Drama at the Co-op

We had a lot of this at local Tesco- usually top-end meat (the fags & spirits being behind counter). It's drug addicts, who sell on the prime steak etc to fund habit. We were only allowed to put it out one pack at a time. Tho I always wondered...even if I was offered cut-price meat, even if it had a good sell-by date...would I actually FANCY it if it had been kicking around in the warm, druggy miasma of the shoplifter's lair for an unspecified time?? How do you know it's not been sitting there for a day or two, gradually going off??

Shoplifters in our local Coop took eggs, flour and bottles. My son was amazed at their brazenness. The attendant on the till just carried on ringing up his goods remarking it was a funny thing to steal.
10 minutes later, a taxi was covered with the stuff and the driver lying in the road with a broken limb.
So sad that these young “adults” seem hell bent on making malicious mischief.

Mothers are just as bad they give a bag of grapes to their child in the trolley to keep them quite which in turn they drop on the floor causing people to slip on them and dump the rest on a shelf!!
It is still theft.

I shall certainly check that everything is sealed in future.
Police should investigate That's why we pay taxes. But its not the only thing we pay for that we don't get fron our government!
If you are hungry there are food banks- not nice I know but better than stealing.
Its us who pay, not shareholders, of course.

My goodness what a mess the next Labour government will have to clear up.

Love your optimism, blue skies

Years ago in WH Smith, I saw someone walk out having pinched a coffee table book worth about £25. Cool as you like he just walked out of the store with it under his jacket. Seems to be even more rife nowadays.

With Foodbanks and the general level of poverty around us, is it surprising that people steal food? Though I do agree that smoked salmon is pushing it a bit.

Not uncommon as you'd think! There used to be a woman in my village that used to be known as "Pockets " due to her constant shoplifting !
I was once shopping in the sales in Next and saw a woman sorting through an armful of clothing in the homeware dept - not unusual, apart from the fact that some items were going in the clear bag provided by the store (instead of a basket) and others were going into one of the shopping bags she was also carrying! She was behind me in the queue at the till, so I had a quiet word with the member of staff standing by the door. Thankfully, as the woman tried to leave the alarm went off and she was last seen being escorted to the back of the shop.

This is a symptom not the cause. This government has decimated our police service while the rich have their own private security and private neighbourhood police. It can only get worse. My goodness what a mess the next Labour government will have to clear up.

I was going into Matalan the other day and as I walked up to the automatic doors a man ran out holding a coat above his head. Took me a while to realise what had happened...he was holding it above the alarm sensors. The security person was at the back of the store at the time, she asked what he looked like but I doubt they did anything more about it.

what do we pay our taxes for? I thought it was for police services

Yes its a sad fact of our times , my sister works in the co op and they just have to accept it . Worse still is that kids are doing it for sweets and drinks as well knowing they can't do a thing . A bunch of young kids walked out with beer from our Morrisons.

I have never seen anyone shoplift anywhere, ever - I must lead a very sheltered life!

One big advantage of social media is these criminal can get their faces known on social media. Shame them.

This sounded quite funny initially but then reality kicked in. As NfkDumpling said the rest of us have to bear the cost of this theft. People are quite brazen about taking a sandwich or other snacks as well as more costly items. I like Grannygravy's solution.

The years I've spent shopping at my local Asda and I've never seen any sign of theft. I'm not saying it can't/doesn't happen but there's never been anything untoward when I've been there--------and this is the NW ! I know there are sensors when you exit but they'd be for certain items.

If I was stealing anything it certainly wouldn't be smoked salmon, yuk. This thief was obviously out to sell it rather than eat it I would imagine. I loathe theft of any sort.

Had a shoplifter before Christmas, AC put their CCTV image on Facebook, twitter etc.

Within an hour they had their name and first thing the following morning the shoplifter rang and demanded they take down CCTV image.

AC declined, within the hour the Shoplifter was back on the premises to pay for what had been stolen, full list price!!! Only then did they remove the image from social media.

Apparently the person involved makes a habit of buying a small price item and then "lifting" a more expensive item, can only hope they learnt their lesson!!!

What I do not understand is why the shop doesn't have a one of those one way push through low gates just after you walk in. Lots of shops have these.

There is only one door but the tills run parallel with the front facade so they could the gates just beyond where that exits. It wouldn't stop all shop-lifting, but if you have to run down the rest of one aisle, up another and past the till, it would make grab and run thefts like the one DD saw much more difficult.

It makes me mad that honest folk have to pay extra to cover the costs of theft.

It’s not the shop owners and shareholders who bear the cost that’s for sure.

I've lost count of the number of times I've come home from my local Tesco to discover e.g. the foil top of a boxed litre of fruit juice lifted and someone has had a good glug (yuk), screwed the plastic cap back on and put it back on the shelf, ripped off one pack of a double pack of goods - on one occasion the cashier said to me "this should be a two-pack" (of pasta), I hadn't noticed, and most recently, removed one mince pie very cleverly from a box of 12. It makes me so mad when I'm caught out by these petty thieves! I literally have to check every item.

I'm forever seeing half-eaten sandwiches on the shelves too.

In my local Co-op I've heard a "code XX" announcement and all the staff bar 1 cashier will come from all over the store and follow someone or a group around. That and the stares of the rest of the customers, usually has the suspects leave the shop!

DD2 worked in a supermarket as a student and they used to follow known shoplifters around until one member of staff was pushed over and broke her arm.

I'm not sure it is done as a way of avoiding VAT, agnurse. I think it is mostly sold in the pub.

We have a village Co-op which is often ram-raided.

Apparently another ruse is to take a basket,fill it with everyday cheap items and one expensive item.They would look like an ordinary shopper but then they ditch the basket in a quiet aisle and nonchalantly walk out of the shop with the expensive item.

When I saw this thread I immediately thought of the late Arthur Marshal who once misheard a BBC news item and thought he'd heard, 'Fighting has broken out in Debenhams' imagining a full scale fracas for directoire knickers. It was 'Lebanon' of course.

One of the reasons packaging is getting harder to open is because people open them instore and eat cheesecake, sweets, you name it. They even take aspirin blister packs and put the box back and drink milk and other drinks, again replacing the bottles.

I was in an M and S Food when I saw a man stiff lotas of steaks into his jacket and run. I told the staff who said 'oh the meat thief is back' and thats all that happened

Stealing food because you or your family are hungry is illegal but, I think, understandable and forgivable. In those circumstances, I would guess that what you would steal is what is easiest to get away with and most filling, so it might include smoked salmon, but probably not. Stealing food because you like it, but it is a bit expensive and you are not prepared to pay for it, is not forgivable and is wrong.

Sadly, from what I understand, food theft is VERY common in the UK. I believe this food is commonly sold on the black market as a way of bypassing VAT.