Someone who stole several items from one of our shops last week visited us again on Tuesday. One of our staff members identified him from the photo we have from our security system. I am surprised that this chap would have the gall to come back in. He was clearly preparing to steal again. Our staff member approached him and he left. They followed policy and called centre management. What bothered me was that this thief was shopping for specific items. Talking with someone in centre security, they say that theft is on the increase based on their call-outs.
We had a group of 3 steal some money off our outpost some weeks back. They waited until the girl was cashing up, distracted her and within seconds took off with her change bag. I only just caught some of the action on our instore cameras. We showed police and security the footage for them to cross check. It was found that the 3 were checking out the outpost for over 4 hours. We have an internet booth in front of the shop and this made it very easy for them to have a cover.
The police said that these guys have been seen elsewhere and are very orgainsed. Whilst not securing the cash the only other mistake we made was not to take notice of who is lingering around for an usual amount of time. It is hard espeacially with kids but it is better to be a bit paranoid than filling out a claim for stolen money.
Because of the nature of the items mentioned (the first post was about shoplifting the second about robbery of cash) one way to deter theives is to make it known that they are “known”: The theif returns for specific items which they may have orders for, and they have the gall to repeatedly do this because they may be desperate for money for gambling or drugs. However, until they decide to stop stealing these items, unfortunately the best thing you can do is convince them that they will be able to do it elsewhere a lot more easily, because even theives can be embarrassed. It may be illegal to search them without definate proof, but there is nothing illegal about making loud, not-so-subtle comments!!