I Was Accused of Shoplifting and to Pay a Civil Demand Right then and There

I think she was pressured to write down she had stolen other items. It seems to me that then....ok, she wrote down a pair of pants....LP went and grabbed the most expensive pair they could find, not necessarily what she took.

I would be honest with the lawyer - that yes, you have stolen before. And I would have those items bagged up. Even if you took the tags off, many items have a stitched in tag with the UPC on it.

Another suggestion: Get yourself into either counseling or Shoplifters Anonymous.

Just a casual reader here with a personal opinion but is based on personal experience. This is a tough decision you have to make but based on this very personal experience i have i would let it go, lick your wounds and move on. $1500.00 is a small price to pay.

Here is a similar situation which we did NOT let go however, until we were forced to. A family member out at a bar got drunk, chose to drive home, didn't succeed and was in a horrific one car accident that only injured themselves, but injuries were lifetime devastation that totaled in the millions for medical care for the rest of family members life. We found out later from friends that were at the bar with family member that the bar was involved in this drinking escapade that escalated to a dare (10 beers set on the bar lined up and bar dared family member to drink them all). Dumb arse family member took the bet......hmmmm....did that create a liable situation? Your darn right it did.

We went after the bar, lost the battle in the local court but attorney took it to appeals to be heard by the florida supreme court and we won a chance to take it back to the original court. During this long (years) drawn out process it was discovered the bar let their insurance LAPSE! Omg...

So even though family member was the one who made multiple stupid decisions that night, the bar had no right to take advantage of the situation. The courts agreed and had it gotten pursued further it would have ended up what percentage of liability did the bar have in the situation.

I hope this made sense and draws the parallels here. This is why I say $1500.00 is a small price to pay.

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Quoting bam!

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See this is what they are banking on, that people will be ashamed (rightfully so) and that cost to sue them is prohibitive to most people. That and lawyers cost more than the civil demand.

Look, tons of people steal all the time and a ton of people get caught. I would start by disputing the charge, specifically the amount charged. The store level people will not know about credit card chargebacks because it is handled at a higher level. Things are in place for consumer privacy and credit card encryption is mandated by law. Your account number is not really your account number, it is an internal number that LT assigns to you to track purchases. I am 99.9% certain, the store will never know that you disputed the charge. If they did, these LP are shady, shady LP's do not show up to court usually as it is a lot of work and time. These guys want to look good for their bosses, so they see people with money or access to lines of credit and hit them hard.

My advice is to tell the store to prove the past thefts. Dispute the charge, pay the proper CD and seek legal counsel. The burden of proof is on the store and the state if they choose to get involved. You are innocent until they prove you guilty. You have a tough choice to make. Do you roll over like a sheep, or do you stand up for your rights and what you believe in? I personally feel like you have a pretty decent case for a number of different claims against LT. You also have a great chance at getting your money back.

Contact legal professionals. Contact corporate. Contact the news. There are even government agencies that help people like you. Getting caught shoplifting is shameful. Im sure it sucks and you are sorry. It was fun stealing the stuff and getting it for free. You got caught like millions of others. That doesn't make it ok for them to extort you like this. (yes I went there).

I would like other posters to chime in. Maybe I am in left field.

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Bam!,

Thank you so much for your advice. If the LP was banking on scaring someone silly, it worked. While I would love to pay less, I do worry about them deciding to make an example out of me and pressing charges should I dispute the charge. I actually thought the LP was being kind by not calling the police and letting me go. I did not realize some other facts might have been going on behind the scenes.

To some of the other posters:

I do appreciate other insights into this matter, however, I do not need shoplifting anonymous. Stealing for me was NOT fun and I got no great joy from doing it. I have always played by the rules until I got continually beaten down by the economy. It was stupid, I learned my lesson and just hope that I am not in a database somewhere that will follow me the rest of my days. And yes, I should have thought about that before....no need to point that out either.