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Retailers are spending millions to combat organized theft from stores

wsj.com

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

#41

Post by valdiorn »

tyoma wrote: post #12
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 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 place. (and nobody ever believes me, but I don't care; this really did happen)

Him: What are you doing?

Me: I'm chasing you

Him: why?

Me: Because you're a fucking thief!

Him: (confused)...nobody's ever done that before.

Me: (shocked) ... well, I AM, so fucking run!

He dropped the bag (which contained mostly expensive meat and cheese and some other expensive-ish items - apparently really common theft targets) - and ran off. I took the bag back to the store.

Now, I didn't give a shit about a 100 pound loss to Tesco, but if we've completely given up on the rule of law, I'm not sure that's a society I'm happy to live in.

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

#42

Post by crazy_horse »

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #38
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.

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

There are plenty of things about my state that get hated on all the time, and deservingly so, but I'll never get how the West Coast is happy driving productive people away and coddling those that have no intention other than to fuck over society.

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

#43

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#44

Post by dls2016 »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #24
jellicle wrote: post #18

Nobody working on wage theft by employers, by far the largest organized theft ring running.

> Nobody working on wage theft by employers, by far the largest organized theft ring running. Wage theft is absolutely a reality and an injustice that needs to be punished as much as petty theft if not more. But 2 wrongs don't make a right. Both kind of theft need to be prosecuted, especially when it's an organized group, and all the businesses that allow fencing stolen goods need to have the book thrown at them if t…

Unfortunately one has been deemed a “civil matter” and you won’t read any reporting about it in WSJ or Forbes. Hilariously, wage theft is much more organized than any shoplifting conspiracy.

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

#45

Post by BitwiseFool »

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!

I will never not share Goodhart's Law when the opportunity arises: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure". You couple that with redefining what counts as a 'crime', and bam, you get the situation SF is in right now.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart%27s_law

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

#46

Post by JumpCrisscross »

crazy_horse wrote: post #42
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

There are plenty of things about my state that get hated on all the time, and deservingly so, but I'll never get how the West Coast is happy driving productive people away and coddling those that have no intention other than to fuck over society.

> how the West Coast is happy driving productive people

The evidence for this happening in economically-meaningful numbers is scarce. What we do see happening is those productive people disengaging from that broken society—civically, physically and emotionally.

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

#47

Post by JumpCrisscross »

dls2016 wrote: post #39
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…

Wake me when wage theft is prosecuted anywhere near as seriously as shoplifting. Both have been estimated to cost the economy around $40 billion per year in the US. (Simply search “shoplifting cost in us” or “wage theft cost in us” and find your favorite estimate. They’re surprisingly close.)

> Wake me when wage theft is prosecuted anywhere near as seriously as shoplifting

Given the article is about the effects of not prosecuting shoplifting, time to wake up?

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

#49

Post by quakeguy »

Cerium wrote: post #27
55555 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shipping costs make this probably a bad idea.

You would have to do it as a social marketplace. You could post the items you want to pawn and local independent 'shops' could offer the item. Essentially, a reverse Craigslist with pawn dynamics backed by eBay style profiles and feedback.

That sounds like a good idea tbh.

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

#50

Post by ZeroGravitas »

This appears to be part of a long running PR campaign by large corporations that are happy to lock up poor, mentally-ill and drug-addicted people at the taxpayers expense if it lets them fear monger, while at the same time stealing from their own employees.

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/...

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/16/923844907/when-shoplifting-is...

https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/San-Fr...

There's some telltale signs that people are trying to swap between thefts and violent organized theft in a dishonest way, trying to conflate the two.

They're also using it as cover for closing stores that they were going to close anyway.

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