Woo I got to ride in a cop car🙃
So on my most recent lifting adventure to w@1ma4t my lifting partner and I got caught, like full on police caught. Here are some of the stupid mistakes made that resulted in it.
Our appearance- two people who look like minors walking with each other into a store with bookbags, wearing black (in my case a black baggy hoodie) is not a great look. While I wouldn't place the most importance on your disguise or how you look this definitely did not help our case.
Concealment- this part was more me but I felt like all of the conceals I did were absolute shit. There was at least one time where it was possible that someone saw me and other than that I just felt like I concealed very poorly the whole time.
Plainclothes- there was a guy that I saw multiple times throughout the store. In multiple different sections that were a decent distance away from each other. At the time I didn't notice but looking back he wasn't buying anything (should have been a massive red flag). NEVER discount someone as a plainclothes lp because of how they look. The guy that caught us looked like he was 30 and living with his parents. He didn't look like he had a job let alone be lp. Lastly we saw him again standing at the door as we were about to walk out. This really should have been the moment I knew to turn around and dump however I did not.
RFIDs- I did not check as thoughly as I should have for RFIDs and so on top of everything we beeped at the doors 🤦
I don't know if this one is a mistake or not but, once we left the store the plainclothes lp started yelling at us. He followed us out the store and said he was calling the cops. So me and my friend ran. Like full on sprinted outa there. I don't know if the cops would have been called if we had stayed with lp and cooperated but I wasn't going to find out.
We also got very unlucky with the timing of everything because apparently there were already many police near the store and it must have been a very slow day for them because I heard that 5 police officers all responded to the call. It took less than 2 minutes for a cop car to find us.
The overall experience with the police wasn't very bad actually considering the situation. We were detained and searched. Then they took us back to the Walmart to look through our stuff. It ended up being only $50 from the w@1ma4t, and some more from other stores (I don't even have a close estimate for the rest). w@1ma4t actually didn't press charges, which I hear is very very lucky ( this made me wonder if we had not run it would have been a similar situation just without police, I still think that just trying to get away is the best advice tho). We basically just got off with a warning and they took all the stuff we lifted. They did a pretty bad job searching my bag tho because they left a entire hoodie that I got. I was very confused because I saw an officer pick it up and look at it, it still had the tags nd everything nd they just put it back in my bag. Like thanks ig?!
At the end of the day remember that you risk something on your permanent record every time you take a penny from somewhere. my lifting partner and I were VERY lucky we didn't get charged, this is not usually the case. I will blame at least part of this on me. lifting more and more recently and becoming too comfortable with lifting. If you guys are anything like I was my first time lifting you took every possible precaution. Making sure you were in a blind spot and that nobody was even close to you. Even so you were still probably scared doing it. DO NOT LOSE THAT, everytime you lift you should be thinking of consequences and how to avoid them. DONT let it slip to the back of your mind.
TL;DR- ruh roh spaghetti Os my partner and I got caught, no charges tho so yay! Things to learn from us- IF IT WAS A SHIT CONCEAL GO BACK AND TRY AGAIN ANOTHER DAY. you never know who saw it and it isn't worth the risk, swallow ur pride dump nd try again in 1-2 weeks (probably longer if you know someone saw or u thing and employee saw). EVERYBODY CAN BE A LP, this is one of the most important things I have learned no matter what they look like they can be lp, don't discount them based on appearance. BEWARE OF PEOPLE YOU SEE MULTIPLE TIMES. Especially in large stores, the average shopper you should only see once maybe twice (unless it's a smaller store) if you see the same person in the grocery section, nd then across the store in the electronics area, nd then again by the clothes section U GOT A PROBLEM THEN, dump nd get out. CHECK FOR RFIDs AND THEN CHECK AGAIN. seriously you should check multiple times for RFIDs. lastly DONT LOOK LIKE A SHOPLIFTER, I personally hold this at a lower importance because I feel like it's not the main thing you should be focused on but it is still something to keep in mind (this goes for appearance not actions, your actions are very important you you must know how to act like a normal shopper.
Double TL;DR for you real lazy people
MAKE SURE YOU CONCEAL WELL
ANYONE AND EVERYONE IS LP
IF YOU SEE SOMEONE MULTIPLE TIMES DUMP
DONT GET COMFORTABLE, STAY ANXIOUS ABOUT LIFTING (jus don't walk around looking like your nervous ofc)
Other than that I will likely be taking a rather lengthy break from lifting if I ever go back to doing it again. I will stay active on liftblr just don't expect any more lift hauls for a long while.
Thanks for coming to my Ted talk! 💀
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