Shoplifter of the Week: Copper edition

[Higgs Boson]

What if he HADN'T stopped you and an undercover supervisor saw that and gave the guard a hard time or fired him?

HB

[Colbyt]

That may or may not be true for general merchants.. The membership places like Sams and Cosco can do it. Don't show and they can cancel your membership.

I don't consider it any big deal. Loss prevention helps keep the prices low. Not nearly the same as getting groped in order to fly.

Colbyt

[aemeijers]

Exception, of course for club stores, where you agreed to abide by their security policies as part of the membership agreement. Refuse to stop, and they won't make you, but they will revoke your membership. And while you are correct for other types of stores, law on the books and law on the ground are two different things. Refuse to stop sometime, and if you are in a 'bad' part of town, store security will hold you and call the cops. And cops may charge you with disorderly conduct. You likely WILL be banned from the store, which means they can have you arrested for trespass if you ever return. Sure, you can sue after the fact, and probably win, but you'll spend more on lawyers than you will get.

He who has the gold makes the rules, etc.

IMHO, gotta learn to pick your battles. Few stores around here (other than Sams, or BestBuy during holiday season) have the checkers. Never seen one at the local Menard's. Mostly frail white-haired folk doing the checking, and I can't bring myself to holler at them. Not may jobs available at that age.

As to the around-back part- that is how a REAL lumberyard does it, just not at the gate when you drive out. THEY load the truck (or at least help you load it), and tick off the items on the invoice as they are loaded. I made lotsa supply yard runs as a kid, being low guy on the pole and the boss's kid. Thought nothing of picking 10k in material with just my signature. Hell of a rude shock when I had to start paying actual cash money for supplies, once I was living out on my own. (an 8'

2x10 costs HOW much?!?!)

-- aem sends...

[Kurt Ullman]

Sorry, but I don't want to do business with anybody who doesn't trust me to get from the cash registers to the door w/o stealing from them.

[greenpjs]

I agree with the explanation below. It is not illegal. However, it may not be profitable, either. Just because the newer pennies *cost* more than a penny to make does not mean they are *worth* more than a penny as scrap. Solid copper is easy to make into a coin so the cost to make one was only a liitle more than the cost of the copper, but I will guess the new ones cost significantly more to make than the raw materials.

[aemeijers]

It ain't YOU they are worried about, it is the clerk at the register. Having a pal come through your aisle, and pretending to ring up an item but putting it in the bag anyway, is a time-honored way of ripping off stores. They don't really compare the sales slip to the items, they just want to see if the count is the same. They also put that highlighter stripe on there so you can't come back through in an hour carrying the same item out again. That silver ceiling tile or silver ball above each register is so they can watch what keys are pushed, and what is dropped into the till.

[Country]

Sure, the poor bloke at the door is just following orders. My beef wasn't personal towards him. The point is that I said something hoping it would get back to the person that makes the rules so they would know that their customers don't appreciate being treated that way.

-C-

[HeyBub]

You're lucky you weren't buying yams.

[Kurt Ullman]

So, I get inconvenienced and hassled because they have security problems? Seems like yet another reason to not patronize them.

Which should alleviate the need to hassle and harass most of the clients.

[HeyBub]

Which brings up a couple of questions: 1) How do they know - with certainity - who you are if you don't show them the receipt? I guess they could review the security tapes to discover where and when you checked out, then get your identification from the register tapes. Is that how you think they would do it?

2) As for "holding you" against your will until the cops arrive, that will work (assuming they have enough goons to throw you to the ground) until the person being held turns out to be the most upright, righteous citizen in the community. Or even, on the other end of the scale, an elected official (say the deputy mayor). Then the store employees get charged criminally with false arrest or false imprisonment plus the store and everybody they ever knew gets sued.

[Tony Miklos]

All they need to do is hang a little sign saying:

"We reserve the right to inspect all packages" If that sign is there you give up most any rights you had and agree to play by their rules.

[Country]

At Best Buy?

[Harry K]

Care to quote some of the law that says that? Sounds like BS to me.

Harry K

[Harry K]

to koala bears: food, water, shelter and something to crap on."

So just how _do_ you expect them to keep the amount of thievery down to a reasonable level?

I suspect you have never tried to run a retail business

Harry K

[Harry K]

You can only be charged with false arrest if the "citizen's arrest" was baseless, i.e., no real reason for stopping them in the first place. As long as security can explain a reasonable reason for it, it not false arrest. No more so than someone being arrested for a crime with probably cause and later found to be not assiciated can sue for false arrest...well they can try but will lose as long as the jury agrees the PC was reasonable.

Harry K

[Sjouke Burry]

You mean that any Tom ,Dick or Harry can walk up to you and demand the right to inspect your luggage? In my country even the police need proper reason and cannot search indiscriminatingly.

[Jim Yanik]

[e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

the cost of the energy to melt down copper pennies would probably eat up their value as copper scrap. Plus you have to select out the copper from the zincs. (I noticed that a "drop test" can tell the difference by the way they sound hitting a hard surface.Coppers tend to ring,while zincs make a thunk.)

[HeyBub]

You make a good point. The legality hinges on whether leaving the store without showing a receipt is a "reasonable grounds of suspicion, coupled with facts sufficiently strong standing alone, to compel a rational person of the probability that a crime has been committed."

As the situation moves forward, the store - or the state - must prove you stole something. It is not up to you to prove you didn't by showing a receipt.

As for "citizen's arrest," my state, and I'm sure others, provides "a citizen may arrest without warrant for offenses committed in his presence if the offense is a felony, a breach of the peace, or to prevent the consequences of theft."

The courts have held that the theft must have been completed before the latter condition latches. If someone is seen to have secreted merchandise in his pocket, he cannot be "arrested" while still in the store. He must actually LEAVE the store for a "theft" to have taken place.

Still, your evaluation is often correct. There's the cop adage: "You might beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride."

[HeyBub]

Absent a posted store policy to the contrary, you are never obligated to prove your innocence (by showing a receipt). See the 4th and 5th Amendments.

Of course the Constitution is not binding on a retail store...

[Harry K]

Am I wrong again? I thought that the copper content of a penny was only a very small percentage of the total material. Even if a simple way of separating the metals was availble, the cost of fuel to melt them would probably be more than the recovered copper.

Harry K