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I've never stolen in my life and don't intend to.
But I'm interested in petty theft and deception, what works and what doesn't. I know a lot of people on TL have stolen shit so why don't you share your tales?.
My latest 2 ideas:
1. A lot of hotels have staff-change around 9pm and the night staff won't recognise you. You can go into the hotel bar, order a few beers and put the bill on a room number. In the last hotel I worked at, this would work. Would it work in other hotels?
2. This is for when there are two of you, and one has a daily bus ticket, and the line to the bus is long, and the bus is a double-decker/or has windows that open. First person gets on the bus using the ticket, then walks down the aisle and passes the ticket through an open window to the other guy whos waiting outside at the end of the queue to get on.
I'm really interested in shoplifting. Is it true that most stores have someone watching the floor through all the cameras all the time?
Sooo many times I'm walking round a shop (large or tiny) and no one can see me and I think "hey, I could just snatch some item right into my pocket then leave, or even just continue shopping". Does this actually work? When doesn't it work?
In some stores (supermarkets for example), is there some secret tagging device? Like, will alarms go off if you try to walk out with some biscuits that haven't been scanned by the machine/cashier?
So ya...obviously I have no idea about this shit and I really want to find out about it. Its just one of those interesting things I know nothing about but would like to.
 
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Read Kevin Mitnick's biography and books.
His "Art of Deception" and "Art of Intrustion", although somewhat unpleasant to read, open your mind when it comes to how criminals think when it comes to these kind of things. etc etc just read them if you're interested in this stuff.
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Art of Deception does not really cover the topics he speaks of, and mostly deals with corporate espionage. Can't say anything about Art of Intrusion as I haven't read that.
Even so I agree with Faust, even though these books may not cover the specific topics you are asking about, they are a good read as they give you quite an insight on the psychological and social side of things.
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Actually that's just as interesting as the "practical" side to this stuff. I never really thought about how (as i wrote in other guys blog just a minute ago) some people can be all morally up themselves but at the same time be thieving and evil bastards. Its easy to say people are just desperate, or messed up, or its culture or nuture or nature, but that doesnt give me any details that im sure there are
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this one time i walked in a gas station grabbed a skittles, prepaid the gas and walked out only halfway from my car did i realize i didnt pay for the candy.  but i kept walking  i actually dont know exactly how the scanner detects things etc etc. but i knew a couple kids from my highschool that would grab cds/dvds at meijer and then go into the bathroom and take the cds/dvds out of their cases. seems pretty smart. i also got to thinkin if you had a friend working there for the trash end of meijer you could throw expensive shit into the trash bins and collect the stuff afterwords.
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I once accidentally walked out of a CompUSA with a video game or PC peripheral as a kid, 'cuz my older brother told me "hold this". Then I just followed him around while we looked at a whole bunch of stuff, and even went straight out the door while he completely forgot that I was holding on to it the whole time. Only until we walked out of the store that I asked him, "Shouldn't we pay for this?"
+ Show Spoiler +We immediately walked right back in and returned it
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At my high school people stole from the gas station store everyday. Some people would work in pairs, when one person with a backpack would bend over to tie their shoe, and their accomplice would slip in what they wanted (usually drinks or larger items for this riskier method). I personally used to just slide things up my sleeves as I passed a corner of an isle. Other more confident people would simply hold what they wanted in their hands as if they were a customer, and then simply leave with a group of paying customers.
It was a pretty common thing, and the store employees definitely acknowledged it, seeing as how they literally had 3 guards on duty during lunch break. Stealing from a convenience store is just as easy as you think. Also, if I recall correctly, there is a general rule for stealing in America that if you make it past the parking lot there is literally nothing they can do.
I don't encourage theft, but if you come from a poor family and need food, do what you gotta do.
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OneFierceZealot : Ah yes thats a good one. I was trying on clothes in stores the other day and was trying to think of a way itd be possible to sneak some out. I acutally took in 6 belts to try on and then could only find 5 whilst there was packaging for 6 (must have put one back without realising at some point). I was so like "omgomg shes actually gonna think i stole one" haha
Then later I was in another store, tried on 3 more belts after taking all the packaging off. No good so i came out and the girl was like "errrr....u took the packaging off, we cant sell them now". I was like "wtf srsly? i better go then" and got out of there :x fuck packaging. how am i suppose to pose in the mirror with all that crap down there.
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I used to work at Best Buy and ppl would steal shit all the time.
these are just a couple of the many stories,
We had these huge karaoke sets that came in big boxes. They'd take the box and open it and take the karaoke stuff out and shove it behind something on some back aisle somewhere. Then they'd put like 10 expensive TV remotes or some other smaller expensive electronics to make it weigh about the same as it does with the karaoke gear in there then package the box back up and walk out the front door with it after paying $50 at the cash register when there's really like $2000 worth of stuff. The front alarm could go off but the front dude just checks the receipt and after seeing he paid for it he lets him go.
More intense situations happen when dudes come into the store in teams of 3 or 4 (all with headsets disguised as cell phones, or cell phones, so they can communicate with each other) and 2 of them distract employees (happened to me while I was working one day) while another one makes off with 8k worth of PC gear. Literally all it takes is for you to turn for 3 seconds and its gg.
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I remember once incident where I thieved as a young teenager. I was probably about fourteen and I used to shoplift candybars (snickers, mars, twix etc) at the store directly below the apartment we lived in a lot. One day I noticed the cashier girl eyeing me and "following me" as I walked through the isles. I did a double-turn and snuck away and ditched the candy bar. When I went to pay she said "And then there was the other piece of candy," thinking she had me. I offered her to search me if she wanted and I even emptied out my pockets. Score 1-0 SolHeiM!
And another time I was quite drunk and we went inside a 7-11. I was eyeing a Daim Ice Cream and I said to my friends how much I really wanted one, and when we left I proceeded to just pick one up and walked out the door. No one noticed.
Petty theft from major chains I don't really give a crap about since no one really gets hurt. But I would never steal from another person.
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These are from when I was a kid, I shamelessly shoplifted candy and stuff, I didn't really know any better :/
I don't know where you live, but in Sweden grocery stores usually does not have those alarm thingies. I'm talking about the type where they have put up two poles which you have to go through to get out. They will start beeping if you have an item that the cashier hasn't registered as far as I know, only seen it happen when the cashier made a mistake. Almost all stores in bigger cities have these, but almost none in the small and mid sized towns.
I've never shoplifted in a store which had those, but I've seen a friend of mine get past them with stuff and they didn't beep. I assume he had the stuff in his shoes or somehow got it through there without passing the item between the detectors, I imagine with some sleight of hand it can be done fairly easily.
As for stores without those, it used to be super easy, perhaps still is. When people aren't watching you can put whatever pretty much anywhere and still get out, unless you're trying to hide five watermelons in your spring jacket or something. I only shoplifted chocolate bars and stuff like that, usually went into either my sleeve if I had a longsleeved shirt and/or jacket. Good old grab two bars and tie your shoe to put the bars inside your pants inside your socks worked well too. If I didn't have either of those, just putting them at the pant/shorts waistline worked well too. I have managed to steal gum right next to the cashier a couple of times by reaching for a pack to buy and getting a pack or two into my sleeve.
Every time I took something I bought something aswell. Like buy one chocolate bar steal five. I don't know if it made any difference, but I always ended up doing it.
I did it until one day I was doing the usual routine, and a guy came up to me and said "What you got in your pocket?". I had a chocolate bar in my sleeve, I got it out and just threw it in his face and ran like the motherfucking wind. My friend was there with me but he didn't get away. Later my friend came to me and said if I went back and talked to them they wouldn't call the cops, so I went and cried and all that, and they just gave me a good yelling. Didn't steal ever again after that.
TL;DR: I was stupid as a kid.
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Here's a short and succinct article about how retail sensors work:
http://www.soyouwanna.com/retail-security-systems-work-9312.html
I had some friends in high school that had worked out a clever system of stealing CDs from stores like wal-mart/best buy that made it extremely hard to catch them, even if you saw them opening the box on the security cameras. But that's just petty theft and not very interesting.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_Me_if_You_Can_(book)
is a pretty amazing story. The stuff he does in the movie doesn't quite show you how smart this guy was. A few times he rented a security guard uniform and stood outside a bank all night with an out of order sign over the drop box. People just came by and gave him their deposits.
He'd open new accounts under fake names and then steal a stack of deposit slips, writing his account name very carefully on several of them. Then he'd return them to the bank, and every now and then someone would fill it out not realizing they were depositing their money into HIS account. He'd come by a day or two later and clean the account out, never to be heard from again.
During his pilot days he realized that any airline service desk would cash a third party check for a pilot up to $100. So he would fill out a whole stack of fake checks to $100, then cash one at every single service desk at major airports. As soon as the shift changed, he'd start over and do it again.
His book is just filled with stuff like that. Most of them wouldn't work anymore due to all of our improvements in technology (now-days someone doing that last trick would have their picture e-mailed to everyone that works at the service desks for those airlines and his "career" would be over just like that), but so many of them were not only ingenious but took a lot of courage to actually do.
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hahaha i just read this on yahoo answers:
Q: i just got caught shoplifting in boots whats going to happen?
A: Scotland Yard has your information, it will be passed on to the military then the Queen!!!
Biochemist: ya i love that movie!!
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I work in retail at a rather large store (about 18-30 employees working at a time) at we have a few cameras that record things near the front of the store but are not watched ever. The only time we go back and watch them is if we suspect an employee of stealing from a register.
As for tags that set off the door alarm, we only place them on high price items (usually above 150 dollars). We also place them on some clothing, but they are really easy to detect (usually a big hunk of plastic). On video games/ high priced items we put a sticker tag that activates the alarm unless it is turned off by a magnet at the check out. These can usually just be ripped off the packaging or cut off if you carry a pocket knife. Often times we find 5-10 of them stuck to a toilet in the bathroom at the end of the night.
Another flaw is that if the door alarm goes off our store policy is to ask them if we can see in the bag (shopping bag only) and if they say no or keep walking we dont do anything. We also aren't allowed to stop people if they set off the alarm if they havent bought anything (we are to assume that they have some sort of phone/other item that sets off alarms by accident)
Basically people steal from our store everyday and we do nothing to try and stop them for the sake of not embarassing an innocent shopper.
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i stole some kid's pokemon cards when i was 9. his cards weren't even that good, iirc, he had a dugtrio and like 10 nidorans
edit: my mistake, thought this was about stealing, no i never shoplifted
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There's a scanner at the door that beeps if you take something. You hear it go haywire all the time at the mall.
Pros take off that stupid black bar that they scan, or just scratch it off, and then walk off with the item. My friends used to do this all the time at Best Buy, until they got security cameras installed one day after so many of their inventory ipods went missing.
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Almost the same as Eben here, we had however the alarms at the entrance to the bathrooms so people got clever and started doing it (cutting open boxes and such) in less patrolled parts of the stores...
Probably best story of me working and a guy getting caught was this guy decided he really wanted a 6 dollar dvd and put it down his pants as one of the cashiers saw... told the manager who is a 6'4 guy and huge.... also english, and the manager goes right up to the guys and says "can i see in your trousers sir?".... needless to say i almost died laughing watching this but the guy gave it up and left the store without incident.
great days... but no if the alarms go off i canada at least i know we are not allowed to follow them or attack them or something stupid. Dont be the hero is what they tell you
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Canada7170 Posts
I went shopping right after Christmas once and the alarms were going off at every store and nobody seemed to care.
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Katowice25012 Posts
On October 19 2010 08:49 Biochemist wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_Me_if_You_Can_(book)is a pretty amazing story. The stuff he does in the movie doesn't quite show you how smart this guy was. A few times he rented a security guard uniform and stood outside a bank all night with an out of order sign over the drop box. People just came by and gave him their deposits. He'd open new accounts under fake names and then steal a stack of deposit slips, writing his account name very carefully on several of them. Then he'd return them to the bank, and every now and then someone would fill it out not realizing they were depositing their money into HIS account. He'd come by a day or two later and clean the account out, never to be heard from again. During his pilot days he realized that any airline service desk would cash a third party check for a pilot up to $100. So he would fill out a whole stack of fake checks to $100, then cash one at every single service desk at major airports. As soon as the shift changed, he'd start over and do it again. His book is just filled with stuff like that. Most of them wouldn't work anymore due to all of our improvements in technology (now-days someone doing that last trick would have their picture e-mailed to everyone that works at the service desks for those airlines and his "career" would be over just like that), but so many of them were not only ingenious but took a lot of courage to actually do.
This is a really great book, the movie is awesome too but the book explains in a lot more detail.
John Dillinger apparently used to dress up as guy who sold bank alarms, then go into banks pretending to sell them better equipment as a way to check out exactly what their security was in close detail. Hilariously genius.
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i download various forms of media on the internet via torrent downloading. now i wouldnt steal a car, but i am a pirate. does this count as shoplifting?
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On October 19 2010 09:04 saltywet wrote:
i stole some kid's pokemon cards when i was 9. his cards weren't even that good, iirc, he had a dugtrio and like 10 nidorans
edit: my mistake, thought this was about stealing, no i never shoplifted
wtf! that's so much worse than shoplifting
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I have two stories for you, OP!
1. I had a friend who used to steal a lot from HyperMarkets (we have A LOT of those here in Romania, like Carrefour/Cora/etc). Probably the equivalent of Wall-Mart, but I don't know how big those Wall-Marts are.
Basically, in a hyper market you'll find everything, part from obscure items like cars/boats/etc. And I mean furniture, electronics, food, clothes, everything.
Needless to say, there are thousands of people in these stores, so they CAN'T possibly follow everyone.
I had a friend who used to pocket a lot of small things: aftershave, condoms, chocolate bars, etc. He would then also buy some trivial items and leave. He did this less than 10 times, but took quite a lot of items (I bought about 10+ packs of condoms from him at a quarter of the price).
However, once he got caught with about $30-40 worth of merchandise. They made him give it back and "pay" for it, which was basically a bribe to the security guards in order for them to NOT call the police.
When they took him in the security room, they have showed recordings of him stealing. Also, he was somewhat told that if he ever shows up there again, they'll be watching him constantly. Not much of a deterrent but you know...
2. This other friend of mine has just started his nasty-spree. We go shopping, and he just takes random drinks (mostly red bull), opens them up and drinks them, then puts the empty can in the shopping cart. Later on (15+ minutes), he puts the item back on a shelf at random, and heads to the register.
Technically, this isn't stealing, since he's not leaving the store with any items. They can, at most, make him pay for the opened bottle if they catch him. But he does this a lot and finds it really funny. He probably won't get caught anytime soon, because the items are too trivial.
However, he's planning on moving on to larger things (like chips, chocolate, etc.). I'll let you know how that turns out.
Once, we were buying stuff for a picnic, and had 30 cans of beer. We took one out for the register to scan and told her we had 29 more (so she would input 30x *scan*), but she didn't hear it. We then proceeded to push the cart through and add the other items to it. She only scanned one can of beer, and nobody around noticed. We told her that she forgot the other 29, but we could've easily left with free booze.
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On October 19 2010 08:44 kuresuti wrote:
I've never shoplifted in a store which had those, but I've seen a friend of mine get past them with stuff and they didn't beep. I assume he had the stuff in his shoes or somehow got it through there without passing the item between the detectors, I imagine with some sleight of hand it can be done fairly easily.
I'm somewhat knowledgeable in shoplifting - I've stole everything from food to electronics to clothes, a backpack, hair straightener... err yeah.
Suffice to say however, I've pretty much stopped.
BUUUUUT, for educational purposes, I can tell you that the beeping things work on one thing - electromagnetism.
The two bars actually have a RANGE so stuffing something in your shoe wont work - you'd possibly have to throw the item over the bars which is kinda stupid.
There are also some bars which are positioned outside the shop - these ones don't have a range in between them - their range is around the bar itself. I'm not the best at physics so I'll let someone else do the explaining if they will, but I'll move on.
There are two ways people can bypass them
a) Remove the magnet from the item
b) wrap it in aluminum foil
There were some cases in Sydney where these single mothers would stick a crapload of junk in prams and cover it with alfoil, just walk out.
Removing the magnetized material is pretty easy you've either got to
a) burn a special part of it to remove something from inside of it and just pull it out, chuck it in a bin
b) just pull hard on the magnet
c) peel it off (eg. DVD's) though often they are cased inside a large plastic box and it would be more economical to just wrap it in alfoil and shove it down your pants.
This information was pretty easily accessible too - at totse
The website is now down for good though there is a new version of it on the webs.
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On October 19 2010 08:38 LuckyFool wrote:
I used to work at Best Buy and ppl would steal shit all the time.
these are just a couple of the many stories,
We had these huge karaoke sets that came in big boxes. They'd take the box and open it and take the karaoke stuff out and shove it behind something on some back aisle somewhere. Then they'd put like 10 expensive TV remotes or some other smaller expensive electronics to make it weigh about the same as it does with the karaoke gear in there then package the box back up and walk out the front door with it after paying $50 at the cash register when there's really like $2000 worth of stuff. The front alarm could go off but the front dude just checks the receipt and after seeing he paid for it he lets him go.
More intense situations happen when dudes come into the store in teams of 3 or 4 (all with headsets disguised as cell phones, or cell phones, so they can communicate with each other) and 2 of them distract employees (happened to me while I was working one day) while another one makes off with 8k worth of PC gear. Literally all it takes is for you to turn for 3 seconds and its gg.
I remember reading stories on digg about how people would buy electronics from bestbuy/CC and when they get home, they would take the stuff out, put a heavy rock in it with approximately the same weight, and somehow reseal the box so that it looks like it have never been opened so the cashier/return person can't really open the box to check it's contents. People ended up buying a new macbook pro and when they got home and opened it, it was literally a rock  .
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I stole a pack of Pokemon cards from this place [that we thought was] called the Hot Spar, which was a convenience store in Okinawa Japan. I always kinda felt bad about it and vowed to never do it again. Mind you, I was ~12 years old at the time.
I also worked at Michaels Arts & Crafts and, the store we were in anyway, the sensors/detectors that beep if you walk out with something were fake. I think someone figured this out and spread the word because every time we did inventory, unreasonable amounts of small items (little bags of beads and whatnot) were always missing. Being as that my primary job was unboxing stuff and scanning them in, I know that I didn't miss any scans, so unless stockers put stuff away wrong, the counts were way off.
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intrigue
Washington, D.C9933 Posts
one of my good friends is a very real kleptomaniac, and every time we end up going anywhere i am surprised all over again. she simply cannot help herself and will take stuff and not even be fully aware of it. very strange and amazing to watch.
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On October 19 2010 09:29 CubEdIn wrote:
2. This other friend of mine has just started his nasty-spree. We go shopping, and he just takes random drinks (mostly red bull), opens them up and drinks them, then puts the empty can in the shopping cart. Later on (15+ minutes), he puts the item back on a shelf at random, and heads to the register.
Technically, this isn't stealing, since he's not leaving the store with any items. They can, at most, make him pay for the opened bottle if they catch him. But he does this a lot and finds it really funny. He probably won't get caught anytime soon, because the items are too trivial.
However, he's planning on moving on to larger things (like chips, chocolate, etc.). I'll let you know how that turns out.
same my friend would grab a new drink so it was buy one get one free LOL
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Places like Best Buy are really easy to steal from, they have terrible security. Those alarms and scanners dont do anything to stop petty theft, more to annoy the innocent customer that didnt have his receipt checked or something.
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Brunei Darussalam622 Posts
Before you read, you must understand that I don't condone stealing unless it is absolutely necessary.
It is so easy to steal from grocery stores.
I've probably swiped over 1000$ of food alone. And it's not even hard. Most of them have cameras, but no one ever watches them and usually only the ones near the registers are on. They are not there to catch shoplifters but rather to make sure the cashiers aren't stealing from the register.
I'd routinely walk into a Food Lion or something with my ex. She'd have her little shoulder bag and i'd just wear a light jacket or something. With a little practice, you can learn to hide so much shit on your body without it showing. And the lady would just throw absolutely anything into her bag. Then we'd walk through the line and buy something stupid like a coke or a jug of milk.
Lived like that for nearly a year. Only been 'caught' once. Someone saw my ex pull a soda that she actually had purchased from her bag and start drinking it. We just happened to also be on a mission that day, so it kinda sucked. They reported it to the bossman and the bossman confronted us, but he was super polite. Our conversation went something like this:
"I've noticed you were putting something into your bag. I know some people like to carry their own bag in with them to avoid plastic bags. That's what you were doing, wasn't it?"
"Yes of course. Thank you for your concern."
And that was that. He left and we discreetly put everything back. We walked out without buying anything, but we also didn't have any stolen goods so it didn't matter if they said something again. We avoided that store for about a month, then it was back to business as usual.
It helps to work in pairs. One spotting and blocking, the other getting the majority of the goods.
Stay away from anything electronic or cosmetics/bathroom supplies unless you are absolutely sure the coast is clear and there are not any trackers. Also, sometimes in book stores they put in little microchips on a tiny slip of paper and tuck it in the pages, so just fan through it and make sure to everything out.
Just be smart and you can get away with petty theft pretty safely. Always be sure to make sure no one is watching but dont look like a creep. Also, don't linger. Either do it or dont. If you spend time in the store trying to psych yourself up, you begin to look suspicious and start to draw attention.
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I don't steal, and I would never think of doing it, but this thread is absolutely AWESOME. Its like a complex real-world puzzle, and it's risky if you do something wrong.
EDIT: Just remembered something interesting. A friend of mine used to go to King Soupers, and grab 2 Xbox Live 12 Month Cards. He'd go to the self-checkout, swipe card A and a pack of gum. Then, he would go up to the cashier and tell him that he would like to void the Xbox Live Card, because he doesn't have enough cash. He would give the cashier card B, and then check out, keeping card A. Supposedly, it works due to a software bug in the King Soupers System. Also works for gift cards.
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Just cover it up by purchasing something. Worked at Best Buy. :D
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i shop lifted a candy bar at my local dollar discount store...
im very ashamed of myself ;_;
but i was hungry...
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On October 19 2010 10:01 Gogleion wrote:
I don't steal, and I would never think of doing it, but this thread is absolutely AWESOME. Its like a complex real-world puzzle, and it's risky if you do something wrong.
EDIT: Just remembered something interesting. A friend of mine used to go to King Soupers, and grab 2 Xbox Live 12 Month Cards. He'd go to the self-checkout, swipe card A and a pack of gum. Then, he would go up to the cashier and tell him that he would like to void the Xbox Live Card, because he doesn't have enough cash. He would give the cashier card B, and then check out, keeping card A. Supposedly, it works due to a software bug in the King Soupers System. Also works for gift cards.
that worked at a grocery store I worked at as well for the longest time, the programers couldn't even figure out how to fix it for almost 6 months. We had to check digits on the back of the cards, it was such a pain
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this one time in highschool i was really high and wanted to make hash and i needed a fine mesh screen to do it, but i had no money. so my friends drove me to home depot and i went into the bathroom with the screen and then put it in the back of my shirt. well somebody called on me or something for walking into the bathroom with an item and people started following me, when i went towards an exit i would see people talking on radios waiting for me, so i went into a aisle with nobody around and ditched it and then walked out, and i know because i saw the same people at every exit like they had beaten me there. it was so scary, and dumb.
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On October 19 2010 09:56 Dienosore wrote:
Before you read, you must understand that I don't condone stealing unless it is absolutely necessary.
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Just be smart and you can get away with petty theft pretty safely. Always be sure to make sure no one is watching but dont look like a creep. Also, don't linger. Either do it or dont. If you spend time in the store trying to psych yourself up, you begin to look suspicious and start to draw attention.
This is very true. One of the two guys I mentioned in my first post (kid was obsessed with stealing stuff) would always come into our dorm rooms and see how much stuff he could take right under our noses. He always gave it back; I think he thought he was honing his skills or something. His philosophy was just to act like the stuff was his and take it like it was the most normal thing in the world. Most people looking straight at him don't even notice what he's doing because he isn't acting suspicious in a way that attracts their focus.
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On October 19 2010 10:09 Hunch wrote:
i shop lifted a candy bar at my local dollar discount store...
im very ashamed of myself ;_;
but i was hungry...
And you will starve again unless you learn the meaning of the law!
In another time you would've gotten five years for what you did, and 14 more because you tried to run...
+ Show Spoiler +Then resurface as a wealthy factory owner under a different alias while escaping an obsessed detective, then adopt a prostitute's daughter, save your son in law, spare the life of your past's spectre, and find redemption before dying with your loved ones + Show Spoiler +
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I've never understood why people steal candy bars and food. When you steal you take a risk, and to get caught for stealing something that costs like five dollars seems silly to me. Just in terms of optimal risk for reward. Though granted if you get caught stealing something that costs $5 vs caught stealing something that costs $50, the consequence/punishment for the latter will be greater. I guess maybe in certain places if you get caught stealing something that costs a couple bucks they just make you put it back or give you a slap on the wrist. But in Singapore I think you'd get in quite a bit of trouble either way.
I'd say theft is fairly easy logistically if you are cautious and careful about it and don't get cocky. But it's difficult in the nerves department though -- you need courage and nerves.
I definitely don't condone stealing though.
EDIT:
On October 19 2010 10:31 Happy.fairytail wrote:Show nested quote +On October 19 2010 10:09 Hunch wrote:
i shop lifted a candy bar at my local dollar discount store...
im very ashamed of myself ;_;
but i was hungry... And you will starve again unless you learn the meaning of the law! In another time you would've gotten five years for what you did, and 14 more because you tried to run... + Show Spoiler +Then resurface as a wealthy factory owner under a different alias while escaping an obsessed detective, then adopt a prostitute's daughter, save your son in law, spare the life of your past's spectre, and find redemption before dying with your loved ones + Show Spoiler +
I know the meaning of these nineteen years! A slave... of the law...
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lol OP, your bus idea won't work, or at least where i'm from it won't.
Bus Tickets have some validation thing on it. SO if you pass it back down the line, and insert it into the validation thing again, it'll just read "passback" and is voided =O
In which you get many many angry people behind you wanting to get on the bus on a rainy day lol
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Canada8029 Posts
I worked in Wal-Mart for a while. There's a room in the front (or the back. Depends on the store) called loss prevention where all the camera feeds go. There's pretty much always somebody in there. Of course, they can't see everything at once since the store's pretty big, so they often rely on the other employees to report stuff to them over the phone or paging system. They'll still surprisingly good at catching people. But then again, a ridiculous number of people seem to steal from Wal-Mart.
Not all items have the tags that set off the sensors at the front of the store. Mostly it's limited to expensive items other stuff like that. Bear in mind that not all entrances have security gates - the garden center, for instance, usually doesn't. It's more closely monitored for that reason. In any case, the security measures are moot if you can just remove the packaging. A lot of people like to steal those shitty discount movies and DS games this way. And that's why they invented that spider wrap stuff.
I'm sure this has been posted on TL before, but I can't find the thread. Anyways, it's a bit heavier than petty theft, but it's fascinating stuff nonetheless:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2992082
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lol, i dont get why there are people in here teaching other people how to shoplift. it's really not something that should be spread around
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I used to know this girl. She was dumb.
She used to go in to Costco and steal other peoples photographs (after development they were put in an alphabetized container for people to pick up.) She would put them on her wall, so that she had a huge mural on her wall composed of pictures of strangers.
One time she got a photo album from a camp for the mentally challenged. She really loved those pictures.
I told her, "people are going to complain that their pictures are missing, and you are going to get caught."
She kept doing it.
Then she got caught.
They let her go, slap on the wrist.
I thought it would be a felony, haha. She can never go to that Costco again though.
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This one time I was out with friends and my sister just hanging out downtown. On the way home we're all packing into the metro(subway) and at the gates my sister informs me that she'd spent all her money and needed to use my card. I was pretty pissed. Metro tickets are literally 1 dollar here. Anyway I said we could squeeze through together but as soon as I scanned it she just went through. Theres like a 10 minute cooldown on the card to prevent passbacks. Now I was really fucking pissed. I ended up jumping the gates because I didn't want to be separated from my friends. Later while waiting for the bus outside a metro stop a Transport Ministry van pulled up beside the line and started doing -something. I got kinda jittery because I've heard of guards actually blocking off the exits of metros and demanding tickets from every passenger and hunting down fare skippers.
Nothing happened. I was mad at my sister for a couple hours.
As a kid (8) I stole a pack of gum. I got home and hid it in the closest without even opening it because I was sure if my parents found it they'd know I'd stolen it and get really mad. They didn't.
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At my highschool I got busted stealing food from the cafeteria with my group of friends. It was very easy to do and two of my friends were actually doing it all year until we got caught in may. School starts in September around here. Pretty much everyone did it though. A bunch of kids would crowd around the area to pick up food and then you take something and walk away. I was surprised that it took the school so long to notice that they were losing money.
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When I was younger, a friend and I would get 2 for 1 PC games at local chain stores by buying a game, leaving the store and opening the game, writing down the cd key and throwing away 1 of the CD's. We would go back in ten mins later and tell them we just bought it, and was missing the CD and every time they would let us go get a new copy. It was really quite easy. We were young and didn't have alot of cash so it worked. Pretty sure it would still work.
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I've only tried shoplifting twice in my life.
First was the stupidest thing ever. My friend and I went to a Smith's grocery store after (middle) school and were looking at the magazines. The issue of PC gamer wrapped in plastic had a demo for Hitman 2, which I really wanted to play, since my brother was a big fan of the first. I had my friend block the camera on the ceiling by facing me with his back to the camera. I ripped through the plastic, got the little paper case out, then had second thoughts and put it back.
When leaving the store, we were approached by security, taken to the back and held for like two hours. The dude would have let me go if I paid for the item, but I didn't have enough money. So in the end he walked us over to the school, told the Dean to watch over the two of us, called our parents, and calmly told us that we should probably stay out of the store for a few days. I got home and immediately deleted the message he left and then told my mom the story from my side... pretty much the way it happened, but it's always easier to do something yourself.
The other was probably around the same age, maybe a little older. Me and a few friends were in a Savers and they had the coolest little figure I had ever seen at the point: A FUCKING PIKACHU ON A PINK SURFBOARD. OMG... Ripped it out of the plastic, put it in my pants, and was nervous as hell as I walked out of the store.
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When I was in high school I worked in the butchery department of my local supermarket. My workmate and I got good at finishing our work (cleaning up after the butchers had finished) quite quickly and to combat boredom we got into this habit of going out into the store and grabbing food and drinks then going back to the butchery department to consume them. It was easy because we were wearing baggy overalls which hid everything plus at that time our supermarket didn't have any cameras. This went on for quite some time until one day I was busted drinking some strawberry milk out the back which I hadn't paid for by one of the butchers who turned up for some reason. All he did was make me go up to the checkout and pay for it. It freaked me out enough to make me stop though. Morally I didn't think it was so bad because it was a large supermarket franchise which paid it's workers crap wages while making big profits. I would never shoplift from a small shop.
Some high school friends had a friend of theirs working at the checkout of another supermarket. They would get a few groceries and she would scan them through but not scan the carton of cigarettes which was the most expensive item.
It is a buzz shoplifting, I can see how people could get addicted to it.
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i have never stolen anything and i hope i will never have to, yea i download from torrents but i cant understand how can someone stole anything from shops (yea candy when you are kid yea OK) but money or PC gear are you kidding me ? its feel wrong.
1. I had 2 classmates back in 2005 when we were 16 they stole candy but A LOT OF candy and they cough em (i never liked that 2 guys) they were so bad at it, just came to shop and took it, no plan what so ever. so many problems you can have from stealing. Its not worth of it.
2. There were a Gaming offline tournament last year where some players took PC gear. for the god sake ! how can you stole from sponsors who support your hobby and eSport.... wow thats stupid, really ?
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Hmm, like that other guy in this thread, the only thing I've ever stolen was a pokemon card when I was a kid after some other guy convinced me to do it together. I felt so bad afterwards, haha. As for shoplifting, I've never done it, but I remember a bunch of guys used to do it regularly during lunch in middle school. They would just wear a jacket, grab some candy bars or whatever and casually stick in a pocket. I also remember some guys bringing a backpack and filling them with whatever alcoholic beverage they found. I don't think anyone of them ever got in trouble, maybe except for one guy who constantly shoplifted.
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When I was 15 or 16 I stole a Zune from Target, I was on suspension so I would just go around and mess around. I decided to go check out what's going on at Target, and I saw a Zune that wasn't put back into the glass container so I put it in my sweater pocket.... It was totally visible that it was in my pocket and I high tailed it out of there, I got to the bus station and opened it up and was all happy I had a lot of adrenaline stealing that. I figured it wouldn't have the detectors go off since it would normally be in the glass case. I then took the bus down to the mall called The Block and went to go read or buy a book at Borders and it set off that alarm when I walked in so I walked out. I would go on but it wouldn't be about shoplifting anymore.
Around 16ish I got into graffiti-art and all that, and I stole a ridiculous amount of stuff mostly pens markers pencils.
I also got caught one time stealing a really gross cheese sandwich think from Smuckers or something at school.
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I just read that whole thread, and daaaaamnnn that's a really fascinating life story. Kinda crazy though, I have respect for him, even though he did ruin some people's lives (but at least he acknowledges it). Well, you reap what you sow..
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On October 19 2010 12:59 SpicyCrab wrote:
I used to know this girl. She was dumb.
She used to go in to Costco and steal other peoples photographs (after development they were put in an alphabetized container for people to pick up.) She would put them on her wall, so that she had a huge mural on her wall composed of pictures of strangers.
One time she got a photo album from a camp for the mentally challenged. She really loved those pictures.
I told her, "people are going to complain that their pictures are missing, and you are going to get caught."
She kept doing it.
Then she got caught.
They let her go, slap on the wrist.
I thought it would be a felony, haha. She can never go to that Costco again though.
hahahaha, that is actually really funny
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+ Show Spoiler +On October 19 2010 12:59 SpicyCrab wrote:
I used to know this girl. She was dumb.
She used to go in to Costco and steal other peoples photographs (after development they were put in an alphabetized container for people to pick up.) She would put them on her wall, so that she had a huge mural on her wall composed of pictures of strangers.
One time she got a photo album from a camp for the mentally challenged. She really loved those pictures.
I told her, "people are going to complain that their pictures are missing, and you are going to get caught."
She kept doing it.
Then she got caught.
They let her go, slap on the wrist.
I thought it would be a felony, haha. She can never go to that Costco again though.
That's pretty funny. The fascination of pictures of strangers reminds me of Amelie
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First time I stole was real silly. I was about 10, some kids were playing checkers in the living room of one of the dorms during some summer boot camp. One of them was eating these things http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bublik I noticed he wasn't looking while being occupied with the game so I came from behind, took one and ate it after relocating.
Second time I stole was once I turned 20. I walked into some store, probably Filene's Basement, noticed a nice golf jacket that was completely out of place on some random shelf, someone already took the exploding paint lock off and prepared it to be carried out. I tried it on, walked around for a bit. All the visible tags were taken off, it only had a price tag inside. I wasn't going to spend that much money but somehow I decided to wear it around for a bit. Found some t-shirt I liked and went to the register. On the way there I realized I'm just going to pay for the shirt and walk out like that, which I did. What do you know, karma is a bitch, that same week I dropped a cig on the jacket and burned 2 huge holes in it.
I took beer from peoples fridges before and picked up money that someone dropped in front of me or kept some extra cash from the register, sneaked into clubs and movie theaters for free, but that didn't constitute "official" stealing to me since you basically don't get caught (thus no stressing).
I haven't done any of that in about 4-5 years, in fact I've returned every bill/wallet I found on the ground and talked people out of stealing things from stores. In the past my own immaturity had a lot to do with this. Taking something that doesn't belong to you will not gradually better your existence unless you make it your living.
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On October 19 2010 08:28 Treeplant wrote:
At my high school people stole from the gas station store everyday. Some people would work in pairs, when one person with a backpack would bend over to tie their shoe, and their accomplice would slip in what they wanted (usually drinks or larger items for this riskier method). I personally used to just slide things up my sleeves as I passed a corner of an isle. Other more confident people would simply hold what they wanted in their hands as if they were a customer, and then simply leave with a group of paying customers.
It was a pretty common thing, and the store employees definitely acknowledged it, seeing as how they literally had 3 guards on duty during lunch break. Stealing from a convenience store is just as easy as you think. Also, if I recall correctly, there is a general rule for stealing in America that if you make it past the parking lot there is literally nothing they can do.
I don't encourage theft, but if you come from a poor family and need food, do what you gotta do.
It's not a rule for everywhere, but having worked several big box retail stores(grocery and electronics), I can say that most big places instruct their employees not to chase shoplifters out of the store.
In fact, at both the places I worked at(in MA) required that you:
See the person before they enter the aisle where the theft takes place
Not lose sight of the person at any point from that time to them exiting the store
See them pick up the item
See them conceal the item
Continue to watch them(again, can't leave sight even for a moment)
They have to pass the registers(if they are paying this means waiting for them to pay for the stuff they aren't stealing)
Leave the store
THEN you can attempt to stop them. If they run, you stand there.
In practice however, most would-be thieves get nervous once you start following them, and tend to "drop" things and put them on the shelf. Sayyy what is this $30 bottle of over the counter meds doing on the ground next to you on the other end of the store?
I once caught a woman using her retarded daughter as a cover.(Turns out it was a regular deal) She would take something, lean over her daughters wheel chair(girl was very very disabled) like she was checking on her, and slip small high ticket items into the back pouch of the wheel chair.
Then there are the dumb ones. We had a guy sprint through the front door to the back of the store, stuff his two coats(wearing both half zipped) full of steak and chicken, and sprinted out of the store. He got away with something like $200 worth of meat, but he dropped over $500. I still don't understand how he thought he was gonna run with more than his body weight in raw meat.
Most stores now have those magnetic(or RFID tags) on their pricey items. Smart stores buy the items with the strips prepackaged on the INSIDE. Cheap ones stick it on the outside.
Want to make your stolen item stealth and create a diversion? Peel the strip off carefully(bending may cause damage, no idea), and drop it into a purse, backpack, pocket, etc of another customer or an employee that you can get close to. Keep your eye on them, when they get in line, get in line with a super cheap item. Just spend a dollar. You finish your transaction, they finish theirs, they get caught, you walk out with whatever you managed to fit in your backpack. They walk away after 3 minutes of annoyance.
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I wonder what 700$ worth of meat looks like. Peeling the strip and creating the diversion sounds interesting, has anyone done this before?
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$700 looks like more than a man could conceivably carry, but some of it is $10-$15 a pound. There is a reason he only made it out with ~$200. It was the ~20 pounds of good stuff that he started with. There was cheap steak and bargain chicken all over the floor in the aisle that he ran down. It did suck for the store because the meat (mostly) had to be tossed, and this new hire was cleaning sticky chicken blood off the floor and products for the rest of his shift.
I've seen the diversion trick in action. The person who did it actually time it so well that the alarms were still going off from the other person, so even if they had messed up, they likely would not have been noticed.
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I worked at Old Navy for a bit and I remember a two dudes doing running starts with filled to the brim with kid clothes get away car was a mini van with no back seats. They had the doors open and just threw the carts right in and drove off. Like 4 of our staff saw and we were like this guy has poor taste there's a GAP down at the other end of the mall.
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I've been a cashier at a retail place for a while, and while I can't go after shoplifters or whatever I used to have to deal with a bunch of people that try return scams and other kinds of stuff that try to rip the store off.
Most of the time it's really easy to tell a scammer apart from a normal customer when you start the transaction. When I first started, the easiest way to tell was the way they smelled. More often than not the scammers smell funny, so whenever somebody smelled like a scammer all I would do is just pay a lot of attention to what they were doing and shut them down. That helped with figuring out a lot of the ones that you have to deal with during busy days.
Past the smell, after I had worked as a cashier long enough there's this little sense that I got in the back of my head that whenever someone tried something funny I could just feel that something was up. Most of the people who try to scam think they smooth as hell and can just weasel their way around, but they are actually just stupid. There's some people who try to distract you and make you look in one direction, while they try to put stuff in the pile you've already rung up. They think they are smooth as hell but I don't even have to look at them to know they're doing it, and I just pull out the item that they stuck in the pile and ask them if they wanted to pay for it.
Some people think they are smooth as hell, switching out the tags for a cheaper item (our tags are usually paper attached to a little plastic string thing) and putting it on something that they want. The lower level of people that do this are just retarded, because they don't even pay attention to the brand or the color of the item and tag they are switching. Eventually the customers start to get a little smarter, and match the color, the brand, and the size before trying to get to you, but they are still stupid because they have big fat hulking elephant hands and crimp the plastic string and mutilate the tag's hole that you can tell in an instant.
Some people think they are smooth as hell by taking the clearance price stickers from one tag, and putting it on another. These are really easy to stop because for one, it's really easy to tell when a tag has been tampered with, and two, these are the people that are so greedy that they lose all their senses. Where I work, we clearance things in levels, so the pricing team has to go by every time they go down in a level and put a new sticker on it, so when these people come up with these things that have a clearance sticker for 70 or 80 percent off of the original price, and the rest of the tag is completely clean, all I have to do is take the sticker off and when they tell me they want it for that price I just look them in the eye and tell them that a customer must have put that sticker there and I ask if they would like me to call a manager over. Most of the time they get scared of the manager (you'd be surprised at how much of cowards scummy people can be) and most of the time the manager will take my side unless it's something petty and stupid (I won't call a manager over for something that's less than 20 dollars unless I'm feeling spiteful, because it's just a waste of time).
My favorite kind of scammer though is the ones that think they are smooth as hell and try return scams. What they try to do in my store is that they return a bunch of stuff without a receipt, and then they want to buy a bunch of stuff at the same time, and they make it so what they buy is slightly more than what they returned, so they have to pay like a dollar or something in cash. Then they go to another register, it doesn't even have to be the same day or the same location, and try to return all the stuff they bought and get cash for it. Normally, you can only get store credit for returns without receipts, but with their way they can usually trick a stupid cashier (which is most of them) into doing something stupid. I've worked as a cashier long enough that I'm faster than they expect and they aren't able to do their scam the right way. One time, I finished this lady's transaction and stapled the new receipt five times (a good way to tell a scam is a mutilated receipt) so she would have a lot of trouble in taking it apart. She started yelling at me that she wanted to do things this certain way when I just explained to her that some customers try to do this scam (the scam she was trying to do) so we have to do things that way. Meanwhile she's trying very carefully to bend the staples out of the receipts so she can try it again.
Another guy I've seen about five hundred times and he's always trying to scam the store, and finally I'm able to get him to ring up with me. He wants to return this stuff, and he gives me the receipt that has a dollar of cash paid on it and the rest of the hundred something dollars not showing how he paid. I put a stop to things and before he is even able to start to take a step towards the exit of the store I get my radio and call (loudly) for LP to call me at my extension.
I had some guy try to do a quickchange scam on me, the one where he tries to distract you and hurry you up and get more change than he's supposed to. One of the cashiers I work with this guy had bought a towel from, and it was like five dollars so she started getting the change out (he wanted to break a hundred) and then he's like you know what, never mind I'll just pay with five dollars as she was giving him the change and she ended up getting confused and accidentally giving him the change, and his hundred back. A different guy tried something like that to me, saying that he gave me more money than he had and asking for more change. I just told him that no, you gave me this much money about fifty times before he turned into a coward and just gave up.
There was this incident at my store where this guy was pacing around with this air purifier. LP was watching him the whole time, and was waiting to see if he would pay for it or if he was just going to make a run for it. Finally, one of the LPs decided that he couldn't take it anymore and just started bolting up the escalator, which incidentally was only a moment before the guy decided that he was going to make a run for it, so all the other LPs followed closely behind. They managed to almost catch up to him (his truck as idling outside our pickup entrance) and grabbed on to him through the window of the truck, but the guy managed to get in and start moving and our LP, realizing that if he hung on that he would be crushed by the truck decided to just let go. The guy ended up driving over the curb and popping his tire, probably causing more damage to his truck than the amount of money that he was able to save by stealing the air purifier.
I wouldn't even mind if the people that tried to do this shit weren't so stupid. I mean at this point I find it almost like an insult that these stupid people think that I am retarded enough to fall for their stupid scams. If someone did something clever I can at least have some respect for them (there are about a million clever ways to steal from stores).
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Here's how you steal shit in most stores:
- Take shit
- Leg it
Most stores policies state they can only chase shoplifters to the door. Make sure you have a clear path etc. And do your research in advance to see which stores you can safely just run the fuck away from. Also don't get camera'd (hoodie, sunglasses, skimask w/e), don't shoplift at a store you're going to want to go to later and lastly make sure you're not fat and an OK sprinter.
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On October 19 2010 08:28 Treeplant wrote:
At my high school people stole from the gas station store everyday. Some people would work in pairs, when one person with a backpack would bend over to tie their shoe, and their accomplice would slip in what they wanted (usually drinks or larger items for this riskier method). I personally used to just slide things up my sleeves as I passed a corner of an isle. Other more confident people would simply hold what they wanted in their hands as if they were a customer, and then simply leave with a group of paying customers.
Yeah, we used to do this a lot in High School.
But, we would go to the mall and steal things from clothing stores. I'm pretty sure my whole wardrobe in my grad year was stuff we stole.
In all honesty, I don't even know where all my money went. Partying, food. I had a job too. So.
I've stolen things from jobs I knew I wouldn't get caught at and didn't care about. I suppose it's all about researching properly, figuring out how everything works, and then being confident about what you're doing.
Sounds bad to be talking about it in such a positive sort of way, isn't it? Kinda like it's a test. Haha.
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I've spent the latest 2~ hours reading through that thread and i'm amazed by how good it is, i wish SomethingAwful didn't require you to pay to fucking register cause i'd love to praise the OP.
If he ever publishes that book i'm sure as hell buying a copy.
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Here's a simple one: You can easily steal those reusable shopping bags at any store, just grab a few off of the hook, rip off the tags, and fill with items. Only a few dollars worth of stuff at max, but its zero risk if nobody sees you ripping off the tags.
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Hotels that i usually stay in when im on business give me a little slip of paper that has my name and room number on it and i have to present this anytime i want to charge something to my room.
Used to do this "window" trick back in high school when someone forgot their bus pass, just hand it out the window so they could get on. Worked quite a bit... once in awhile someone would get caught.
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I also read through the entire thread, and I too would like to send EDGECRUSHER a pm/email. Would anyone here with a SomethingAwful account be willing to forward a message for me?
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So, after reading some of this I began to wonder. At stores like Wal Mart, wouldn't it be easy to swipe something really expensive, electronic wise and then have a friend walk out with something small with a tracker on it. When the alarms beep, friend goes in and says "Oh I forgot and just walked through" or something similar, wouldn't that distract the employees? I think once the friend walked through and it beeped again, they would be satisfied and not think to look on you?
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i even thought to add to that one so they dont get pissy with the accomplice.
say you're in HMV near the exit , person1 (distraction) picks up a CD and walks down the aisle in the direction of the exit. this person accidently trips over and the CD goes flying out his hands through the security bars, setting off the alarm. the person obv makes a big deal about tripping over.
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Osaka27139 Posts
Between this and yelling at a girl to "shut the fuck up" I think you should concentrate on not being such a piece of shit.
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Back in the day, during my Lego obsession years (I think I was 7 or 8), I went to a local KMart with my mother for some errands...
I run on over to the Lego aisle as usual and I saw some new stuff in stock: Roboriders. They looked so awesome and cool, and I immediately eyed some nice frosty spears on the Icy Roborider. I had to have it. I had to have those spears.
But I didn't have any money for the store, and I sure knew my mom wasn't going to give me any. But those spears were begging to be taken. I NEEDED them.
So I opened the canister, popped open the plastic bag with the spears, and took them. I put the rest of the parts back in, closed back up the canister, and slipped it into the back as I made off with the spears. I felt pretty accomplished actually and I still have the ship that I put the spears on that my friend and I worked on making.
Single act of shoplifting I remember. I've never been inclined to steal from a store after that. xd
(Too bad I download more shit than I'd spend on digital stuff in 20 years)
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EPT![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/MFswK.jpg)
