Fired for catching thieves!!!

[peacefuljeffrey]

I haven't read up on the story, but I will contribute that I was once wrongly accused of stealing a bottle of wine from a Publix supermarket. The idiot security guard (a plainclothes 350 pound sweaty guy) had eyeballed me while I unsuccessfully searched for a particular brand of wine to bring to a party. Since I didn't find it, I went to leave the store. I noticed the guy following me out into the night, so I decided to not go right outside, but to stop and really check out if he was following me.

Near the door, I stopped, pretended to read a poster, and then turned around and confronted him. He made an accusation that I had a bottle of wine under my shirt. Why he thought I had taken a bottle that he clearly could not have seen me take, I don't know -- because the fact is, the bulge he thought was a wine bottle was actually caused by my cellular phone in its holster.

I made him look rather ridiculous in front of the managers and a bunch of customers at the checkout. Before I left, he mumbled that he was sorry. I made him repeat it by loudly asking, "What?! I couldn't hear you." "SORRY."

At least I wasn't manhandled. But if I had been, he probably would've needed an emergency tracheotomy.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[peacefuljeffrey]

Lowes is better than Home Depot. Has been for ever.

I always drive past the Home Depot and shop at Lowes if for no other reason that all the signs in my local Lowes are in English and only English. All the Home Depots have signs in spanish also. That just bugs me.

That would bug me, too. I don't think I have observed that in my nearby HD stores, though. I'll have to check it out. The nearest Lowe's is miles farther away than the nearest HD, though. Bummer.

[GoodSamaritan]

Actually I dislike both Loathes and Home Despot. It always seems that they have umpteen thousand square feet, and maybe 3 employees available at any given time. They have whole aisles of hardware, but their variety is sorely lacking. 9 times out of 10 if I am looking for some oddball little piece of hardware, they don't have it. (reverse thread 5/16X18 bolt or a metric set screw anyone?) Nearly always the little mom and pop hardware store 1 mile from my house has what I am looking for and they are as often as not, cheaper. Also if I go into the small store I can ask a question and usually they employ someone who can give me an intelligent answer, or else tell me how to find out. In Lowes, and HD both I have chased an employee halfway across the store, while they pretended not to hear me, before I got an agitated "I don't know... that's not my department." Also you can push those little help buttons in different sections, and wait until you are blue in the face, but you will still have to go up front and ask for help.

The last time I was forced to buy some #4 cable at HD I couldn't get help. I finally sat there poking away at the keypad on the machine until I hit the correct combination (numbers were worn off 4 buttons, so it wasn't that hard) Got the carousel to roll around to the one I wanted, measured it and cut it myself, with my gerber multitool. I also made sure to tell the manager that, before I left.

Needless to say, I avoid both of them like a hoplophobe avoids gun shows. I support the local store whenever I can. The fact is, they appreciate my business, a whole lot more too.

[Der Alte]

They want to cut their chances of a lawsuit all the while knowing you will be in shortly to pay for the loss. Just think how much cheaper the products would be if they nailed these BGs.

[jcheinaman]

I know whenever I come out of walmart they try and stop me. They see me pay and put the receipt in my wallet. When I go to leave the store they stop me and ask for the receipt. One time out of curiousity I told them no. They literally just watched me pay for the items. The door attendant tried to grab me by the arm. Needless to say I told them to back off and they did.

[Thumper]

Good Lord! The sheep are breeding way to fast!

[Superhouse 15]

Around last Christmas, I "intervened" with a shoplifter at Home Depot. Actually, I saw a disturbance between an older man and a young man. (I called him a crackhead on another forum, was told it's not PC). My intervention was with verbal commands, and said young man stopped, lay down on the ground, fingers behind head, ankles crossed, and urinated on himself. The older man had seen him steal several chainsaws and a generator and had followed him to his car to confront him. He later said he had told the employee at the door to call 911, but the employee was not interested in his story, so he continued to follow the young man "good Samaritan style". At the time they were having a tug of war over the handle of the shopping cart, but had not become physically violent. When I offered my advice "Stop what you're doing, please" or words to that effect, and possibly delivered in a slightly raised voice the young man performed his routine, while the older man simply looked at me with relief. The employees rushed outside, grabbed the shopping cart, and rolled it inside with a mumbled word that PD was already called. Never saw them again. I reported to PD that I had seen exactly what I had seen and eventually went on my way. The employees could not have cared less, although the older man was thankful someone had assisted him. Learned a lesson from that one. I was armed at the time, no one else but the LEO was. I have not been back to that Home Depot since.

Also IIRC Musketeer used to be a Home Depot Employee many years ago. Perhaps he can offer an insiders view.

[dwolsten]

Lowes is better than Home Depot. Has been for ever.

I disagree vehemently. Back when I was in high school, around 1990, Home Depot was a great place to shop, at least where I lived at the time (Knoxville, TN). The associates were all older guys who knew everything about home repair, knew the store inside out, and were completely trustworthy for asking for help. Lowe's, OTOH, was a dump: all the employees were stupid college students who didn't know the difference between caulking and concrete. And for some weird reason, Lowe's thought it was a good idea to sell consumer electronics alongside power tools.

However, sometime after that, HD was sold to another company, and went straight downhill. All the knowledgeable older guys were fired and replaced with moronic teenagers, the stores became dirty, and the CEO, Bob Nardelli, got ridiculous compensation while driving the stock into the ground while Lowe's got better and its stock did great.

I no longer shop at HD unless I have to (extremely rare), and usually shop at Lowe's. It's not as good as HD was back in the late 80s, but those days aren't coming back, and for now Lowe's is OK for what it is.

However, for some things, like power tools, I wouldn't bother shopping at either one of them. You can get much better deals online at places like coastaltool.com or Amazon.com, and those places don't have to worry much about shoplifting so they don't have to make you pay for it. For general hardware, I like cshardware.com; you can get things like cabinet handles and drawer slides for a fraction of the prices at the big-box stores.

[aznav]

The catch 22 in this is that both the Home Depot "suits" and the regular employees are right. As stated above, nothing is more humiliating than to be called out for shoplifting publicly when you are innocent. Nothing is more aggravating than a sleeze lawyer, who combs the papers for potential frivolous lawsuits. Someone earlier said in a post that it's a lose-lose for everyone. Rightly stated. Still there's something inately satisfying about catching a thief in his practice.

[paramedic70002]

ridiculous! Store policy against calling the cops? They might as well post a big sign that says "You can pay for your goods if you want to, but if you don't, that's ok too"

No that's Old Navy!

As to the policy I totally understand it and it makes complete $ense.

There have been many cases of persons in major stores such as this wrongly accuses of out right theft or attempted shoplifting...and more than a few of those people have rightly sued upon being ham handedly handled, or illegally detained and even restrained. There have been numerous news stories through the decades of people and even children being wrongly accused of shoplifting, taken to the backroom of stores by non-police personnel and even searched including being forced to remove their clothing upon threat of calling the police. These things have happened and it's not the fault of the victimized shopper if they decided to sue. They are not losers at life or looking for a free ride....they are victims who have been victimized.
Back in IIRC '00 an older man who had been shopping at a Target in Prince Georges county MD was wrongly accused by an in store security guard of having been a shop lifter because he walked into the store, walked around and looked at objects, and then quickly attempted to walk out. The store security guard observed this and wrongly assumed that the man was there to steal things. Next thing you know the store security guard puts his hands physically on the shopper who having done nothing wrong reacts by wrenching himself loose of the guard and raising his voice stating un hand me. The guard continues and a tussle breaks out. The cops are called and in moments arrives to 'assist' the security guard. The shopper finds himself being tackled by two people, is handcuffed, and in the struggle is pepper sprayed as well.
That man died on the sidewalk going into respiratory arrest as a result of being pressed to the ground on his chest with his arms behind him, being sprayed by the pepper, being in fear of his life, and his age was IIRC in the 60s even as he appeared to be younger. He was a deacon in his church and well liked & respected amongst his church & community.

This situation was a powder keg of trouble at that time for Target and the PG county police. The mans family sued everybody for wrongful death and they were right to do so. I'd do same if it were me and would would hope my wife & children would do same.

Stores having policies such as in this case makes alot of sense as it protecte everyone associated with the store from physical harm, protects their customers from being harassed, and in the big scheme of things beyond the stores built in loss prevention members and/or specifically trained staff the best employees should do is call the cops and be a good witness....for everyones good.

It's a shame in this specific case no concession could be made for the three employees who on the surface of things were just trying to do what they thought was right.

Edit: I went to try and find the news story toward the above case at Target to double check my recollection of how the story went down and to link in this thread.
In my first effort search the motion witin the US Court of Appeals filed on 12/3/03 popped up as the first reference; http://pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/022071.U.pdf
As it turns out my recollection is off a tad as according to the courts statements of fact although my recollection is based on reports in the news at that time and it was some time ago. Anyway this case was a powder keg in MD and store employees acting as loss prevention persons who are not actually in those jobs can result in expensive problems for one and all thus corporate policies such as this are understandable in the big scheme of things.

- Janq

But we have people here who are willing to fight if they're right. What good is being right when you're dead?

[Miggy]

This might be somewhat related to the thread. A couple of months back I took the American Hospitality and Lodging Safety Officer class which deals wih the specifics of a Safety Officer working for the Hotel Industry. One of the things that shook me was what the trainer called the "free agent" situation. Basically stated is that if you get in some sort of trouble with a guest or visitor that ends up in a he/said/he said lawsuit and things look bad against you, be ready to find yourself as a free agent and the hotel will wash their hands off you. Basically Corporate won't even make the effort to fight the lawsuit, it will settle and you are on your own if you also get sued. And since we do not have a FOB equivalent, the Free Agent thing has made me much more wary of any interaction I may have with a guest...either good or bad for fear of being personally sued.

I am to the point that, if there is any trouble with a guest or visitor, I make damn sure I am being covered by a surveillance camera or have a reliable witness with me at all times. If I can't have that, I am not getting in the middle of anything and I'll just call the cops if I deem that I might get in trouble later on. If the place collapses on its own, I am sorry but I won't take the risk of doing anything that might get me sued.

[Gadfly]

I disagree vehemently. Back when I was in high school, around 1990, Home Depot was a great place to shop, at least where I lived at the time (Knoxville, TN). The associates were all older guys who knew everything about home repair, knew the store inside out, and were completely trustworthy for asking for help. Lowe's, OTOH, was a dump: all the employees were stupid college students who didn't know the difference between caulking and concrete. And for some weird reason, Lowe's thought it was a good idea to sell consumer electronics alongside power tools.

However, sometime after that, HD was sold to another company, and went straight downhill. All the knowledgeable older guys were fired and replaced with moronic teenagers, the stores became dirty, and the CEO, Bob Nardelli, got ridiculous compensation while driving the stock into the ground while Lowe's got better and its stock did great.

I no longer shop at HD unless I have to (extremely rare), and usually shop at Lowe's. It's not as good as HD was back in the late 80s, but those days aren't coming back, and for now Lowe's is OK for what it is.

However, for some things, like power tools, I wouldn't bother shopping at either one of them. You can get much better deals online at places like coastaltool.com or Amazon.com, and those places don't have to worry much about shoplifting so they don't have to make you pay for it. For general hardware, I like cshardware.com; you can get things like cabinet handles and drawer slides for a fraction of the prices at the big-box stores.

Good post--I'll second that. I did 3.5 years with HD (back of the house in receiving dept.) and I had minimal customer interaction, but I will say that shoplifting in my store was easy [think bathroom stall for packaging/alarm tag stripping]. I never saw an actual LP until my 3rd year. Everything is written off. This shoplifter/firing story is soooo par-for-the-course for this wounded water buffalo of a corporation.

If you want to have a coronary you should come back to the receiving department and see how much perfectly good merchandise they throw away at HD! Shoplifting is chump change compared to the written-down losses in every department. "Just toss it" was the motto. If you try to garbage pick, though, sorry--you're fired.

Don't get me started on Bob Nardelli! That preening, megalomaniac POS from GE looted HD of $200 million (golden parachute) for the privilege of doing nothing to increase company stock while managing to drive quality and customer service into the sewer.

During store meetings, our (former) GM used to laugh at the secret shopper letters complaining about employees avoiding customers--not even saying "hello"--and going out of their way to avoid helping them. It was all a big joke.

Corporate was 100% anti-gun. Employee possesion of firearms anywhere on company property was an "AOL"--fire-able offense.

If there's a God, HD will shrivel up and blow away.

But I could be wrong . . .

[Smith&Wessonfan]

Lowes is better than Home Depot. Has been for ever.

I always drive past the Home Depot and shop at Lowes if for no other reason that all the signs in my local Lowes are in English and only English. All the Home Depots have signs in spanish also. That just bugs me.

+1

And Spanish is my first language.

[packinnova]

I have a question for them...what's the point of an LP department if they don't PL?

[Tom G]

I thought by now HD would have rehired the guys that they fired. Sinse the car or truck that the BGs used was also stolen,this more or less indicated that they were guilty. I wonder what would happen if a customer were robbed in the store? Would they call the police or is he on your own? Your right HD was great in the 80s and had lots of help.