Going to try this again

[Shwa Girl]

i'm not a lawyer, but....
this has happened to me before too, and this is what i learned:
if they're not the cops, they can't search your bag. period.
i would call the customer service line for that store and complain. hard.
if you're lucky, they might send you a gift card or something.

Yes. Store employees cannot search your bag. Even the loss prevention staff (plain clothes store security) don't search you. They take them in a room and then call the police to search. If the police discover a theft, they take the person to jail. At least that's was the procedure at my store.

[tjthemanto]

If I`m not mistaken, a store could get into a LOT of trouble for searching people who they just think look suspicious.

And its often the people who don't look suspicious , who are the ones who are actually stealing stuff.

I had a friend who used to work in " Thee Bay " ..they once caught a well dressed lawyer in fancy suit stealing a pair of socks . He had a newspaper in his hand and had wrapped the socks in the newspaper and rolled up the newspaper ..lol.

Racial profiling and profiling against teenagers is huge in stores ..when more often than not shoplifters come in all shapes and sizes and colours and ages and gender and social status.

[tjthemanto]

Never ever confront a shoplifter.

Just calmly get down their details / description and license plate number etc. All stores have cameras so write down the time and area , when you see anything happening..later on it can easily be picked on the tapes.

There was a " 2001 Audio Video store " ( electronics store ) , where an employee was stabbed when he confronted a shoplifter àt the gate

Some shoplifters belong to well organised criminal gangs and are career criminals with nothing to lose and are very dangerous.

If I am walking down the street and someone tries to rob me , I will give my stuff to them as my life is more imp. So why would I try to protect a store which is well insured when someone shoplifts ?

[Shwa Girl]

Some shoplifters belong to well organised criminal gangs and are career criminals with nothing to lose and are very dangerous.

True.
Quebec gang took $2200 in store merchandise. They were well organized too.
http://thesuburban.com/news/articles/?id=article01530

[screamy]

OP, they wouldn't ask to search his bag at the cash for a lot of reasons - one, the cashier isn't a loss prevention staff member trained to deal with it (and the customer's reactions, which can be violent at times), two, until you're outside of the store, you technically haven't shoplifted (that one has always baffled me, because if I see someone put something in a pocket, I don't expect them to be hauling it out to pay for it - they're concealing it for a reason, IMHO) and three, it's an invitation to get sued by the subject of the search - powers of arrest are expanded under citizen's arrest laws but not many laypeople understand them well; stopping and detaining someone, even when you think you have every right, can quickly lead to an illegal detainment / forcible confinement type of charge; they can claim embarrassment / pain and suffering due to the humiliation of being publicly questioned, etc., etc.

What irritates me to no end is people who "sample" food - grapes / cherries, etc. in the produce department (I couldn't get my head around not washing the stuff first either, BLECH), and bulk items, like candies (a particular pet peeve - I see this all the time and it infuriates me, the example people set for their children by doing this in front of them ("here honey, have a few gummy worms") is just unbelievable). Pay for it and THEN eat it...if your kids need snacks either grab the item and pay for it at CS or an express line and then start your shop with your pacified children - and I get it, they can be a handful when they're hungry - or bring something with you from home. (sorry...rant over...that kind of snuck up on me, yeesh!)

[xox2010]

OP, I agree. Working cash, a guy had a case of pop on the bottom of the cart. I asked him if he still wanted the pop. He said I was the first person in 2 years that caught the pop and he bragged that he had gotten free pop for that time. I told the customer service manager and they took note of him when he went to the parking lot. From then on, he paid for pop because he was being watched.

Just awful. People actually believe that they are in the right for doing this too, since the cashier didn't catch it.

OP, It is definitely not legal, like many others have said, for the store employees to search your bags. Was it the LPO that chased after him or just a regular employee?

[MakaylaGreen]

My husband takes the city bus to and from the mall he works at so he does not have a car or else he would leave the backpack at home.The women that chased after him was just a regular employee not a loss prevention person unless she is trained as both?.My husband was super embarrassed he was not expecting to have issues because normally he has none he shops at this location alot with his backpack sometimes 2-3 times a month and has never been harnessed until the last two weeks.

He came home and told me the story and i told him along the lines of "they really have to suspect theft or see it before they can stop you..but even then they usually require a police officer to come actually search you" but he let them look in his bag he did not want to cause a scene so they searched it found his empty coffee mug and sent him on his way.

Next time he goes in he has to leave it with customer service or there going to escort him as he shops...

[Chantel]

Did they actually say they have to escort him as he shops? For THEM making a false accusation of theft, he now has to be escorted around like a criminal?

I would phone head office and lose my mind on them, as well as the store management. That is disgusting and horrid treatment.

[c_mcarthur]

what used to make me really mad as a teen and still does is when I walk up to stores that say , '' 2 teens at a time please, or teens leave backpacks at front of store''
It's complete ageism and ridiculous.
Most shoplifters arent even teens! I've seen grown women steal! woman with strollers, old ladies with buggies , middle aged men with baggy coats.

One time I actually ripped their sign down and told them I wasn't going to shop at a store that clearly has no respect for anyone.

[xox2010]

There was a Metro around the corner from where both my highschool and another highschool were located. I remember once my friend and I went in, and the manager literally followed us around the store! He did it because there was a large group of students who came in before us who I think were either causing trouble or might have been stealing. Either way, you can't follow people around! We were so pissed.

[tjthemanto]

My husband takes the city bus to and from the mall he works at so he does not have a car or else he would leave the backpack at home.The women that chased after him was just a regular employee not a loss prevention person unless she is trained as both?.My husband was super embarrassed he was not expecting to have issues because normally he has none he shops at this location alot with his backpack sometimes 2-3 times a month and has never been harnessed until the last two weeks.

He came home and told me the story and i told him along the lines of "they really have to suspect theft or see it before they can stop you..but even then they usually require a police officer to come actually search you" but he let them look in his bag he did not want to cause a scene so they searched it found his empty coffee mug and sent him on his way.

Next time he goes in he has to leave it with customer service or there going to escort him as he shops...

Ask him to hand the shopping basket to his escort as he shops around ..he he he..free personal assistant for him

Maybe he should try to have fun with them ..like walk fast then slow down super slow ..try to play hide and seek with them ..lol :lo:

[tjthemanto]

what used to make me really mad as a teen and still does is when I walk up to stores that say , '' 2 teens at a time please, or teens leave backpacks at front of store''
It's complete ageism and ridiculous.
Most shoplifters arent even teens! I've seen grown women steal! woman with strollers, old ladies with buggies , middle aged men with baggy coats.

One time I actually ripped their sign down and told them I wasn't going to shop at a store that clearly has no respect for anyone.

My local Sobeys does that ..they have a high school around the corner ..with kids coming in at lunch time to pick up stuff from their deli..I see tons of backpacks just lying on the floor at the entrance and the poor kids shopping..

What if someone steals their backpacks ? There could be valuables like cell phones , ipods etc etc in them .

[MakaylaGreen]

I am considering calling them up head office tuesday evening and seeing what they have to say.Also turns out my husband said as they were searching his bag that he "hit' somebody with his bag when he was shopping which my husband had no idea that he had done that.If the bag hit somebody as he was walking with it on his back i doubt it was anything worth complaining about..not enough that after he checks out and is leaving thats when there going to chase after him to go though the bag..

This was not a one day thing in fact he was there Thursday and a store employee followed him to the air freshener aisle and made the comment "your fast,was hard to catch up with you" and asked about his backpack and he told them it was empty which it was and that all he wanted to pick up was some Glade air freshner so she said okay i will walk with you to the till.

Friday is when they actually went after him after he paid for the item he was picking up after work and dug in his bag.

I told him no more going there because i want to talk to the stores management and head office because that is insane.He likes that store because he can only seem to find a certain type of garbage bag there he likes and goes there at least twice a month sometimes just to buy garbage bags.I am going to look and see if i can find that brand of bags at Walmart since they dont give him a hard time all of a sudden over a backpack.

[MakaylaGreen]

Ask him to hand the shopping basket to his escort as he shops around ..he he he..free personal assistant for him

Maybe he should try to have fun with them ..like walk fast then slow down super slow ..try to play hide and seek with them ..lol :lo:

Haha! i will mention that to him

[Chantel]

what used to make me really mad as a teen and still does is when I walk up to stores that say , '' 2 teens at a time please, or teens leave backpacks at front of store''
It's complete ageism and ridiculous.
Most shoplifters arent even teens! I've seen grown women steal! woman with strollers, old ladies with buggies , middle aged men with baggy coats.

One time I actually ripped their sign down and told them I wasn't going to shop at a store that clearly has no respect for anyone.

The corner store near my highschool did this. I understand why, because it was a small shop with one or maybe two people working and 20 teenagers in the store at a time could cause more than enough distraction for kids to pocket a LOT of stuff, but I completely agree with you, it is ageism and it is ridiculous.

If you're concerned with people stealing, have security or more staff on hand to stop it.

And worst of all the woman who ran that store was a horrible beyotch about it to all the teenagers, treated everyone like a thief as soon as they walked up to the store. Wake up honey, those teenagers from the school a block up are one of your largest sources of income.

The place is now under new ownership, lol. Wonder why!