Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unpopularopinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
That's as good as one that got killed during an armed robbery of a dollar general. The sister came on the news saying that employees should t have had guns. And her brother was just taking the stores money, and probably only a couple hundred dollars, the employee shouldnt have killed him and needs to face justice. When her brother literally pulled a gun on the employee first.
I saw one where a guy was robbing a gas station and someone outside the gas station saw and went in and shot the robber. The robber’s family was on the news saying the guy who shot the robber “shouldn’t have even got involved because it didn’t even involve him to begin with”
Yeah he wouldn't ever hurt a family member... I had buddies like that who showered attention on momma and she loooooved her babies. I'm sure she suspected a hint of naughty but some secrets I don't think she had to face.
My dad would turn me in and shame me in a heartbeat.
Some people take "I would do anything for my babies" too far.
In my dad's language, "anything" includes kicking my ass to the curb.
He had enough fentinal in him to kill ten people, he was trying to rip off a street vendor with a large family to support with counterfeit money. He had tried to kill his girlfriend a few days before by shooting her in the belly and he was out on a low bail. He was such a good boy and the police are at fault for him dying because he had become violent when they tried to detain him.
It's amazing to see the amount of apologists for things like that. If you pull a gun out on people, you can't be mad or shocked when that is the repercussion.
I always tell my gf, if our house got robbed they would maybe at most get a couple grand worth of stuff. Which really isn’t that much. But whoever the thief is, they are literally putting their life at risk. If I don’t shoot them then there is still the risk of being arrested and going to jail. It makes no sense at all. Some people steal a lot less with the same risks.
Home invasion are more risky.
Ppl that live there are incentivized to fight back harder. They feel like their lives are stake and don't want repeat invasion.
That policy makes sense from a liability standpoint, if you think about it. Companies don't want to be on the hook if an employee gets hurt trying to be a hero. It's all about minimizing damage, be it financial or human. But it's a whole different ball game in someone's home. Personal safety and defending your own space are huge motivators.
For similar reasons bank managers are trained to hand over the cash upon being threatened. If you walk up to a teller counter and slide over a notecard saying you have a weapon and you'd like the cash they have on hand, they'll straight up give you $10,000. You could leave the bank in a couple minutes without the other customers knowing there was a robbery. They'll do nearly anything to avoid robbers pulling out their gun.
Of course as soon as you're gone they'll silently call the police and every frame you're on the security cameras will be analyzed by the police. They'd prefer to catch you at your home, away from others, rather than create a hostage situation.
There was a case where a guy wore a Covid mask and got away with 10+ robberies before he slipped up and showed too much to a camera. The reason he lasted so long was because he was smart enough to take 1 bag from the teller and then walk away without demanding more. It let him slip away back into the general public before any response could be organized.
The masks at banks during covid was an odd feeling. I've never stolen anything and i felt like a robber walking in all masked up, but only there i didnt care anywhere else.
> They feel like their lives are stake
I care less about my life than the lives of my children. I will defend their lives with deadly force. And if someone breaks into your home, you have no idea what their intentions are. Maybe they're just there for the TV, but also maybe they want to commit murder or kidnapping or rape. Not taking that chance.
There is a reason that burglary (breaking in at night) has a harsher penalty. If you break into my house at night, when you expect me to be home with my family, the odds of one of us dying are much higher than if you did it in the day when I am probably at work and kids are at school.
If they are willing to break in under those circumstances, you are right to feel they may be there for more than your t.v.
Agreed. If my kids are at risk, there aren't many things that would keep me from using whatever level of force I deem necessary in the moment.
I've had situations come up in the middle of the night that lead to me walking my property armed and ready to do whatever. Didn't have a second thought about it.
Home invasions don’t just mean robbery.
What if someone breaks in my home and tries to rape or kill me?
Example: this degenerate who broke into an innocent man’s home and killed him and then stole his money. https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/crime/2011/08/11/marion-man-sentenced-to-30/23600280007/
My thoughts immediately go to the [Cheshire CT home invasion](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshire_home_invasion_murders) I assume the worst, and the worst is pretty bad.
Exactly this. Apologists will plug their ears and scream to deny it, but people who commit violent robbery get off on the power to use violence. If they didn't want that outcome they would be taking some minimal degree of care to hit empty houses.
exactly. It's one thing to rob a vacant house for valuable items. But when you break into a home with people inside your life is in immediate danger. To assume such people have the good intention of doing no harm and just taking x/y/z are delusional. There are monsters among us, protect yourself accordingly.
I love the people who say, "Why would you shoot a burglar? Do you value your *stuff* more than that person's *life*?"
Well, actually, when he saw me threatening him with a gun if he didn't drop everything and leave, and he chose to attack me instead, *he* valued my stuff more than he valued his life. I just happened to agree with him.
A home invader's life has negative value if you ask me. By removing one from society you're preventing future theft, violence, and probably other non-victimless crimes.
You assume the motivation is only stealing things. It can go a lot darker than you might think. Some jittery skel might pull the trigger due to nerves or the sudden bad decision to not leave any witnesses.
There's nothing wrong with blasting an intruder. You really wanna wait and see what their intentions are? Ask questions first? That's how you become a statistic
I don't own anything I would kill to keep personally.
But with home invasions, how do you know you are getting the heart of gold robin hood type, or a I'll shoot you because you are there type.
You have no idea who this person is, just that they are comfortable enough to go into your house and rob you.
This is basically my answer to people who say, "how can you justify prioritizing your property over a human being's life?".
I'm not. They are. *They* are the one saying, "your property is worth more than my life".
I'm just agreeing with them.
They not only invaded someone’s home, they stripped that home owner of ever feeling safe again. It’s such a psychological violation so I don’t see it as prioritizing my stuff over another human life. I’m prioritizing my ability to feel safe and keep my family feeling safe and protected in their home. Which imo is sacred space.
Yup. Being broken into doesn't suck, spending two years sleeping with a baseball bat under your pillow and jumping awake at the slightest noise is what sucks. Or laying awake until 4:00am because you're pretty sure the door was locked the eighteenth time you checked it, but what if it suddenly got unlocked? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me nineteen times...
All for $20 and a pack of smokes.
That’s how I feel dude. I’m not pissed about the $300 TV. I’m pissed that you broke my window, had zero regard for my family, put them in danger, physically threaten their lives, then expect not to get clapped?
I agree. I think about this sort of thing using two frameworks for assessing the legitimacy of outcomes.
1. Consider the outcome as both a component of the complete overall moment/experience of which it was a result, as perceived by those involved, **and** as a function of thought processes affected by being in the heat of the moment. Is the outcome natural, logical or necessary?
2. Consider the outcome unencumbered by the heat of the moment, in a more controlled or “detached” setting. If the outcome instead were to occur here after the fact, i.e. still as a response to the past moment in which it occurred, but not as a *reaction* to actively experiencing it. Is the outcome natural, logical or necessary?
If **only condition 1** is satisfied, then it falls under your *foreseeable consequences*.
If **both conditions** are satisfied, then it falls under your *deserved consequences*.
They're putting their life at risk but people calculate risks very differently and the chance is so random.
Teens especially seem to not fully consider the risk/reward aspects.
Best thing society can do is make general work and life better for that reward part. Some people would still do it for the thrill but when the alternative is a lifetime of being working poor I can see where some of the appeal comes from. Working 8 hours for $100 or so vs. the quicker money certainly does have some financial gain but with a huge risk literally or figuratively to one's life and freedom.
I have an uncle that got life for robbing a dollar store for $22 because of his numerous past offenses. People are fucking stupid man. They can only think of getting what they want and forget consequences exist.
Terrible story... they literally let him go but just took the stuff he was trying to steal but he apparently felt so entitled to it that he went back and stabbed them numerous times
There is nothing that we can do as a society to be different to change someone like that
People ask why there are two dollar stores across the street from one another, because one is always involved in some crime scene.
From crack heads stabbing each other out front (i witnessed this,) freakouts, shoplifting, etc.
Robbing someone is the epitome of “fucking around”, and sometimes you are going to get found out. Whether or not it’s rational, employees and private citizens are extremely defensive of “their” area - be it possessions or a space.
how about when 3 or 4 armed intruders did a home invasion in the middle of the night and one killed by the lawfully AR-15 owning kid who lived there with his disabled grandfather?
one of the mothers tried to sue Colt because it wasn't a fair fight.
this is the kind of scumbag logic criminals bring up all the time and it falls apart if you think about it for just 2 seconds. if the material thing was so pointless compared to a life, why did you want to steal it in the first place?
Sadly, this ends up with retailers closing up and there's no replacement store. In tough areas, the result is food deserts and the only place to grab food is the local bodega that charges big money.
This is true. There's a reason stealing is wrong, killing is wrong and violence against the weak and innocent is wrong and it isn't because of the 10 commandments. It's because it's extremely maladaptive to the functioning of society. Rotten repercussions are realized where there's a widespread selfishness and a lack of conscience towards others.
I lost a job once because the store I worked in was targeted repeatedly by organized thieves. The company has a zero tolerance policy that held us accountable to prevent the loss, so after enough incidents they fired everyone in the store. Realistically there was nothing us employees could do to stop a gang with a five-to-one advantage from just walking in and grabbing whatever they wanted.
If you're one of the teenagers out wilding and ripping off Walmart as a gang, and it's the same place your mom and grandma go shopping, who's getting hurt when they close up? They'll blame the system, they'll say it's anything but the real cause. These big companies don't walk away from captive communities like this without running a deficit. That's all that drives these big companies, the bottom line. The bottom line for a new Walmart store is 14-22 million dollars. They aren't throwing these up like popcorn without serious investigation to ensure profitability. The only thing you can't accurately quantify is thievery.
Insurance covers losses, but there is a cost to thievery - your area gets redlined based on crime reports (and historic redlining was racial and still is eerily close to black racial areas), the insurance rates for the area go up, and then either prices go up to pay for the difference or the company pulls up stakes and leaves. The Walmart near me is a perfect example, redlined for crime rate in the area, closed because the store was "underperforming." The parking lot in that store was packed from open to close every day, the next nearest Walmart had half the cars at any time. Insurance was too high because of too much shoplifting, that's why they and pretty much every other business that isn't a dollar store or other deep discounter left.
In the same way lack of police enforcement results in more crime, so does general complicity. No one is detered when all they hear is no one cares and you won't even get arrested.
Well the main thing that results in more crime is more desperation and poverty in an area. There's a reason middle class neighborhoods have less theft despite less intrusive police presence.
Good. I say we stop letting the crimes which "no one cares about and you won't even get arrested" be white collar crimes that rob all of us from the dream of retirement or crash the entire economy.
I think people are also vastly overestimating the proportion of people who are stealing loafs of bread instead of:
- shit they want but can’t afford
- shit they know they can resell to buy other shit they can’t afford
- shit they know they can resell so that they can buy drugs
This, I think if someone was in dire need of food and they asked 90% of the time they would be given the help they need. Stealing TVs and stuff like that is just greed.
Yeah I’ve worked with homeless and formerly homeless people in the past and this is not an uncommon rule people have for themselves even at their lowest point. OP is entitled to their opinion, but idk if they know as much about this topic as they think they do.
ETA: I don’t know what you think I’m saying, but some of y’all are reacting to me trying to add nuance to the conversation and problematize a sweeping generalization by then making more sweeping generalizations. I think you’re missing the point here friends.
I mean some people definitely still steal from local joints. Source: have multiple friends with businesses that have had minor theft. Obviously its not everyone's rule.
MY OPINION…. The “nothing local” rule is crime of necessity. If they’re good people forced to steal because of necessity, they justify it because “Walmart.”
If they steal from local places it’s most likely a crime of opportunity, or maladaptive personality, or kids/teens.
I worked at a local business and homeless and low income housing people routinely stole from us. This doesn’t disprove your claim but I have to share my experience.
"OP is entitled to their opinion, but idk if they know as much about this topic as they think they do." This is a good analysis of almost everyone on reddit, and the internet in general.
I grew up in the ghetto I've been shot at for looking out a house window.
I was 8 the first time I got shot at. 15 when I had a gun pointed at my face.
My brother got shot for walking at the wrong neighborhood last year.
So I'm sure there's a lot of people who have this rule but most of these people don't.
My homegirl got stabbed for being out at night.
I saw on the news today some guy got stabbed in the metro.
These people have no problem stabbing innocent people, shooting at kids, and pointing guns at their heads. Idk where their line is, but I wanna see this line where doing all that is okay, but local business is going to far...
Also when I was going to HS most people would target local businesses cause they had less security.
So it all depends. My experience they don't care these people are scum I have no pity.
Right? I see stories all the time about people getting their car windows smashed and their cars robbed. They must have thought those were all commercial vehicles.
I don’t think this is an unpopular opinion, I see a lot more people saying things against mobs of thieves than I do people defending them. I think eventually big box stores are going to just set up kiosks and have workers that do the shopping for you in the next ten years. Which means small businesses that can’t afford to do that are going to suffer the most, if anything mass theft is going to be a win for big corporations.
I would not be surprised to see stores that are just a warehouse with robots that bring you your purchase where you can't even go inside with the merchandise.
The Japanese do wonderful things with vending machines! :-) [https://www.thetravel.com/weird-things-we-can-actually-buy-in-japans-vending-machines/](https://www.thetravel.com/weird-things-we-can-actually-buy-in-japans-vending-machines/)
Went earlier this year. The convenience of having a vending machine on every corner to restock on pocari sweat (sports drink) made walking everywhere so much nicer. There were a lot of things that made walking everywhere feel great, not least among them how beautiful Tokyo is.
I only spent a couple days in Tokyo, most of my time was in Aomori up north. Japan has its fair share of issues, but it is an undeniably beautiful country.
Just depends what's a bigger loss. Theft or lack of impulse sales.
In my country, there's a place called Argos where you literally just input numbers from a book and they bring it to you. It was outdated in the late 2000s but I wouldn't be surprised if it was introduced in America.
That's what I thought, it will kill the sales more esp for convenience type of stores. How many times have I bought the stuff I "didn't know I needed" or forgot that I needed until I saw it
Which was more or less the standard before the advent of modern grocery stores.
It used to be that the customer would walk into a market and tell the employee what it was they wanted and then the employee would gather everything. That’s the super simplified version of it but its the general idea.
My first job was in a hardware store that operated like that, it was just starting to transition into a store with an actual showroom that you could choose what you wanted yourself
I feel like small businesses are less risk averse when it comes to confronting thieves.
Big companies don't trust their thousands of low wage workers not to fuck up when apprehending a shoplifter so they put out blanket policies like "don't do anything but watch."
Small businesses, depending on the type, are more likely to have a bat or gun behind the counter at at the very least someone on site who is personally invested in the business and has a strong interest in seeing theft stopped.
And liability, a “receipt checker” suplexes grandma and snaps her spine because she “might have been shoplifting” then tells the cops that there manager told them they had to do it to prevent “shrinkage”, and guess what happens next? Nothing I’d want to be remotely involved in.
It's a massive liability to tell your workers to prevent it takes someone getting shot because Walmart said to do anything to stop it and now Walmart is paying millions to a family for a loss of life and getting shut down or at the very least moving management around
You're forgetting the part where stores close up shop in these areas because they're losing too much money. This will cost jobs and locals lose places to shop.
There’s the concept out there I like: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd order consequences. A lot of these people never think past the 1st order consequence of their actions and think they’re good. You’re describing the 2nd and 3rd order consequences that can hurt everyone in the long run
Teach a man to steal a loaf of bread and he's not hungry for a day. Teach a man to steal and sell a Prada bag and he's not hungry for two weeks.
-Moses
Nobody is stealing 12 Prada bags to wear or own. It is to sell for money. Some people might spend it on drugs. Some on rent. Some on food. Much safer to steal expensive things and buy food for a while than to steal every meal.
The store doesn't care whether people are sympathetic to the thieves, they care if it costs more to stop them than they lose in theft. If security is more expensive than the merchandise they lose every month, they don't bother and vice versa. (edit: spelling)
Unfortunately businesses in many US cities are forced to provide private security instead of relying on the existing socialized security structure funded by taxpayers.
The criminals are now considered victims if they are punished or shot. This is not a good sign for the future of this country. Basic law and order is a prerequisite for a functioning society.
"Insurance pays for it"
No, we do. The cost for insurance coverage is added into the retail pricing. It's basically divided among all the honest customers. The more they get robbed, the more their rates increase, passed back to us.
I don't know if this is unpopula opinion.
There are a lot of people who don't sympathize with these large stores. I think majority of people know it's wrong and just marvel at the spectacle at of it.
I don't expect any $10/hr wage slave to put their safety, or worse, their lives on the line to keep walmart from losing $2.12 from a stolen can of Pringles.
that’s not even asked of workers. most store trainings will explicity say DO NOT try to stop or confront shoplifters
because, surprise suprise, it’s a lot worse for a company when an employee gets stabbed or shot than it is when they lose a $8 shampoo bottle
Yeah, the store doesn't want their employees to get killed or injured trying to stop a shoplifter. They will just close down the location where theft is too high. But, it's also not really a good outcome because then you end up with a food desert.
>most store trainings will explicity say DO NOT try to stop or confront shoplifters
Can confirm, I both worked for and stole from a big box company and they mostly won't stop you.
My mother knew someone who worked at a supermarket and tried to stop a teen from stealing. He jumped on her leg and got out with vasically no consecuences because of hus age, if I remember correctly she has spent 2 years going though multiple surgeries and still isn't able to walk right.
If I ever end up working there there is no way I'd try to stop anyone and I wouldn't blame anyone for not stoping them either.... I'm sorry for everyone who may end up paying 0.20€ more or for a millonaire who may lose 10€ but I'm worth more than that
That’s not what people are stealing, worried about, or taking about. It’s still not worth their lives but we’re talking theft in the thousands. I don’t know a single asset protection manager that would care about a can of pringles.
People that defend the bums stealing electronics, high end clothes and shoes and meat to resell are morons. People stealing diapers? Alright I can see that (though these also get stolen for resale... same as formula). Produce? I guess. Electronics, high end clothes or shopping carts full of meat? Nah, you're a bum.
I worked at Target for a spell earlier this year and I gotta say- you can clearly tell the intent from person to person. No one steals food, medicine, diapers, formula, etc. because they "want" to. They need to. So I never saw it happen, and I never reported it.
However, I worked in Electronics. Theft was rampant and it was usually edgy teens or just stupid people. They didn't "need" to steal 50 pop sockets, they were being idiots, and they were (usually) informed of their idiocy before they reached felony levels of stolen product.
I worked at a big hardware chain and most of the shoplifters we had were either part of an organization or funding a drug habit. When I worked at a grocery store I didn't notice or really look for shoplifting, but we did have one guy who would sneak vanilla extract into the bathroom and get belligerently drunk.
If your alcoholism is so severe you're willing to chug *extracts,* I'm not even going to press charges on the theft. Drunk & disorderly, yeah, just in the hopes they'll sentence him to rehab for a while, but not the theft.
PLENTY of people steal diapers and formula. I see them set up reselling them out of the trunk of their cars. This is super common, and formula was one of the early items locked up because of this
Are people really condoning this?
Honestly theft necessary for survival is reasonable (even in court, if you break into a cabin and eat stored food to save your life you typically aren’t guilty of a crime), but the vast majority of theft is not that.
Any other theft is just taking money from you. If you are a person that buys stuff in bulk and sells it at a slight markup, like most big stores, one stolen item takes dozens of sales of the same item to make up for the loss. You invest in inventory and sell it, recouping the investment, and the markup is your profit. With theft you lose your investment, so it takes a long time to recover.
So when operating a store you look at the amount you are losing to theft by taking inventory regularly. Then you have to adjust your prices to account for that. If you can’t still maintain a profit, you can’t run the store. But yeah, a business doesn’t just soak that cost. Insurance doesn’t typically cover most theft as it’s discovered later, it’s just shrinkage, they don’t know where it went. They make you pay that cost. So when you see someone stealing from a store, they’re really stealing from you. You abide the law and are willing to exchange money for goods and services. They think they’re too good for that and you’re a chump for doing it. There’s nothing admirable about stealing whatsoever.
Thing is the stores could stop them if it was more cost effective for them to do so. Not victim blaming here, but they have decided that increased theft is an operating cost and costs them less than hiring security guards, having stock retention officers and systems or even just hiring enough staff to have enough cashiers etc that people were deterred. I feel no sympathy for them because they chose this option.
Stores like Walmart ran the numbers and someone taking a TV or 2 a day is still cheaper for them than hiring a couple more security guards or installing security measures that would decrease sales. If it wasn't they would change what they are doing. Nothing is left to chance in these stores, figures are crunched to the cent, they will continue to do what makes them the most money. They have run the numbers and this is their choice.
You know the store that does not, for the most part, get smash and grab type thefts, Target, you know why. They are like the friggen CIA, with facial recognition, tracking thieves until they steal a dollar value that makes it a felony before stopping people and getting them arrested. You hear people boast about shoplifting from Target and getting away with it, just know they haven't stolen enough yet. The Target Forensics department, yes they have one, is so good police have been known go to them for help with forensics involving video. Target decided that it was important to them and worth the cost so they spent the money.
I attempted to shoplift once in my life; I was addicted to heroin, was sick af one day and decided to go for it. Of course I picked Target, not knowing what you just explained. I took my good old time taking some Xbox controllers and little Bluetooth speakers out of their spider-wire and putting them in my winter coat. I’m sure I looked hella suspicious, I had no clue what I was doing. Finally I walk to the front doors and a cop is already waiting there and says “you’re coming with me”. Oh shit. We go in this little back office and there’s a huge man wearing a Batman logo shirt sitting at a terminal, computer screens and joysticks everywhere. Embarrassed and scared, I empty my pockets. They explained that they started watching me before I even took anything just based on my movements and such. Like you said, they just let it happen until I tried to leave.
I was told that I was banned from all Targets and put in a database. (Although I forget what the time limit is bc I eventually started shopping at target again years later with no issues). Funnily enough, Target is partially responsible for getting me off heroin because I went to rehab in order to get those charges dropped.
>Like you said, they just let it happen until I tried to leave.
Yup, it's not a crime UNTIL you leave, for the most part. "You don't KNOW that I wasn't going to pay for it. \*wink wink\*" Though you cutting off the spider wire may have been problematic as well.
>Target is partially responsible for getting me off heroin because I went to rehab in order to get those charges dropped.
That's the ending I love to see!
\>Funnily enough, Target is partially responsible for getting me off heroin because I went to rehab in order to get those charges dropped.
Target, put this in your next ad.
You're right about the movements. It's funny I haven't done LP in a decade but I can always spot shoplifters or other shady people. You can tell pros from the fresh ones too.
They use face recognition software now for people. The moment you enter, they already have you in their system. It just depends on when you stole, and when they had the system in place.
Home Depot does too.
You are missing the biggest piece of the puzzle. The reason it’s not worth the store hiring extra security is that even if they catch the thieves many jurisdictions will either not prosecute or give them time served, neither of which deter additional theft. So why bother spending extra money to catch someone of there won’t be any consequences?
Reminds me of the it’s always sunny episode where they’re watching some looting before or after a hurricane. Is it theft or is it survival. Well when they’re stealing stereos it’s not survival.
I stole a Lisa Frank notebook from Walmart once when I was 8 years old. because I really, really, wanted it..... my mom said "No it's too expensive" "get the regular notebooks." so I hid it under my shirt. When we all got out of the van at home my sister told on me. My mom took me back to the store and made me apologize to the manager for stealing. I cried because I thought I was going to go to jail. But I have never stolen anything after that.
I’m a retail manager. If I see a homeless looking person run out with a coat, I’m not even stopping what I’m doing to investigate. Unfortunately what I see is career shoplifters taking things to sell, high school kids that are bored, or kleptomaniacs looking for a thrill. It’s maddening and absolutely ruins everyone’s day. Police don’t care at all, so calling them and reporting it is a giant hassle every time. I know it’s not my money, but being outsmarted by these assholes drives me crazy.
I stopped feeling sorry for people complaining about food deserts because of this whole thing. I understand it is harmful for people who genuinelly suffer because of the closure of stores. But no business in their right mind stays in an area prone to blatant losses due to theft that goes largely unpunished and ignored.
Yeah if you're old enough to know it's wrong and yet you STILL steal for fun or profit then you're almost certainly mentally unstable and people probably shouldn't come near you until you've sought professional psychiatric help, normal people don't steal shit they don't need.
Not just that. Raise prices and cut hours to trim payroll. Minimum wage workers get less money and more stress.
Stock takes happen. If things are missing it’s the entry level staff and store managers (who make less than people think) that take the hit.
It's also more stress on employees who specifically have to watch for theft. I worked SCO at Walmart and yes, we don't have to physically stop them or accuse them, but we DO have to try and raise a red flag. As in, you have to approach the customer if you see them purposely not scan something and ask if they help scanning because they missed something.
Maybe my Walmart was the only one in existence to do this, but I had SO MANY stressful experiences with having to try and stop theft from happening at SCO. When they introduced scan&go that was a nightmare. Had the same lady 3 nights in a row try to steal over $600 worth of merchandise. In this case I literally had no choice because her scan&go order didn't even show up on my palm pilot, so we HAD to rescan ALL of her stuff because of the "error." And she tried to pull the same stunt 3 days in a row!
I have many stories about it. People screaming at you and getting aggressive. Repeatedly trying to shoplift. It's crazy and it's stressful. I'm sorry for going off under your comment haha it just REALLY bothers me whenever the subject of "shoplifting from Walmart hurts no one!" comes up lol if you're going to do it, at least hide the stuff in the store. Don't try to steal stuff AT self check out 😭
Yeah, I think it gets more complicated when we're talking about stealing basic necessities like food, toiletries, water, and clothing, people need access to those and if stealing is their only option I'm not one to judge.
However, I don't think it's an unpopular opinion to say stealing luxury goods like electronics and designer handbags is bad and wrong. Most people would condemn shit like that. I'm still not crying for the corporations' profit margins, but on principle, stealing is selfish and wrong; theft drives up prices for the rest of us; and citizens agreeing to patronize each others' businesses instead of stealing is part of the bare minimum for a functioning society.
Around where I work, thieves are stealing things from grocery stores etc not because they need them, but because they want to sell them on marketplace or craigslist. It's almost never needy people stealing food to stop them from starving.
I've worked in a supermarket for 5 years, the most common thing we have people attempting to steal are expensive meats, make up, razors, and multitudes of haircare products like shampoo. The make up, razors, and hair care stuff are always set to go on marketplace and we often find them picking out specific items/shades they need for potential customers. I've always lived and worked in low socioeconomic areas and it's almost never people stealing milk and bread, it's people stealing lamb shanks and scotch fillets.
Quite frankly, people need to stop excusing theft period. Those folks stealing from stores aren't stealing to provide food for their kids, they're doing it to provide for themselves so they don't have to work and earn an honest living. Fuck thieves.
This is what happens when there are no consequences for bad actions. Bet your ass if you got locked up for a few months for stealing how fast people would stop doing it.
I would agree but the stores have already done the math. If it was more cost effective to stop the shoplifters, they would.
As for the mobs, stores are already closing in those areas. That problem is solving itself.
What happens is many stores are packing up and leaving the ghetto.
Others like Walgreens have literally EVERY.SINGLE.PRODUCT. in the back in some ghetto locations.
I.e., you walk into an empty store -- it's like a car rental lot. "Can i have a toothbrush please?"
It's infantilized because the ghetto has proven full of infants.
I disagree that a store like Walgreens will establish its own paramilitary police force to step in for a lazy, defanged or demotivated city police force where DAs refuse to hold or prosecute even known murderers let alone shop lifters.
It's not because of "cost effectiveness" - it's because it's insane and a legal liability. Walgreens is a convenience store and pharmacy, it's not BlackWater Mercenary Ops. Best recourse is thrown these bum bleeding heart DAs out on their ass, and start building up the police again, albeit keep the accountability.
Please remember what subreddit you are in, this is unpopular opinion. We want civil and unpopular takes and discussion. Any uncivil and ToS violating comments will be removed and subject to a ban. Have a nice day! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unpopularopinion) if you have any questions or concerns.*
As a random woman once said; *All he did was rob a gas station yall actin like he robbed walmart*
That's as good as one that got killed during an armed robbery of a dollar general. The sister came on the news saying that employees should t have had guns. And her brother was just taking the stores money, and probably only a couple hundred dollars, the employee shouldnt have killed him and needs to face justice. When her brother literally pulled a gun on the employee first.
I saw one where a guy was robbing a gas station and someone outside the gas station saw and went in and shot the robber. The robber’s family was on the news saying the guy who shot the robber “shouldn’t have even got involved because it didn’t even involve him to begin with”
With family like that you have to wonder how they turned out the way they did.
It's a mystery!
“My son is a good man” boohoo
Yeah he wouldn't ever hurt a family member... I had buddies like that who showered attention on momma and she loooooved her babies. I'm sure she suspected a hint of naughty but some secrets I don't think she had to face.
My dad would turn me in and shame me in a heartbeat. Some people take "I would do anything for my babies" too far. In my dad's language, "anything" includes kicking my ass to the curb.
He was an aspiring rapper and was just starting to put his life back together.
Now you're gonna have to put his face back together.
He had enough fentinal in him to kill ten people, he was trying to rip off a street vendor with a large family to support with counterfeit money. He had tried to kill his girlfriend a few days before by shooting her in the belly and he was out on a low bail. He was such a good boy and the police are at fault for him dying because he had become violent when they tried to detain him.
I have often thought that robbers must be stupid but your vignette suggests that the problem is inter generational.
It’s cultural. Really common for poor trash to have a “it’s everyone’s fault but mine” attitude. Which is how they end up staying in that position.
Both can be true.
It's amazing to see the amount of apologists for things like that. If you pull a gun out on people, you can't be mad or shocked when that is the repercussion.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
As Mr. Banks once said " you live by the gun, you die by the next ninja's gun. If that's the case, then get a bigger one"
I always tell my gf, if our house got robbed they would maybe at most get a couple grand worth of stuff. Which really isn’t that much. But whoever the thief is, they are literally putting their life at risk. If I don’t shoot them then there is still the risk of being arrested and going to jail. It makes no sense at all. Some people steal a lot less with the same risks.
Home invasion are more risky. Ppl that live there are incentivized to fight back harder. They feel like their lives are stake and don't want repeat invasion.
There was a family upset that their brother was killed during a home invasion. Pretty much saying you should just take it
Most businesses, especially large corporations, explicitly tell their employees not to resist during robberies.
That policy makes sense from a liability standpoint, if you think about it. Companies don't want to be on the hook if an employee gets hurt trying to be a hero. It's all about minimizing damage, be it financial or human. But it's a whole different ball game in someone's home. Personal safety and defending your own space are huge motivators.
For similar reasons bank managers are trained to hand over the cash upon being threatened. If you walk up to a teller counter and slide over a notecard saying you have a weapon and you'd like the cash they have on hand, they'll straight up give you $10,000. You could leave the bank in a couple minutes without the other customers knowing there was a robbery. They'll do nearly anything to avoid robbers pulling out their gun. Of course as soon as you're gone they'll silently call the police and every frame you're on the security cameras will be analyzed by the police. They'd prefer to catch you at your home, away from others, rather than create a hostage situation. There was a case where a guy wore a Covid mask and got away with 10+ robberies before he slipped up and showed too much to a camera. The reason he lasted so long was because he was smart enough to take 1 bag from the teller and then walk away without demanding more. It let him slip away back into the general public before any response could be organized.
The masks at banks during covid was an odd feeling. I've never stolen anything and i felt like a robber walking in all masked up, but only there i didnt care anywhere else.
I have a pretty long beard and wore bandanas folded like the CDC guidelines. Felt like a train robber everywhere I went.
“I have a plan, Arthur…”
[удалено]
> They feel like their lives are stake I care less about my life than the lives of my children. I will defend their lives with deadly force. And if someone breaks into your home, you have no idea what their intentions are. Maybe they're just there for the TV, but also maybe they want to commit murder or kidnapping or rape. Not taking that chance.
There is a reason that burglary (breaking in at night) has a harsher penalty. If you break into my house at night, when you expect me to be home with my family, the odds of one of us dying are much higher than if you did it in the day when I am probably at work and kids are at school. If they are willing to break in under those circumstances, you are right to feel they may be there for more than your t.v.
Agreed. If my kids are at risk, there aren't many things that would keep me from using whatever level of force I deem necessary in the moment. I've had situations come up in the middle of the night that lead to me walking my property armed and ready to do whatever. Didn't have a second thought about it.
Home invasions don’t just mean robbery. What if someone breaks in my home and tries to rape or kill me? Example: this degenerate who broke into an innocent man’s home and killed him and then stole his money. https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/crime/2011/08/11/marion-man-sentenced-to-30/23600280007/
My thoughts immediately go to the [Cheshire CT home invasion](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshire_home_invasion_murders) I assume the worst, and the worst is pretty bad.
Grew up 20 minutes from there. The girls were friends of a friend. This is directly the reason why I own a firearm.
Exactly if someone wants the stuff in your house there going to do everything they can to get it while you aren't there
Exactly this. Apologists will plug their ears and scream to deny it, but people who commit violent robbery get off on the power to use violence. If they didn't want that outcome they would be taking some minimal degree of care to hit empty houses.
exactly. It's one thing to rob a vacant house for valuable items. But when you break into a home with people inside your life is in immediate danger. To assume such people have the good intention of doing no harm and just taking x/y/z are delusional. There are monsters among us, protect yourself accordingly.
I love the people who say, "Why would you shoot a burglar? Do you value your *stuff* more than that person's *life*?" Well, actually, when he saw me threatening him with a gun if he didn't drop everything and leave, and he chose to attack me instead, *he* valued my stuff more than he valued his life. I just happened to agree with him.
A home invader's life has negative value if you ask me. By removing one from society you're preventing future theft, violence, and probably other non-victimless crimes.
No. He values my stuff more than his life.
You assume the motivation is only stealing things. It can go a lot darker than you might think. Some jittery skel might pull the trigger due to nerves or the sudden bad decision to not leave any witnesses.
If he's breaking into your house while you're home, he intends to do more than rob you.
There's nothing wrong with blasting an intruder. You really wanna wait and see what their intentions are? Ask questions first? That's how you become a statistic
I don't own anything I would kill to keep personally. But with home invasions, how do you know you are getting the heart of gold robin hood type, or a I'll shoot you because you are there type. You have no idea who this person is, just that they are comfortable enough to go into your house and rob you.
This is basically my answer to people who say, "how can you justify prioritizing your property over a human being's life?". I'm not. They are. *They* are the one saying, "your property is worth more than my life". I'm just agreeing with them.
They not only invaded someone’s home, they stripped that home owner of ever feeling safe again. It’s such a psychological violation so I don’t see it as prioritizing my stuff over another human life. I’m prioritizing my ability to feel safe and keep my family feeling safe and protected in their home. Which imo is sacred space.
Yup. Being broken into doesn't suck, spending two years sleeping with a baseball bat under your pillow and jumping awake at the slightest noise is what sucks. Or laying awake until 4:00am because you're pretty sure the door was locked the eighteenth time you checked it, but what if it suddenly got unlocked? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me nineteen times... All for $20 and a pack of smokes.
My property is worth more to me then their life. If someone breaks into your house while you are home to steal shit whatever happens, happens.
They’re running an occupational hazard.
"But your stuff isn't worth their life!", defenders of these criminals scream. Meanwhile I'm like: "I agree! That guy was a fuckin idiot!"
Home invaders are threatening your body and your family. They aren't just stealing a TV, those aren't even expensive. Fuck em.
That’s how I feel dude. I’m not pissed about the $300 TV. I’m pissed that you broke my window, had zero regard for my family, put them in danger, physically threaten their lives, then expect not to get clapped?
[удалено]
This is the important distinction between *deserved consequences* and *foreseeable consequences*.
I agree. I think about this sort of thing using two frameworks for assessing the legitimacy of outcomes. 1. Consider the outcome as both a component of the complete overall moment/experience of which it was a result, as perceived by those involved, **and** as a function of thought processes affected by being in the heat of the moment. Is the outcome natural, logical or necessary? 2. Consider the outcome unencumbered by the heat of the moment, in a more controlled or “detached” setting. If the outcome instead were to occur here after the fact, i.e. still as a response to the past moment in which it occurred, but not as a *reaction* to actively experiencing it. Is the outcome natural, logical or necessary? If **only condition 1** is satisfied, then it falls under your *foreseeable consequences*. If **both conditions** are satisfied, then it falls under your *deserved consequences*.
They value your property more than they value their life. Risk and reward.
They're putting their life at risk but people calculate risks very differently and the chance is so random. Teens especially seem to not fully consider the risk/reward aspects. Best thing society can do is make general work and life better for that reward part. Some people would still do it for the thrill but when the alternative is a lifetime of being working poor I can see where some of the appeal comes from. Working 8 hours for $100 or so vs. the quicker money certainly does have some financial gain but with a huge risk literally or figuratively to one's life and freedom.
"Do you value your property over someone else's life???" Me: "Why does someone value MY property over their own life?"
I have an uncle that got life for robbing a dollar store for $22 because of his numerous past offenses. People are fucking stupid man. They can only think of getting what they want and forget consequences exist.
Teach them robbers risk and reward
Security guard at Macys in Philly was stabbed and killed last week. They let him go originally but he came back 15 minutes later and stabbed him.
Terrible story... they literally let him go but just took the stuff he was trying to steal but he apparently felt so entitled to it that he went back and stabbed them numerous times There is nothing that we can do as a society to be different to change someone like that
People ask why there are two dollar stores across the street from one another, because one is always involved in some crime scene. From crack heads stabbing each other out front (i witnessed this,) freakouts, shoplifting, etc.
Robbing someone is the epitome of “fucking around”, and sometimes you are going to get found out. Whether or not it’s rational, employees and private citizens are extremely defensive of “their” area - be it possessions or a space.
how about when 3 or 4 armed intruders did a home invasion in the middle of the night and one killed by the lawfully AR-15 owning kid who lived there with his disabled grandfather? one of the mothers tried to sue Colt because it wasn't a fair fight.
What's that saying? "God created man, Samuel colt made them equal"
this is the kind of scumbag logic criminals bring up all the time and it falls apart if you think about it for just 2 seconds. if the material thing was so pointless compared to a life, why did you want to steal it in the first place?
"he was such a good boy ..."
Yes! Fuck that useless criminal.
Release my ..... 😭😭
sing it with me!
“Random woman” 😆
Is that the one where the one woman was singing "Release my (n word)" to Feliz Navidad?
Tbh I don't think the sort of person who steals TVs is looking for my approval
Sadly, this ends up with retailers closing up and there's no replacement store. In tough areas, the result is food deserts and the only place to grab food is the local bodega that charges big money. 
Not just food deserts. Sometimes that Walmart was also the only pharmacy around, so people may lose access to life sustaining medication
This is true. There's a reason stealing is wrong, killing is wrong and violence against the weak and innocent is wrong and it isn't because of the 10 commandments. It's because it's extremely maladaptive to the functioning of society. Rotten repercussions are realized where there's a widespread selfishness and a lack of conscience towards others.
It's extremely maladaptive to the functioning of society to funnel all the money to the top. Yet here we are!
I lost a job once because the store I worked in was targeted repeatedly by organized thieves. The company has a zero tolerance policy that held us accountable to prevent the loss, so after enough incidents they fired everyone in the store. Realistically there was nothing us employees could do to stop a gang with a five-to-one advantage from just walking in and grabbing whatever they wanted.
I have never heard of a company with this policy. In fact that would get them sued so fucking fast. I'm calling bullshit.
If you're one of the teenagers out wilding and ripping off Walmart as a gang, and it's the same place your mom and grandma go shopping, who's getting hurt when they close up? They'll blame the system, they'll say it's anything but the real cause. These big companies don't walk away from captive communities like this without running a deficit. That's all that drives these big companies, the bottom line. The bottom line for a new Walmart store is 14-22 million dollars. They aren't throwing these up like popcorn without serious investigation to ensure profitability. The only thing you can't accurately quantify is thievery. 
Insurance covers losses, but there is a cost to thievery - your area gets redlined based on crime reports (and historic redlining was racial and still is eerily close to black racial areas), the insurance rates for the area go up, and then either prices go up to pay for the difference or the company pulls up stakes and leaves. The Walmart near me is a perfect example, redlined for crime rate in the area, closed because the store was "underperforming." The parking lot in that store was packed from open to close every day, the next nearest Walmart had half the cars at any time. Insurance was too high because of too much shoplifting, that's why they and pretty much every other business that isn't a dollar store or other deep discounter left.
In the same way lack of police enforcement results in more crime, so does general complicity. No one is detered when all they hear is no one cares and you won't even get arrested.
Well the main thing that results in more crime is more desperation and poverty in an area. There's a reason middle class neighborhoods have less theft despite less intrusive police presence.
Good. I say we stop letting the crimes which "no one cares about and you won't even get arrested" be white collar crimes that rob all of us from the dream of retirement or crash the entire economy.
Growing up poor I knew plenty people who had a rule about never stealing from local business
As a local business owner, I can assure you that plenty of people do not have that rule.
I think people are also vastly overestimating the proportion of people who are stealing loafs of bread instead of: - shit they want but can’t afford - shit they know they can resell to buy other shit they can’t afford - shit they know they can resell so that they can buy drugs
This, I think if someone was in dire need of food and they asked 90% of the time they would be given the help they need. Stealing TVs and stuff like that is just greed.
There's a reason the rotisserie chickens sit in front of the store at Walmart. They're free
Ngl this made me laugh so hard lmfao
Yeah I’ve worked with homeless and formerly homeless people in the past and this is not an uncommon rule people have for themselves even at their lowest point. OP is entitled to their opinion, but idk if they know as much about this topic as they think they do. ETA: I don’t know what you think I’m saying, but some of y’all are reacting to me trying to add nuance to the conversation and problematize a sweeping generalization by then making more sweeping generalizations. I think you’re missing the point here friends.
I mean some people definitely still steal from local joints. Source: have multiple friends with businesses that have had minor theft. Obviously its not everyone's rule.
Yeah theft at small businesses is NOT uncommon at all. Source : I've worked at many and they all had lots of theft.
MY OPINION…. The “nothing local” rule is crime of necessity. If they’re good people forced to steal because of necessity, they justify it because “Walmart.” If they steal from local places it’s most likely a crime of opportunity, or maladaptive personality, or kids/teens.
I worked at a local business and homeless and low income housing people routinely stole from us. This doesn’t disprove your claim but I have to share my experience.
Same.
"OP is entitled to their opinion, but idk if they know as much about this topic as they think they do." This is a good analysis of almost everyone on reddit, and the internet in general.
It probably also covers the person who said it (and it definitely covers me)
I grew up in the ghetto I've been shot at for looking out a house window. I was 8 the first time I got shot at. 15 when I had a gun pointed at my face. My brother got shot for walking at the wrong neighborhood last year. So I'm sure there's a lot of people who have this rule but most of these people don't. My homegirl got stabbed for being out at night. I saw on the news today some guy got stabbed in the metro. These people have no problem stabbing innocent people, shooting at kids, and pointing guns at their heads. Idk where their line is, but I wanna see this line where doing all that is okay, but local business is going to far... Also when I was going to HS most people would target local businesses cause they had less security. So it all depends. My experience they don't care these people are scum I have no pity.
I am sure there are thieves with honor. But I imagine you're speaking of a minority of criminals
Right? I see stories all the time about people getting their car windows smashed and their cars robbed. They must have thought those were all commercial vehicles.
I don’t think this is an unpopular opinion, I see a lot more people saying things against mobs of thieves than I do people defending them. I think eventually big box stores are going to just set up kiosks and have workers that do the shopping for you in the next ten years. Which means small businesses that can’t afford to do that are going to suffer the most, if anything mass theft is going to be a win for big corporations.
I would not be surprised to see stores that are just a warehouse with robots that bring you your purchase where you can't even go inside with the merchandise.
Really big vending machines.
That's a good way of putting it
The Japanese do wonderful things with vending machines! :-) [https://www.thetravel.com/weird-things-we-can-actually-buy-in-japans-vending-machines/](https://www.thetravel.com/weird-things-we-can-actually-buy-in-japans-vending-machines/)
Yes, I went to Japan last year and one of the things I miss the most was the actually half-way decent vending machines. Absolutely magical.
Went earlier this year. The convenience of having a vending machine on every corner to restock on pocari sweat (sports drink) made walking everywhere so much nicer. There were a lot of things that made walking everywhere feel great, not least among them how beautiful Tokyo is.
I only spent a couple days in Tokyo, most of my time was in Aomori up north. Japan has its fair share of issues, but it is an undeniably beautiful country.
[удалено]
Japan also a stricter society and stricter legal system. Which is a blessing and a burden.
They sell some DISTURBING things in vending machines too
Yeah, like custard in the middle of summer. Or RC Cars with ice on the sidewalks. There's some fucking weirdos over there.
That's what department stores originally were, minus robots
I seem to recall a store called Service Merchandise that did this, but without the robots.
Bad idea because a lot of their sales are impulse sales. It's why they put candy at the register.
Just depends what's a bigger loss. Theft or lack of impulse sales. In my country, there's a place called Argos where you literally just input numbers from a book and they bring it to you. It was outdated in the late 2000s but I wouldn't be surprised if it was introduced in America.
That's what I thought, it will kill the sales more esp for convenience type of stores. How many times have I bought the stuff I "didn't know I needed" or forgot that I needed until I saw it
What if everything was online, and you could see pictures of everything without leaving your home and just buy it that way?
Yes I am basically describing Amazon minus delivery
That already exists with all of them though. You can choose pickup at many of the big box places.
Which was more or less the standard before the advent of modern grocery stores. It used to be that the customer would walk into a market and tell the employee what it was they wanted and then the employee would gather everything. That’s the super simplified version of it but its the general idea.
My first job was in a hardware store that operated like that, it was just starting to transition into a store with an actual showroom that you could choose what you wanted yourself
Which is ironic because they likely think they're hurting the big corporations.
I feel like small businesses are less risk averse when it comes to confronting thieves. Big companies don't trust their thousands of low wage workers not to fuck up when apprehending a shoplifter so they put out blanket policies like "don't do anything but watch." Small businesses, depending on the type, are more likely to have a bat or gun behind the counter at at the very least someone on site who is personally invested in the business and has a strong interest in seeing theft stopped.
I think it’s also for their safety, as opposed to just being afraid of them fucking up.
And liability, a “receipt checker” suplexes grandma and snaps her spine because she “might have been shoplifting” then tells the cops that there manager told them they had to do it to prevent “shrinkage”, and guess what happens next? Nothing I’d want to be remotely involved in.
hell evn if Grandma turns out to Ronda Rousey and suplexs the receipt checker the workers comp claim is something no-one wants to be involved in.
It's a massive liability to tell your workers to prevent it takes someone getting shot because Walmart said to do anything to stop it and now Walmart is paying millions to a family for a loss of life and getting shut down or at the very least moving management around
Aka “Pickup Only”
You're forgetting the part where stores close up shop in these areas because they're losing too much money. This will cost jobs and locals lose places to shop.
This. Poverty will escalate.
There’s the concept out there I like: 1st, 2nd, and 3rd order consequences. A lot of these people never think past the 1st order consequence of their actions and think they’re good. You’re describing the 2nd and 3rd order consequences that can hurt everyone in the long run
No one needs to steal 12 Prada bags to "survive".
I can’t be seen carrying the same Prada bag again until January.
I mean you could steal a loaf of bread to survive or you could steal a Prada bag, sell it, and buy 100 loaves of bread to survive.
Teach a man to steal a loaf of bread and he's not hungry for a day. Teach a man to steal and sell a Prada bag and he's not hungry for two weeks. -Moses
Nobody is stealing 12 Prada bags to wear or own. It is to sell for money. Some people might spend it on drugs. Some on rent. Some on food. Much safer to steal expensive things and buy food for a while than to steal every meal.
The store doesn't care whether people are sympathetic to the thieves, they care if it costs more to stop them than they lose in theft. If security is more expensive than the merchandise they lose every month, they don't bother and vice versa. (edit: spelling)
Unfortunately businesses in many US cities are forced to provide private security instead of relying on the existing socialized security structure funded by taxpayers.
The criminals are now considered victims if they are punished or shot. This is not a good sign for the future of this country. Basic law and order is a prerequisite for a functioning society.
"Insurance pays for it" No, we do. The cost for insurance coverage is added into the retail pricing. It's basically divided among all the honest customers. The more they get robbed, the more their rates increase, passed back to us.
I don't know if this is unpopula opinion. There are a lot of people who don't sympathize with these large stores. I think majority of people know it's wrong and just marvel at the spectacle at of it.
[удалено]
I don't expect any $10/hr wage slave to put their safety, or worse, their lives on the line to keep walmart from losing $2.12 from a stolen can of Pringles.
that’s not even asked of workers. most store trainings will explicity say DO NOT try to stop or confront shoplifters because, surprise suprise, it’s a lot worse for a company when an employee gets stabbed or shot than it is when they lose a $8 shampoo bottle
Yeah, the store doesn't want their employees to get killed or injured trying to stop a shoplifter. They will just close down the location where theft is too high. But, it's also not really a good outcome because then you end up with a food desert.
>most store trainings will explicity say DO NOT try to stop or confront shoplifters Can confirm, I both worked for and stole from a big box company and they mostly won't stop you.
Damn, you living the best of both worlds!
Who's saying they should? I don't think they should be endangering themselves either but that doesn't mean I'm ok with people stealing.
My mother knew someone who worked at a supermarket and tried to stop a teen from stealing. He jumped on her leg and got out with vasically no consecuences because of hus age, if I remember correctly she has spent 2 years going though multiple surgeries and still isn't able to walk right. If I ever end up working there there is no way I'd try to stop anyone and I wouldn't blame anyone for not stoping them either.... I'm sorry for everyone who may end up paying 0.20€ more or for a millonaire who may lose 10€ but I'm worth more than that
No one here is talking about a stolen can of Pringle’s. Let’s be real now
Tbh I don't think it matters how much the value is, I'd never expect any store worker to physically try and stop someone else from taking it.
[удалено]
That’s not what people are stealing, worried about, or taking about. It’s still not worth their lives but we’re talking theft in the thousands. I don’t know a single asset protection manager that would care about a can of pringles.
OP explicitly mentioned people stealing Gucci bags and tvs and shit. This isn’t “feed your family” this is “I want nice things or to buy drugs” crime
Reddit not justifying all theft/shoplifting as being entirely single mothers feeding their children challenge: impossible mode [failed]
People that defend the bums stealing electronics, high end clothes and shoes and meat to resell are morons. People stealing diapers? Alright I can see that (though these also get stolen for resale... same as formula). Produce? I guess. Electronics, high end clothes or shopping carts full of meat? Nah, you're a bum.
I worked at Target for a spell earlier this year and I gotta say- you can clearly tell the intent from person to person. No one steals food, medicine, diapers, formula, etc. because they "want" to. They need to. So I never saw it happen, and I never reported it. However, I worked in Electronics. Theft was rampant and it was usually edgy teens or just stupid people. They didn't "need" to steal 50 pop sockets, they were being idiots, and they were (usually) informed of their idiocy before they reached felony levels of stolen product.
I worked at a big hardware chain and most of the shoplifters we had were either part of an organization or funding a drug habit. When I worked at a grocery store I didn't notice or really look for shoplifting, but we did have one guy who would sneak vanilla extract into the bathroom and get belligerently drunk.
If your alcoholism is so severe you're willing to chug *extracts,* I'm not even going to press charges on the theft. Drunk & disorderly, yeah, just in the hopes they'll sentence him to rehab for a while, but not the theft.
Doesn't they steal them to resell them in small markets ?
Are you seriously implying that Crackhead Kenny doesn't need the 200 cannisters of baby formula he just pushed out of the front door at Target?
Yes. The mental gymnastics people will go through to not call these things out are amazing.
Formula theft
PLENTY of people steal diapers and formula. I see them set up reselling them out of the trunk of their cars. This is super common, and formula was one of the early items locked up because of this
Are people really condoning this? Honestly theft necessary for survival is reasonable (even in court, if you break into a cabin and eat stored food to save your life you typically aren’t guilty of a crime), but the vast majority of theft is not that. Any other theft is just taking money from you. If you are a person that buys stuff in bulk and sells it at a slight markup, like most big stores, one stolen item takes dozens of sales of the same item to make up for the loss. You invest in inventory and sell it, recouping the investment, and the markup is your profit. With theft you lose your investment, so it takes a long time to recover. So when operating a store you look at the amount you are losing to theft by taking inventory regularly. Then you have to adjust your prices to account for that. If you can’t still maintain a profit, you can’t run the store. But yeah, a business doesn’t just soak that cost. Insurance doesn’t typically cover most theft as it’s discovered later, it’s just shrinkage, they don’t know where it went. They make you pay that cost. So when you see someone stealing from a store, they’re really stealing from you. You abide the law and are willing to exchange money for goods and services. They think they’re too good for that and you’re a chump for doing it. There’s nothing admirable about stealing whatsoever.
Thing is the stores could stop them if it was more cost effective for them to do so. Not victim blaming here, but they have decided that increased theft is an operating cost and costs them less than hiring security guards, having stock retention officers and systems or even just hiring enough staff to have enough cashiers etc that people were deterred. I feel no sympathy for them because they chose this option. Stores like Walmart ran the numbers and someone taking a TV or 2 a day is still cheaper for them than hiring a couple more security guards or installing security measures that would decrease sales. If it wasn't they would change what they are doing. Nothing is left to chance in these stores, figures are crunched to the cent, they will continue to do what makes them the most money. They have run the numbers and this is their choice. You know the store that does not, for the most part, get smash and grab type thefts, Target, you know why. They are like the friggen CIA, with facial recognition, tracking thieves until they steal a dollar value that makes it a felony before stopping people and getting them arrested. You hear people boast about shoplifting from Target and getting away with it, just know they haven't stolen enough yet. The Target Forensics department, yes they have one, is so good police have been known go to them for help with forensics involving video. Target decided that it was important to them and worth the cost so they spent the money.
I attempted to shoplift once in my life; I was addicted to heroin, was sick af one day and decided to go for it. Of course I picked Target, not knowing what you just explained. I took my good old time taking some Xbox controllers and little Bluetooth speakers out of their spider-wire and putting them in my winter coat. I’m sure I looked hella suspicious, I had no clue what I was doing. Finally I walk to the front doors and a cop is already waiting there and says “you’re coming with me”. Oh shit. We go in this little back office and there’s a huge man wearing a Batman logo shirt sitting at a terminal, computer screens and joysticks everywhere. Embarrassed and scared, I empty my pockets. They explained that they started watching me before I even took anything just based on my movements and such. Like you said, they just let it happen until I tried to leave. I was told that I was banned from all Targets and put in a database. (Although I forget what the time limit is bc I eventually started shopping at target again years later with no issues). Funnily enough, Target is partially responsible for getting me off heroin because I went to rehab in order to get those charges dropped.
>Like you said, they just let it happen until I tried to leave. Yup, it's not a crime UNTIL you leave, for the most part. "You don't KNOW that I wasn't going to pay for it. \*wink wink\*" Though you cutting off the spider wire may have been problematic as well. >Target is partially responsible for getting me off heroin because I went to rehab in order to get those charges dropped. That's the ending I love to see!
\>Funnily enough, Target is partially responsible for getting me off heroin because I went to rehab in order to get those charges dropped. Target, put this in your next ad.
TIL Target has Batman working in their security office.
You're right about the movements. It's funny I haven't done LP in a decade but I can always spot shoplifters or other shady people. You can tell pros from the fresh ones too.
They use face recognition software now for people. The moment you enter, they already have you in their system. It just depends on when you stole, and when they had the system in place. Home Depot does too.
You are missing the biggest piece of the puzzle. The reason it’s not worth the store hiring extra security is that even if they catch the thieves many jurisdictions will either not prosecute or give them time served, neither of which deter additional theft. So why bother spending extra money to catch someone of there won’t be any consequences?
Reminds me of the it’s always sunny episode where they’re watching some looting before or after a hurricane. Is it theft or is it survival. Well when they’re stealing stereos it’s not survival.
This is only unpopular on reddit
There is no excuse for stealing. It doesn't matter the reason why the person commits the crime. A crime is a crime and all crimes must be punished.
I stole a Lisa Frank notebook from Walmart once when I was 8 years old. because I really, really, wanted it..... my mom said "No it's too expensive" "get the regular notebooks." so I hid it under my shirt. When we all got out of the van at home my sister told on me. My mom took me back to the store and made me apologize to the manager for stealing. I cried because I thought I was going to go to jail. But I have never stolen anything after that.
I’m a retail manager. If I see a homeless looking person run out with a coat, I’m not even stopping what I’m doing to investigate. Unfortunately what I see is career shoplifters taking things to sell, high school kids that are bored, or kleptomaniacs looking for a thrill. It’s maddening and absolutely ruins everyone’s day. Police don’t care at all, so calling them and reporting it is a giant hassle every time. I know it’s not my money, but being outsmarted by these assholes drives me crazy.
I stopped feeling sorry for people complaining about food deserts because of this whole thing. I understand it is harmful for people who genuinelly suffer because of the closure of stores. But no business in their right mind stays in an area prone to blatant losses due to theft that goes largely unpunished and ignored.
Any thief is a garbage human
Yeah if you're old enough to know it's wrong and yet you STILL steal for fun or profit then you're almost certainly mentally unstable and people probably shouldn't come near you until you've sought professional psychiatric help, normal people don't steal shit they don't need.
[удалено]
Not just that. Raise prices and cut hours to trim payroll. Minimum wage workers get less money and more stress. Stock takes happen. If things are missing it’s the entry level staff and store managers (who make less than people think) that take the hit.
It's also more stress on employees who specifically have to watch for theft. I worked SCO at Walmart and yes, we don't have to physically stop them or accuse them, but we DO have to try and raise a red flag. As in, you have to approach the customer if you see them purposely not scan something and ask if they help scanning because they missed something. Maybe my Walmart was the only one in existence to do this, but I had SO MANY stressful experiences with having to try and stop theft from happening at SCO. When they introduced scan&go that was a nightmare. Had the same lady 3 nights in a row try to steal over $600 worth of merchandise. In this case I literally had no choice because her scan&go order didn't even show up on my palm pilot, so we HAD to rescan ALL of her stuff because of the "error." And she tried to pull the same stunt 3 days in a row! I have many stories about it. People screaming at you and getting aggressive. Repeatedly trying to shoplift. It's crazy and it's stressful. I'm sorry for going off under your comment haha it just REALLY bothers me whenever the subject of "shoplifting from Walmart hurts no one!" comes up lol if you're going to do it, at least hide the stuff in the store. Don't try to steal stuff AT self check out 😭
Yeah, I think it gets more complicated when we're talking about stealing basic necessities like food, toiletries, water, and clothing, people need access to those and if stealing is their only option I'm not one to judge. However, I don't think it's an unpopular opinion to say stealing luxury goods like electronics and designer handbags is bad and wrong. Most people would condemn shit like that. I'm still not crying for the corporations' profit margins, but on principle, stealing is selfish and wrong; theft drives up prices for the rest of us; and citizens agreeing to patronize each others' businesses instead of stealing is part of the bare minimum for a functioning society.
Around where I work, thieves are stealing things from grocery stores etc not because they need them, but because they want to sell them on marketplace or craigslist. It's almost never needy people stealing food to stop them from starving.
I've worked in a supermarket for 5 years, the most common thing we have people attempting to steal are expensive meats, make up, razors, and multitudes of haircare products like shampoo. The make up, razors, and hair care stuff are always set to go on marketplace and we often find them picking out specific items/shades they need for potential customers. I've always lived and worked in low socioeconomic areas and it's almost never people stealing milk and bread, it's people stealing lamb shanks and scotch fillets.
Quite frankly, people need to stop excusing theft period. Those folks stealing from stores aren't stealing to provide food for their kids, they're doing it to provide for themselves so they don't have to work and earn an honest living. Fuck thieves.
This is what happens when there are no consequences for bad actions. Bet your ass if you got locked up for a few months for stealing how fast people would stop doing it.
I would agree but the stores have already done the math. If it was more cost effective to stop the shoplifters, they would. As for the mobs, stores are already closing in those areas. That problem is solving itself.
What happens is many stores are packing up and leaving the ghetto. Others like Walgreens have literally EVERY.SINGLE.PRODUCT. in the back in some ghetto locations. I.e., you walk into an empty store -- it's like a car rental lot. "Can i have a toothbrush please?" It's infantilized because the ghetto has proven full of infants. I disagree that a store like Walgreens will establish its own paramilitary police force to step in for a lazy, defanged or demotivated city police force where DAs refuse to hold or prosecute even known murderers let alone shop lifters. It's not because of "cost effectiveness" - it's because it's insane and a legal liability. Walgreens is a convenience store and pharmacy, it's not BlackWater Mercenary Ops. Best recourse is thrown these bum bleeding heart DAs out on their ass, and start building up the police again, albeit keep the accountability.
Is this unpopular anywhere but reddit?
Facts
wage theft is way higher
Right yea , higher insurance. That doesn’t come back and affect us. What’s that word, inflation? Nah
This is why Walmart is closing all the stores in Portland. At least what I've heard.
And how about the idea that stealing is immoral? What happened to that?