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Thoughts are?
Pay us or we’ll call the cops: Many U.S. stores giving shoplifters choice of punishment
Imagine you’re browsing at Bloomingdale’s when a security guard taps you on the shoulder and accuses you of shoplifting. He takes you to a private room, sits you down, and runs your name through a database to see if you have any outstanding warrants. Then he tells you that you have two options. The first involves him calling the police, who might arrest you and take you to jail. The second allows you to walk out of the store immediately, no questions asked—right after you sign an admission of guilt and agree to pay $320 to take an online course designed to make you never want to steal again.
Which would you choose?
Thoughts are?
Pay us or we’ll call the cops: Many U.S. stores giving shoplifters choice of punishment
Imagine you’re browsing at Bloomingdale’s when a security guard taps you on the shoulder and accuses you of shoplifting. He takes you to a private room, sits you down, and runs your name through a database to see if you have any outstanding warrants. Then he tells you that you have two options. The first involves him calling the police, who might arrest you and take you to jail. The second allows you to walk out of the store immediately, no questions asked—right after you sign an admission of guilt and agree to pay $320 to take an online course designed to make you never want to steal again.
Which would you choose?
Thoughts are?
Pay us or we’ll call the cops: Many U.S. stores giving shoplifters choice of punishment
Imagine you’re browsing at Bloomingdale’s when a security guard taps you on the shoulder and accuses you of shoplifting. He takes you to a private room, sits you down, and runs your name through a database to see if you have any outstanding warrants. Then he tells you that you have two options. The first involves him calling the police, who might arrest you and take you to jail. The second allows you to walk out of the store immediately, no questions asked—right after you sign an admission of guilt and agree to pay $320 to take an online course designed to make you never want to steal again.
Which would you choose?
At my store we tend to have either video evidence or multiple eyewitnesses before we accuse someone of wrongdoing. Either that or catching them in the act. Accusations of shoplifting can't come out of nowhere.
At my store we tend to have either video evidence or multiple eyewitnesses before we accuse someone of wrongdoing. Either that or catching them in the act. Accusations of shoplifting can't come out of nowhere.
Thoughts are?
Pay us or we’ll call the cops: Many U.S. stores giving shoplifters choice of punishment
Imagine you’re browsing at Bloomingdale’s when a security guard taps you on the shoulder and accuses you of shoplifting. He takes you to a private room, sits you down, and runs your name through a database to see if you have any outstanding warrants. Then he tells you that you have two options. The first involves him calling the police, who might arrest you and take you to jail. The second allows you to walk out of the store immediately, no questions asked—right after you sign an admission of guilt and agree to pay $320 to take an online course designed to make you never want to steal again.
Which would you choose?
Thoughts are?
Pay us or we’ll call the cops: Many U.S. stores giving shoplifters choice of punishment
Imagine you’re browsing at Bloomingdale’s when a security guard taps you on the shoulder and accuses you of shoplifting. He takes you to a private room, sits you down, and runs your name through a database to see if you have any outstanding warrants. Then he tells you that you have two options. The first involves him calling the police, who might arrest you and take you to jail. The second allows you to walk out of the store immediately, no questions asked—right after you sign an admission of guilt and agree to pay $320 to take an online course designed to make you never want to steal again.
Which would you choose?
Thoughts are?
Pay us or we’ll call the cops: Many U.S. stores giving shoplifters choice of punishment
Imagine you’re browsing at Bloomingdale’s when a security guard taps you on the shoulder and accuses you of shoplifting. He takes you to a private room, sits you down, and runs your name through a database to see if you have any outstanding warrants. Then he tells you that you have two options. The first involves him calling the police, who might arrest you and take you to jail. The second allows you to walk out of the store immediately, no questions asked—right after you sign an admission of guilt and agree to pay $320 to take an online course designed to make you never want to steal again.
Which would you choose?
I would request to see the video evidence of the so called 'shoplifting' while I looking for my lawyers phone number -
If they couldn't produce video evidence which of course would show nothing since I don't shoplift and would not let me walk out freely at that point, hit send on my phone and calling my lawyer. Second I would call the police myself.
I'm not going to some room. If he wants to call the cops he is more than able to do so and when he does I'm suing the store.
Actually, I've always wondered about the legality of a store's security person being able to take you to a little back room.
They don't even need to do it. They know what I look like, they have a phone and if I stole something they have video proof. I see no reason I should go with them.
Actually, I've always wondered about the legality of a store's security person being able to take you to a little back room.
Thoughts are?
Pay us or we’ll call the cops: Many U.S. stores giving shoplifters choice of punishment
Imagine you’re browsing at Bloomingdale’s when a security guard taps you on the shoulder and accuses you of shoplifting. He takes you to a private room, sits you down, and runs your name through a database to see if you have any outstanding warrants. Then he tells you that you have two options. The first involves him calling the police, who might arrest you and take you to jail. The second allows you to walk out of the store immediately, no questions asked—right after you sign an admission of guilt and agree to pay $320 to take an online course designed to make you never want to steal again.
Which would you choose?
They don't even need to do it. They know what I look like, they have a phone and if I stole something they have video proof. I see no reason I should go with them. If they want to kidnap some dude they can pick someone else.
Indeed. If I am being accosted and threatened unrightfully, I think I am very emotionally damaged, and will be receiving a nice fat piece of compensation from Bloomingdales' for my troubles.
This isn't about ****ing kidnapping. The reason the individual is taken to a back room is so that 1) They can be confronted with evidence that they were shoplifting 2) be given a choice to either pay for the merchandise or return it to the store and 3) if some type of confrontation or dispute arises it doesn't become a spectacle for the whole store to see. It isn't like detaining someone in a jail cell.
The article did a good job laying out the problem. Assuming I was actually innocent, it's still not a no-brainer to fight the charge. If the police did file charges, it would cost far more than the $320 to fight it assuming the risk of conviction was zero. You'd burn through that with the first phone call to a decent attorney. The possibility of $5,000 or $10,000 in attorney fees wouldn't bankrupt me so I could afford the risk and not suffer any change in lifestyle, but that's not true if you're poor.
It all depends on whether the retailers are operating in good faith. If they are, and the article offered no evidence they were making spurious allegations, then there probably is little downside, and lots of petty criminals avoid a very damaging hit on their record for no more than a speeding ticket in lots of jurisdictions.
FWIW, the traffic court in my area poses the same risks - if you're ticketed, it really doesn't pay to fight the ticket for 99% or so. My last one was total BS, but the fine was $100, I plead no contest, the judge put me on 3 month traffic "probation" and it stayed off my driving record. If I'd plead 'not guilty' it's my word against the police, and if found guilty I'd owe another $500 in 'court costs' for the 'trial' AND have a hit on my driving record. I was IMO completely innocent, but I paid the fine - no brainer. I'm not sure why I wouldn't take the $320 cost in this case for the same reasons, even if innocent.
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