You have got to be kidding me!!

[gritsar]

Quote:
X2
And people do steal when they have their children with them, all the time. People have been known to stick the stolen merchandise in their childs clothing, carrier, etc.

 

[ChickenAlgebra]

Quote:
X2
And people do steal when they have their children with them, all the time. People have been known to stick the stolen merchandise in their childs clothing, carrier, etc.

Seen that before. Heard that at my job more than a few times. Kids are apparently an excellent "cover". Sigh.

Is it only 2 sandwiches? Yes. Is it $5? Yes. But vs the Kmart issue - in this case, that's 10% of the total that was paid. At what point is theft not acceptable at all vs "only forgot"? In my last job, I heard more than small number of cases where someone forgot to pay for something and got fired as such. ONE case was believable because OTHER PEOPLE saw what happened, those reports differed from the employer who wasn't present at the time and the person had very detailed evidence why he was a little scatter brained that day. Every other one? Yeah right, I'm callous and soured to society now, but nope, didn't believe it as far as I could throw the person.

If you know you are stressed, not feeling your best, dealing with a toddler - all of which makes it very easy to forget to pay for something eaten in the store - pay BEFORE you eat. I never realized that was a hard thing to figure out.

"I forgot to pay for the item" be it a $0.04 washer or a $400 tool is an acceptable reason to be fired by an employer. I'm not sure why it should be different for society.

 

[gritsar]

The same people that are outraged that the store reacted so strongly over a $5 item would likely be outraged if a person came into their house and took a $5 item while they were there. The excuse then would likely sound something like....oh! I was just admiring it and forgot to put it back.

What you have to keep in mind is that businesses pass their losses onto their customers, so in effect we are all paying for that $5 worth of sandwiches.

 

[serendipity22]

No, what we're paying for is this couple being incarcerated and their child being put in custody.

They offered to pay for a sandwich that they never hid. They didn't try and hide the wrapper in their child's clothes in order to get away with anything. They screwed up and offered to 'right' it immediately.

A $5 screw up is costing us *how* much money now? The police, the paperwork, the court system?

Again, the couple was in the wrong. But this is overkill.

 

[greeneggsandham]

On two occasions I had opened a drink in the grocery store.

The first time I had offered to help a friend who's husband was injured get 1000 plus bales of hay in before a storm rolled in. Of course it was 95 degress out and the humidity was off the charts. I had taken two 1 gallon jugs of water with a bag of ice with me knowing I would be very thirsty. After the day was done I had to also stop to get something for dinner. By that time the water was long gone and I was so thristy I would have drank water out of a bucket that had green slime on it. The first thing I did when I walked in the store was grab two bottles of water out of the coolers near the bakery. Sucked them down like no tomorrow. Did my shopping with the two empty bottles in my cart. When I cashed out I made sure those two bottles were the first thing on the belt, explained to the cashier why they were empty, she laughed said I was a good friend, I paid and then left.

The second time I was doing holiday dinner shopping and grabbed a chocolate milk to drink. It was Christmas eve and I had been out finishing all shopping from very earyly in the morning. I didn't eat breakfast or lunch and was feeling not that great, but wanted to get everything finished and get home. As I was putting things on the belt I kept remembering things that I needed to go get. When I finally cashed out and left I realized as I was putting the bags away that the chocolate milk bottle had slid down the inside of the cart. I took the half empty bottle back in and when I walked up to the same cashier she smiled and asked what I had forgotten. I said nothing just forgot to pay for the milk I was drinking. She said not many people would come back in to pay for a $1 item.

Both times the item was paid for even though one did leave the store before being paid.

 

[KristyHall]

Quote:
agreed

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
I have done the same thing. I take a certain medication that will give me the worse case of dry mouth; I'm not talking about mild chapped lips here. I always grab a bottle of water out of the frig. before we leave for town but often it's gone by the time we get there. I go to the cooler cases up front by the registers, get a bottle of water or soda, pay for it at the self checkout and hang onto the receipt.

This whole mess could have been avoided had the people taken the 10 minutes or so to pay for their items before eating them.

 

[CluckyJay]

I have, several times, forgotten to pay for something. It is EASY to do when you have a kid, worrying about bills, just moved to a new place and are LOST. When Eugene was younger, he would swipe things off shelves and stick them in my purse, too. He did this with me standing RIGHT there in front of him--kids are quick.

And I eat all the time in the store. When grocery shopping takes hours and you are pregnant and you know it will take a while for you to eat because first you have to cook and then serve everyone else, its easy to eat in the store. As long as it isn't grapes or something that needs to be weighed. Not to mention, when you're pregnant, you never know when you will be able to eat. There were days I had a couple chances to eat--after that I would vomit everything up.

This WAS a simple mistake that was handled terribly by the store. They didn't shop lift, they forgot to pay for an item and should NOT have been punished. People make simple mistakes everyday.

 

[cassie]

Good grief!! People make mistakes all the time. Sometimes people deliberately steal and sometimes they get distracted and forget to pay for something. I have "shoplifted" twice that I remember. Once I was shopping in Payless and I picked up a hat I liked. I put it on my head because I did not want it to get squashed in the basket. I went through the checkout line, paid for the stuff in the basket and forgot all about the darn hat sitting on my head until I got home and took it off. For the record, the price tag was dangling right in front, Minnie Pearl style, and had the checker looked up she would have seen it. Another time I picked up a paperback book at a Greyhound bus station. Before I paid for it my bus was called and I boarded the bus, my nose still in the book. Should I have gone to jail? You decide. By the way, I did eventually pay for both items.

 

[oldorchardfarm]

yea,thats crazy,this was taken way to the extreme,we had a incindent similiar to this here in woodstock,va where a woman took a picture of her kids in the bathtub(i think everybody has these type of pics that moms black mail with lol) well she was aressted for child pornoghraphy and jailed,needless to say our community was outraged and they are living well off now.