Stealing merchandise has always been rampant in the US. Their laws that focus on human rights and consumer protection enable thieves.
It used to be discreet stealing. Umit, silid, suot. Lately they are becoming even bolder.
Because stores don’t employ a lot of people, it is very easy for men and women to steal clothes. They bring dozens to the fitting room, wear all of them specially when it’s winter time. The think jackets protect them from being noticed.
Missing watch
Stores must be wary of women with little children too. They use the kids as shields. They stuff merchandise inside the baby bags, carriage and in the stroller’s pockets.
Alarm? Oh thieves already know how to remove the alarm tags. They bring their own scissors, nippers, blades.
And even if the door alarms, the store keepers, employees, sales staff, will not bother to check. Except for the few stores with armed guards at the entrance.
I’ve experienced it many times before. I bought a sweater from the Michael Kors store. After paying, I asked the cashier to make sure she remove the alarm. She assured me she did. I wore it. I continued to shop and everytime I went inside or outside a store, it sounded. I thought it wasn’t me because there were lots of other customers until my daughter told me “mom, it could be you”. When I made kapa-kapa my sweater, bingo, the alarm tag was still there. I walked back to the MK store to have it removed. I scolded the cashier.
There used to be a home store called Linens & Things. They closed. I know why. A lot of people stole from them. One time I was at their store inside the Great Mall in San Jose, I noticed white woman stuffing a big white plastic bag (
JC Penny is one store that I think loses a lot of money from shop lifters. There’s always no one watching the fitting rooms. They employ older women who don’t have any more energy to run after stealing customers. Correction, if they are stealing then they are not customers. They are simply thieves.
Lowe’s Home Improvement store is one favorite of thieves. According to one of their employees, as frequent as ten times a day, someone will grab something and run off.
At the Apple Store, groups of men storm the store and just grabbed the i/phones. Employees couldn’t do anything. They just watched as their merchandise were carted away.
My niece worked at a Van’s store inside a mall in Fremont. She’d seen black women stealing shoes from their display racks, packing them up in big bags. She couldn’t do anything. She’s not authorized to close the store to lock them up while the police arrives.
When they get caught, they accuse the stores of racial discrimination.
