The store was not that busy. I did not see mom pay for her monorail toy. I asked the CM if she saw the mom walk out with the toy not paying for it & she said she did not see anything. She then proceeded to tell me that it happens on a daily basis & that even if they see someone stealing, that THEY are NOT to confront the guest, that only the undercover security people are allowed to do so!
I was shocked! I also said that I guessed that was why t shirts cost $34.99 because we were ultimately paying for the lost revenue & she shook her head yes
. It is just part of the csot of doing business
..
I spent two years working as a Loss Prevention Investigator for a major department store chain.
It was corporate policy that the ONLY employees who were allowed to stop thieves (whether shoplifters or our own employees -- and yes, employees steal, too) were LP employees. Not even the Store Manager could stop someone, although they were allowed to assist us after a stop if needed for safety reasons (e.g. the shoplifter becomes combative after we stop/arrest them and we need assistance restraining them to stop them from injuring us, others, or themselves).
A non-LP employee trying to stop a customer could actually be grounds for termination.
Our company had very clear policy about what elements we were required to observe before we could stop someone, where we were allowed to stop them, where we were not, and how we went about doing the stop. In our state, by stopping a shoplifter we were actually arresting them.
Many times I "knew" someone had stolen from us, but because I did not have all the elements required to stop them, I had to let them leave the store with the stolen goods and could not intervene. The elements were there to ensure that when we stopped someone we were absolutely certain that that person had stolen our merchandise and they still had it on their person when we stopped them. If one had all the elements, there should be no mistaken stops (and, by extensions, no lawsuits for mistaken stops, no traumatized people, etc etc etc).
Theft occurred every day. Theft that we did not catch and stop happened every day. Shrinkage *is* a cost of doing business and does cause higher prices; that is why companies spend money on LP and similar security programs to try to reduce it.
-SW
once in Gatlinburg I picked up something, then needed both hands to look at something else, so I tucked it under my arm. My friend and I spend another 5-10 minutes looking, then left. THREE STORES LATER, we get ice cream and sit on a bench to eat it. Suddenly I noticed it under my arm. I was so mortified that I just walked back into the store, set it down, and walked out.
