That Could Have Been A Close Shave

I work in the clothing section of a department store. A young woman exits the store through the doors near my section and the alarms go off. As there’s no guard present, I call to her to return, figuring we’ve missed one of the hard security tags we use to secure the clothing.

Back she comes into the store. She has no clothing, but she does have a £100+ electric shaver. We put small sticky security tags inside the boxes, which should be deactivated when sold, and again, I figure it has been missed.

Me: “Can I see your receipt?”

Customer: “I can’t find it.”

Me: “How did you pay?”

Customer: “Credit card.”

This is before chip and PIN, so it’s pretty easy to find out if someone has just paid by card; you go to the relevant till and look through the signed slips.

Me: “Which till did you use?”

Customer: “The one two floors up near the electric shavers.”

Me: “Please come with me so I can locate the proof of purchase.”

She complied. I opened the till and there were no corresponding slips; in fact, there were hardly any slips at all, as it isn’t exactly a busy section. She still insisted she’d bought it, but at that point, security was involved.

A few days later, I was told she had indeed been arrested for shoplifting.

I continue to boggle at the mistakes she made. She returned to the store; if she’d bolted when I called after her, I couldn’t have caught her. She claimed she paid by card, which was so easy to disprove. She willingly followed me to a section of the store that couldn’t be further away from the exits, so she couldn’t then make a run for it when it became obvious she’d tried to steal the item.

As a reward, I was given one of our store’s annual edition teddy bears.