Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores • Hacker News Board

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#201

Post by anigbrowl » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 10:19 PM UTC

valdiorn wrote: post #41

tyoma wrote: post #12

Earlier 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.

but in Texas, how likely is the staff or the store owner to be armed, and actually confront you? No way that would happen in California. I keep thinking of this event that happened to me in the UK, where laws are equally useless at preventing theft, and staff are just powerless to do anything about it. I chased down a shoplifter. I cornered him in an alley. He stopped, looked at me, and this brief conversation took p…

I totally believe you, but I don't think that's laudable.

It's one thing to go after someone who steals from you or some other individual, but appointing yourself the vigilante protector of the grocer class is not about defending society, it's about your personal drives.

The food you returned almost certainly wound up in the trash (stores have no way of knowing you're not a weirdo who contaminates food for kicks), and the cost of administering 'rescued product' is more than that of just writing off the loss as a business expense, which you'd better believe they already budget around.

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#202

Post by DavidPeiffer » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 10:21 PM UTC

13of40 wrote: post #86

legitster wrote: post #59

A friend of mine is a manager at a Safeway. He says a typical store might lose six figures worth of product in a year. In a bad neighborhood it's not uncommon to lose over a million dollars a year. They hire security personnel, but people figure out that a) even when security catches you, they are not allowed to restrain you and b) the police do not respond to shoplifters (in certain jurisdictions they are not allowe…

I noticed my local Home Depot has done away with the security tag scanners at the front of the store, apparently in favor of a cluster of new cameras above all the exits. I wonder if we're headed for just having an AI watch everyone all the time in the store like the automatic-purchase grocery stores Amazon was setting up. Either that or they discovered that it was better for their bottom line to put real security ar…

From a month ago, they're working on some new methods where power tools won't work until they're activated at the register.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28035458

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#203

Post by keeganpoppen » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 10:21 PM UTC

ahepp wrote: post #152

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

wow, that article is actually a really interesting take on the whole situation, and how there are no easy answers (both in this case and, i suspect, in many others (in sf and beyond)). these sorts of tragedies really highlight the need for a society-wide rethink on how to balance freedom/liberty with the ticking time bomb of negative externalities that certain, highly-justice-system-involved (especially when serious drug abuse issues are in play) offenders represent. at what point is someone "broken" enough from the pov of the rest of society that the humane solution necessitates a more interventionist approach? (not that forcible commission is at all a panacea, or even necessarily a viable/effective approach, of course). i think everyone would agree that letting these sorts of problems fester until they get bad enough that we can justify locking them up and throwing away the key is not a good solution for anyone.

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#204

Post by keeganpoppen » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 10:24 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #123

Workaccount2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure in CA it's that police do not respond to calls for anything less than felony theft. So it creates a situation where you can walk in the store, grab what you want, and then walk out with out having the police called or anyone legally allowed to stop you.

"They were robbing the store, and I think one of them had a machine gun!"

"i think they had some counterfeit $100 bills as well"

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#205

Post by pvtprop » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 10:27 PM UTC

floren wrote: post #30

bko wrote: post #3

> The target was no ordinary shoplifter. He was part of a network of organized professionals, known as boosters, whom CVS had been monitoring for weeks. The company believed the group responsible for stealing almost $50 million in products over five years from dozens of stores in Northern California. The story isn't about people selling stolen goods on Amazon. It's about organized theft operations. One way to stop th…

The SF city government seems to have realized that there's another way to make crime "go down": refuse to prosecute for anything, ideally make it pointless for the cops to even show up, until people stop bothering to report crime. Wow, shoplifting is at record lows!

Corporations want taxes cut to nothing and complain when the public doesn’t want to protect their private property.

Funny how that works.

I notice it’s WSJ complaining.

More “government is inept” sentiment to justify private armies.

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#206

Post by adventured » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 10:28 PM UTC

908B64B197 wrote: post #178

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your opinion, did the multi-decade drop in American crime, regularly discussed by academics who have some tentative theories to explain it, happen or was it all faked? https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/amer...

It's all real. Violent crimes had a multi-decade drop. SF is a very localized anomaly in regards to property crimes.

Definitely not localized.

Los Angeles and New York to name two other prominent cities, are drowning in an epic ongoing crime wave.

SF, LA, NYC all have the same malfunction in terms of city governance.

LA -

LA Mag, July 2021: "‘It’s a Puzzle’: Experts Are Trying to Figure Out What’s Causing L.A.’s Crime Wave"

A puzzle. Experts. Ha ha ha ha. Ha. Bullshit.

https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/crime-in-los-angeles/

NYC -

"NYPD Announces Citywide Crime Statistics for May 2021"

"For the month of May 2021, overall index crime in New York City rose 22% compared with May 2020, driven by a 46.7% increase in robbery (1,182 v. 806) and a 35.6% increase in grand larceny (2,848 v. 2,101). Felony assault saw a 20.5% increase compared to May 2020 (1,979 v. 1,643), and shooting incidents increased to 173 v. 100 in May 2020 (+73%)."

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/pr0603/nypd-citywide-cri...

Some of that is Covid reductions in 2020 (year over year comps), and some of it is still up considerably over 2019 figures. Murders in May were up 100% vs 2019 for example, burglaries were up around 17%. Felony assaults were up slightly vs 2019. Grand larceny was up about 25% vs 2019.

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#207

Post by kevinpet » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 10:31 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #3

> The target was no ordinary shoplifter. He was part of a network of organized professionals, known as boosters, whom CVS had been monitoring for weeks. The company believed the group responsible for stealing almost $50 million in products over five years from dozens of stores in Northern California. The story isn't about people selling stolen goods on Amazon. It's about organized theft operations. One way to stop th…

I'm concerned about lawlessness, but if the only alternative is that $950 theft is a _felony_ that's messed up. This seems more like a case of not being able to deal with crime than lax sentencing.

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#208

Post by keeganpoppen » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 10:33 PM UTC

swayvil wrote: post #79

UBI might fix this. Criminals, as a rule, aren't doing it for lulz. It's like the free speech problem. Don't combat the bad by trying to stamp it out. Combat it by providing a better option.

"as a rule"?

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#209

Post by rahimnathwani » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 10:33 PM UTC

sizzle wrote: post #171

sabarn01 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

murders are hard to fake. The rest of crime data is more subjective than people realize. I was robbed at gunpoint for 1$. I did not report the crime.

That’s really scary, over a damn dollar?!? What was the context here if you don’t mind sharing, why one dollar and not your whole wallet? Why pull a gun?? Isn’t that a felony? Won’t police respond immediately to the report of someone threatening your life via brandishing a gun in public (more people in danger if not caught)?

Usually robbers pull the gun before determining how much money the victim has in their wallet.

They could ask the potential victim first, and then, if the value is too low, not bother pulling a gun. But all potential victims have an incentive to lie and say they only have $1. Knowing that, a rational robber would pull a gun without requesting the info first.

Regarding police responding immediately: you can't call the police until after robber has lowered their gun and/or left the scene. So by the time you call the police, you're no longer being threatened.

Re: Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

#210

Post by busyant » Fri, Sep 03, 2021, 10:33 PM UTC

JackFr wrote: post #13

Mods, please correct headline. This hardly a story about Amazon. It's a story of how Northern California's choice not to prosecute theft has resulted in a massive increase in criminal activity. That CVS has to privately hire security in the face of $10 million/year of goods being brazenly looted out of its stores has little to do with any Amazon policy and more to do with the policies adopted by local district attorn…

There's reasonable evidence that this is how the Sicilian Mafia started: lack of effective state enforcement of laws and property rights... Creating a situation where private security forces arise, offering protection from gangs of thieves and perhaps protection from the security force itself. Obviously, this is not what cvs is doing, but lack of effective law enforcement can lead to unusual and unexpected "solutions."