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Detained for Shoplifting After Forgetting to Scan an Item

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  • 05-16-2016, 01:47 PM
    easttxlady
    Detained for Shoplifting After Forgetting to Scan an Item
    My question involves criminal law for the state of: Texas

    My daughter was grocery shopping at Wal-mart (Spring, TX) last night. She used self checkout and paid for the $130.xx in her shopping cart. Also I need to say that she had a bottle of wine so a store employee had to help her with checkout to verify her age. She forgot about the case of bottled water that was on the bottom rack of her buggy. Loss prevention stopped her before she exited the store. She told them that she forgot to pay for it and offered to pay. They said no, it was now evidence. They took her to the security room where she was placed for an hour while the manager???? was 'deciding' if he wanted to press charges or not. During this hour she was degraded by him and other employees, some employees were taking her picture and sharing it on some social media (she thinks snapchat). He kept threatening her with calling the police saying if he did she would never be a teacher because of a theft record (she is a junior at university with an education major). She tried to reason with him, stating she purchased over $130 in groceries and the $4 case of water was an innocent oversite and that if she were truly trying to steal something she wouldn't have been buying wine that required store assistance for age verification. Long story short, he never called the police and she never signed anything, the only thing he gave her was a letter stating that Wal-marts lawyers would be in contact with her because she owe's $200-$1000 in restitution. I am blown away, this seems nothing short of legalized extortion for an innocent oversight. Let me also add that she has NEVER been in trouble of any kind, she is 21 and a straight A student at a large Texas university. What should we do????
  • 05-16-2016, 02:03 PM
    Ohiogal
    Re: Was Not Shoplifting
    She is a thief. She stole and civil demands for money are codified. She needs to pay it. All shoplifters "forget" about whatever they steal. She needs to pay the civil demand.
  • 05-16-2016, 02:08 PM
    Taxing Matters
    Re: Was Not Shoplifting
    From the store’s perspective she used self-checkout and didn't ring up and pay for an item she had taken from the store and thus it looks like theft. Actual thieves do just what she did: ring up most of the items but not ring up one of them and hope the store doesn’t notice it. Then if caught, they claim they just “forgot” it was there, made a mistake, etc. The store loss prevention people have heard that story so many times they don’t buy it.

    The idea that she must not have been stealing because she paid $130 for the other stuff is not a logical argument. It’s not like theft is all or nothing, after all. Someone could pay for 9 items and yet still steal the 10th. So expecting loss prevention to bite on that one is not realistic. Nor is it realistic to expect a jury to buy it had she been prosecuted for shoplifting.

    You have to be very careful when going through check out, whether self-checkout or regular, to ensure every item you take out of the store was rung up. When doing self-checkout, you need to pay attention to the machine’s screen and ensure each item is actually scanned and added to the bill. Always look at the entire cart and make sure you didn't leave something in it that hasn’t been rung up before pushing out of the check out. Because if you don’t, what it will look like to others is that you are stealing. They can’t see inside your head to know what your real intent was. They can only go by what you do.

    She can either pay the civil demand when she gets it or ignore it and risk being sued for it and risk that the store might change its mind and file a criminal complaint over this. Whether a prosecutor would actually act on it is not something anyone here would know. That is a choice she has to make; you can advise her but this is not a “what should we do” kind of situation. As an adult, ultimately this is on her. I dare say after this she will likely be much more careful about ensuring things get scanned if this truly was just a mistake and not attempted theft.
  • 05-16-2016, 02:41 PM
    llworking
    Re: Was Not Shoplifting
    Quote:

    Quoting Ohiogal
    View Post
    She is a thief. She stole and civil demands for money are codified. She needs to pay it. All shoplifters "forget" about whatever they steal. She needs to pay the civil demand.

    I cannot count how many times in my lifetime I have forgotten or almost forgotten something on the bottom of the cart. I have been courteously reminded, but never dragged back to the office for it.

    Of course, I never use self checkout either.
  • 05-16-2016, 03:44 PM
    easttxlady
    Re: Was Not Shoplifting
    Thank you, I know people hear innocent mistake all the time but this was truly an innocent mistake
  • 05-16-2016, 04:21 PM
    tc498
    Re: Was Not Shoplifting
    Quote:

    Quoting llworking
    View Post
    I cannot count how many times in my lifetime I have forgotten or almost forgotten something on the bottom of the cart. I have been courteously reminded, but never dragged back to the office for it.

    Of course, I never use self checkout either.

    Exactly,that such an egregious statement. Thief s do all kind of tricks,many people simply forget.
  • 05-16-2016, 04:50 PM
    jk
    Re: Was Not Shoplifting
    Quote:

    Quoting llworking
    View Post
    I cannot count how many times in my lifetime I have forgotten or almost forgotten something on the bottom of the cart. I have been courteously reminded, but never dragged back to the office for it.

    Of course, I never use self checkout either.

    The problem with "forgetting" is one is required to empty their entire cart after which one could see through the bottom of the cart or if a very little bit away from the cart would have been able to see something as large as a "case" of bottled water. Due to that, it becomes difficult to argue one simply overlooked the merchandise. That is a big something to miss.


    With that, I can see where it might be possible but as others have stated; it looks like theft and since the store can't read minds, they have to go by what they see.
  • 05-18-2016, 08:49 PM
    mmmagique
    Re: Was Not Shoplifting
    She is probably innocent in the sense that she didn't mean to steal. (but technically guilty because we can't prove intention or lack thereof in most of these cases unless they are blatantly hiding things.)

    I have "stolen" two different times from two different stores. I didn't figure it out either time until I was out of the building. One time was a small cosmetics item that had fallen from the front "seat" part of the cart into the bottom part and I didn't see it. The other time I bought what I thought was a very heavy duty mini muffin tin. (it turned out to be two tins nestled inside of each other, and I had NO idea!

    I take these so seriously because I read threads like this, and know how easily this can happen. It's why I much prefer to go through a checkout with an actual employee checking me out.
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