thing here as far as making sure I can't get busted and charged for shoplifting by the police or did I in fact do the dumbest possible thing a person could do in that situation you did the right thing you cleared yourself of all guilt by doing bad to be charged with shoplifting the state must prove that you intended to deprive the company of its merchandise now in no scenario have I ever witnessed someone taking a fall for a jug of milk but at least you don't have to be paranoid walking around the store if you didn't come back in all ap would have done is watch you the next time if they remember you to see if you steal something else have you or members of your team ever accused a customer that was in fact completely innocent if so what happened after edit formatting personally I have never had a bad stop knock on wood but I have had co-workers do it in this specific scenario they were fired target doesn't mess around with bad stops having people stop shoplifters in general is a huge liability and getting a bad stop opens the company up to lawsuits it was a simple case of AP lost the subject for a brief amount of time and the list had dumped the Miraj they stopped her and she ended up having nothing and she claimed racial discrimination even though she did intend on stealing APTN was quickly given the boot while your co-worker was given the boot for that I mean if the video show she had merchants intended to steal wouldn't that put your co-worker in the right you would think except a lot of what would have exonerated my co-worker was not on camera including the dump stops are reviewed by a board of people and a verdict is reached much like a jury on what the outcome of the stop should be at the end of the day that person was detained with no merchandise and will always win in a court of law since no crime was committed some states allow for concealment to be a charge but not where they were it also didn't help that the subject was milking the situation on social media which really forced the hand off target they are very worried about the image which is understandable of course but Tim oh I wish target had the repeted years ago where people knew that it wasn't a good idea to steal from their stores did she get anything out of it settle out of court not sure what happened after target will opt for settling out of course so chances are she got paid out have you ever had a repeat offender that you just weren't able to pin down someone you knew was lifting but always managed to avoid getting caught in the act yep had this one druggie that kept hitting me for OTC medication piss me off so much because I knew I could get him back into the store but every time I was there he wasn't got the point where I knew he would steal in the morning more so I set up consecutive days of being in the store early to get him dude must have taken a vacation with the money he got from boosting or something because he didn't show up he took the bus every day before he lifted because the stop was by my store so I couldn't match a car slash plates to him I contacted the police and filed a report that never heard anything back I haven't seen him since what over-the-counter medication cough syrup zant I can declare it in row they use it to get high usually they resell them for money weird it is the self checkout area at your store have those screens where customers can see themselves being recorded if so do you have noticed people making funny faces waving et Cie my wife and I joke around and like to pose like we're taking a picture in front of them how it's funny I was driving home thinking about this ask me anything and wondered if anyone was going to ask about the self-checkout Peavey's public view those don't actually record those are a deterrence the only Peavey's that records are the ones you see outside of the fitting room and guest services there are several cameras mounted to the ceiling that covers all of self-checkout and those do record anywhere that there's a register there must be a camera I do zoom in using my PT z pan tilt zoom cameras on people doing stuff like that it's hilarious I always get kids waiting outside of the fitting room for their parents dancing on the pv how that's super cute I always hoped there was someone behind the screen that I was giving a laughter I did notice one time I had an error and scan an item the camera mounted up high on the ceiling played back my scan accentuating my 27 year old bald spot quite nicely at the same time that's when I first learned off those cameras so I think I might start making funny faces up as them now haha please do I love moments like that where people interact with cameras obviously in an honest way it makes the job a little less boring the self-checkout TVs are what we call the selfie cam if only I had a penny for every selfie taken on one of those how do you have the authority to arrest people as an employee I thought you have to let the go no I cannot arrest anyone I can however detain you a P go through training that includes how to restrain shoplifters physically and apply handcuffs there are certain times that I will have to let a lift a go but most of the time people don't get too fast since target still allows hands-on apprehensions do you want to eventually get into law enforcement as a career or are you like paul Blart from the movie mall cop no I haven't been interested in law enforcement yet maybe there will be an opportunity so I always keep that door open but it's not something I'm pursuing I also won't be staying in AP it's a great job for the experience but making a career out of it can be taxing have you ever seen someone steal and simply let them go maybe your friend or you felt bad for someone sorry if asked already yes on multiple occasions but there are different cases sometimes it was because I was alone and knew that getting the lift her back in the store physically wasn't an option almost daily I let people go because what they're stealing is not worth the time as for friends no because I purposely worked at a store far from home was running into people you've caught at restaurants can be awkward I've never really felt bad for anyone because if they are causing an impact on the store then it's coming back to me and it's my job on the line have you been involved in any big cases like a network of shoplifters e.t.c I have but as an apt L I don't get to do much with that unless they come into my store target investigators handle organized retail crime cases usually with local law enforcement have you tackled anyone in the parking lot never in the parking lot but in the store and out front yes I have are you allowed to do cavity searches like the police did back in the 90s row you made it to the end you're ducking beasts I'll cut you a deal smash like and subscribe for more curated content might it's free and that's a great price

Channel: Sir Reddit

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Id: LPEoYV4y7Ns

Length: 20min 7sec (1207 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 05 2019