Could a setup like with Amazon Go stores help here? Let in only customers with a verified account.
The shoplifter gangs will just jump over the turnstiles. I imagine any store impervious to this attack wouldn't meet fire safety requirements.
Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores
151–160 of 351 posts
Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
The felony theft limit for Texas is $2,500, but their retail establishments do not report massive shoplifting sprees. Clearly there is more than misdemeanor/felony classification at work here.
My guess is it's the same situation as Seattle; Prosecutors in California refuse to prosecute these cases, meaning the cops refuse to waste time trying to apprehend them. Here's an excellent clip about a famous criminal living free in Seattle that happily expounds on his illegal activity: https://youtu.be/bpAi70WWBlw?t=868
This guy went on to kill is girlfriend then (possibly accidentally) himself. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/crime/too-much-jai...
Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores
#153What’s the point of police or security guards?
When the prosecutor refuses to prosecute anyone, there's no point at all.
Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores
#154Going to CVS is a timesink now that I have to walk around and ask employees to open cases for me. Why can't they use vending machines?
Online order for pickup is close, at least if you can wait 6-8 hours for the order to process.
Had this same experience with a Walmart a week ago, btw -- it took me 15 minutes to find one item I was looking for, and by the time I realized that it was behind a glass door I'd already seen the lines of 8 people waiting for an employee to help them get what they wanted. At that point, I did the math on sunk vs further costs, set down the rest of my purchase, and went on to pay twice as much elsewhere and consider it a bargain.
The pandemic really created conditions that helped me realize how much of retail shopping is a waste of time.
Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But the gangs are taking advantage of the light rules. Not only that, but it incentivizes amateurs to become professionals. Theft becomes a viable career under lax laws. And crime begets poverty, so I suspect this creates quite a few more "desperate amateurs" some of whom will become professionals and so on.
> And crime begets poverty... Doesn't this get cause and effect backwards? You have no job, no prospects, so you turn to crime. How does the reverse narrative work?
The store can't afford to stay open because of all the crime, so it closes and lays off all its employees, who are now all in poverty.
Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores
#156There's an irony to the top comment on an article about organized shoplifting being a link to archive.is to get around the paywall. Especially given all the "tough on crime" and "rule of law" talk in the comments.
Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores
#157There's an irony to the top comment on an article about organized shoplifting being a link to archive.is to get around the paywall. Especially given all the "tough on crime" and "rule of law" talk in the comments.
Reading the article doesn't make it disappear from the website. If I went to a bookstore, read one of their books in the store, then put it back on the shelf and left without buying anything, would you consider that to be shoplifting too?
Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a fairly liberal area of PA I saw a manager of a Walgreens very aggressively (not physically) confront a shoplifter and yell out to never come to the store again. The punk tried to respond, but ultimately cowered to the anger of the manager. In TX they'd be more intimidating, I'm sure. Unless corporate bans guns.
sorry, but in Texas, big box retailers do not use armed staff. Target, Wal Mart, CVS, Walgreens, Best Buy - I have never, ever seen a worker with a gun. As a life-long Texan, this sounds ridiculous to me. A Wal Mart employee is more intimidating, simply because they're Texan? This is not the 1850's.
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Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mention the meat and cheese, but the comment explicitly disavows that motive. P: I chased this guy for law and justice, not meat and cheese. Q: why did you chase for meat cheese?
He said he chased the guy out of principle, but if that were true, it follows that he'd do the same thing if the guy stole a pack of gum, which is even more insane. Even the police won't chase someone down for stealing such small amounts. He's not the police, he's not the owner of the store, he (presumably) don't even work there. He has no skin in that game whatsoever. The store has already accounted for shoplifting…
It's pretty normal to be offered freshly stolen meat and other high value food in pubs, in poor neighborhoods. It's happened to me lots of times. There very much is a secondary food market.
Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why not? Plenty of folks from all walks of life down there get their CCW.
So given the opportunity, Texan bystanders with guns would shoot unarmed shoplifters?
Nah, a big section of the class you take to get your LTC (we don't have a CCW) covers just how screwed you would be if you did so.
...but...theres dumb people everywhere, so when you decide to shop lift in Texas the risk profile is certainly different than it is in CA.