The Art of Shoplifting
The Art of Shoplifting is not published to encourage any person to commit any illegal act, but for purposes of informing discussion of the issues at hand and more appropriately to educate you with the psychology of shoplifters and the tactics used to succeed in their endeavors.
Shoplifting is a topic that is practically relevant to many and it should therefore not become an exclusive craft confined to a small shoplifting elite. On the contrary, shoplifting is an art that deserves the widest possible dissemination. For your convenience we have printed below a step by step guide to shoplifting and how can one shoplift without getting caught.
Within capitalism, most of us are either
(1) alienated from our labour and hence dependent on the ruling classes for commodities as basic as food and clothing
(2) excluded from the division of labour, in which case we are likewise dependant on the State
(3) performing unpaid and/or unrecognised labour and hence dependant on patriarchal relations for food, clothing, etcetera. In any case, our access to resources is severely limited by contemporary relations of domination. One partial solution to this problem may be to STEAL.
Sadly, however, many people living precariously on low incomes tend to either:
(1) avoid shoplifting for anachronistic moral and/or ethical reasons; or
(2) remain ignorant of the better methods and techniques of shoplifting, thus failing to maximise their lifting potential.
From the onset, the golden rule of theft should be enunciated: NEVER STEAL FROM SOMEBODY WHO COULD CONCEIVABLY BE A COMRADE. Hence kicking into a house on Bell Street with a beaten up old Mazda in the yard is irresponsible and counter-revolutionary!
Be careful, too, about taking stuff from small ‘corner store’ type shops — you could be ripping off someone in a situation not dissimilar to your own. On the whole, it is best to play it safe and go straight for the big corporate f***ers.
Some people will suggest that shoplifters are a selfish breed, since ‘we all pay for it in the end’ through inflated prices to cover losses and so forth. However, comrades, this and closely analogous arguments are used to just ify lowering wages, breaking unions, lowering corporate taxation and taxation on the rich and corporate sector we may as well sell ourselves into bonded slavery now, or join the Liberal Party.
No, the injunction against stealing from capitalism is itself a capitalist ideology and should be spurned as such. Although we have been taught that ‘thou shalt not steal’, an order historically backed by threats of divine retribution, this should not for one minute stop us from taking the redistribution of wealth into our own hands. Believe me, no-one is likely to do it for us.
What follows is a list of effective methods and observations that may prove useful.
Preparing oneself for the big haul:
1. If possible, you should always have some money on you when intending to shoplift, because if you’ve got none, it’s rather hard to argue that to steal the item was a spontaneous decision. As a result, if you’ve got no money and are caught shoplifting you are more than likely to be charged for burglary as well as theft.
2. Buying something at the same time that you steal stuff doesn’t necessarily ensure success. Approaching staff for items you are absolutely sure they don’t have is just as good. Think of something that you know they don’t have (i.e. a doona cover with a specific pattern on it or something equally obscure) and pretend that you are looking for this, so that you have an excuse for being there. If staff are ever suspicious of you or ask if they can help you, ask them if they’ve got the thing you are sure they don’t have. Never screw this up — if you do you will have to buy the item or they may realise that you are there to steal.
3. It is always a good idea to carry a bag although you should never stash anything in it — if security/sales staff are suss on you the first place that they’ll check is your bag and it may just get you off the hook if they can’t find anything suspicious inside of it.
4. Remember that there is no such thing as a standard store detective — there is no qualifying dress code, age, race, gender or class. Grandma will bust you this week and next week it’ll be a 5 year old kid.
5. Just as there is no typical store detective nor is there a standard shoplifter. Security do not go looking for the poorly dressed people. They may pick on you out of boredom, but remember, only an unsuccessful store detective picks on poorly dressed people. By the same token don’t believe the stale myth that suits + dresses = more successes; security anticipate that professional shoplifters will dress up a bit. Wear whatever you want.
On entering the maze:
1. As soon as you enter the store, suss out the sales people. First impressions often count here. You could find a valuable blind-eye turning ally in younger or less-affluent employees. Alternatively, an employee can often stand out as a more wishy-washy gullible individual — so even if they see you they are likely to be too gutless to mention it, either to you or to security.
2. Don’t be put off by signs such as ‘shoplifters will be prosecuted’ or ‘security police patrol this store’. Often this is just bluff anyway, and in any case there is no security measure that cannot be undone by a clever shoplifter or a quick talker. Do, however, keep your eye on security and be on the lookout for video surveillance cameras.
3. Try to find where the video surveillance monitors are and who is watching them; often they are not even looking at them. See if you can get a glance at their monitor. Often it is one monitor hooked up to 20 cameras which changes sequentially (every 30 seconds or so). Other times it’s one guy in a room looking at 50 screens while reading the paper or glued to the box. These monitors are usually pretty small and have a wide aperture, showing more of the room but not enough detail to adequately see what you are up to.
4. It is a good idea to keep your back to the camera as much as possible without looking suspicious. Check out cameras (hold-up cameras) are often set up to check on employees, so they are not hard to keep your back turned to.
Blind-spots and other lifting techniques:
1. A blind-spot is a section of the store where you are barely visible and can thus feel free to both dump and collect stuff, without fear of being seen. Display units can make perfect blind-spots — they ensure security is confident they have their eye on you, when in fact they can only see your top half — at the same time they enable you to keep your eye on security. For these reasons, the best blind-spots are usually below the chest — around waist high. Blind-spots are good for loading into the lip of your jeans or into a jacket.
2. Make sure your blind-spot is not under surveillance. Never hang around your blind-spot for too long. Most of all, be careful to never lead security to your blind-spot.
3. A good method is to take everything you want to your blind-spot and collect it all later in one go, or better still get someone else to collect it for you. Getting someone else to collect for you can be a great system, particularly with exchanges — which I’ll come to later. If you are really pedantic, or you think that they are watching you, then load up, go to the toilets and pass the stuff under the wall/partition of the cubicle to a waiting friend in an adjoining cubicle and get them to leave with it.
(No item 4 in original text — ed.)
5. Speaking of dunnies and change-rooms, one of the oldest tricks in the book is to put more than one garment on a hanger (works particularly well with women’s underwear), go to the change-rooms and put the garment underneath what you are wearing. Alternatively, if you are a woman, you can slip your old bra on a hanger and put on the new one. Don’t be put off by the staff as you enter the change-rooms — they are usually quite disinterested and so long as the number of hangers you exit with matches the little plastic number they’ve given you they’ll be satisfied.
5. On the subject of women’s underwear, the lingerie department is ideally suited to male shoplifters — not only is it the perfect excuse for looking embarrassed or suspicious (they have come to expect this), but staff are less likely to harass you by trying to help you and will be more sympathetic generally.
Exchanging crap for more crap
Exchanging things — that is, taking the redistribution of wealth into your own hands by refunding yourself for an item you never paid for, or swapping something you stole that you don’t want for something you do want, or swapping something that you don’t want that is unstealable and therefore refundable — is a whole new ball game.
1. If you plan to steal something and then make an exchange always take stuff that people are likely to take back like sheets, or other obscure household items. If questioned you can say to them “as if I’m gonna keep the receipt, I didn’t plan to bring it back”. Books and other small but expensive items such as computer software are also great exchangeables.
2. Stealing women’s underwear and cosmetics are the perfect alibi for male shoplifters who specialise in exchanges. Male customers always f*** up buying stuff for their girlfriends/wives/mothers and when it comes to lingerie, it’s just too easy for a guy to look goofy, have sales staff sympathise and all too quickly agree to exchange or refund the items. This works particularly well around Xmas time when you can tell them you bought it for your mother but she already had that one.
3. Never take an exchange item to the store you stole it from and make sure the other store (e.g. Myers in Doncaster as opposed to Northland) has the same item before you take it back.
4. Make sure you have chosen your item before you approach anyone for an exchange. Also, tell the people in the first department that you want an exchange without mentioning receipts — they should send you down to the appropriate department for your other item and then ring up this department providing a referral, which if you are lucky will mean you do not have to provide a receipt given that everything appears legitimate.
5. The first time you exchange a stolen item for another product make sure you get something unstealable in return, like a video, watch, or something else kept behind a counter, so that the second time you do it, even if you don’t get an exchange receipt they will not suspect that it is stolen.
6. Exchange receipts are a pain in the arse. Sometimes smart arse sales people will write a cross the original docket ‘no original receipt’ which is a problem, so if you have a bit of money on you, it is a good idea to exchange for something that costs a little bit more so that they have to give you a cash receipt.
7. Don’t freak out if they call security while you are acting out an exchange — as returns will often require security’s signature this is quite standard procedure and nothing to worry about.
8. If you’re having problems getting an exchange, big department stores normally have consumer rights people located upstairs somewhere — they can usually be contacted by information telephones. These are people with big egos who like to wield power and the sales staff, who are much lower down the hierarchy, are usually pretty freaked out by this power. If you do get the ego from upstairs on side, they will organise a sales person to look after you and after the egomaniac goes up upstairs again, they sure will — because the sales person does not want to reprimanded by the same person from upstairs more than once, you will be practically able to get them to do anything that you want them to. A good technique is to tell the person upstairs a different story to the one that you tell the sales person. You can get angry at this stage and tell them that they f***ed you around, that you don’t want an exchange any more and that you want a refund now and they will usually comply.
9. Be wary of the long term employee — you’ve got to know when to stop. Be particularly wary of the head of sales or middle management who have been working there for a long time (sometimes 20 years or more) and are not as scared of the big guys from upstairs as are the newer employees. You can often convince some of the younger staff that they are allowed to do refunds if you tell them that you used to work there.
10. Another commonly used technique is to take an empty bag from the same store with a receipt in it for previously paid for items and then nick the same stuff, which gives you the perfect alibi.
11. Better still, if you’ve got some money, find two things that are worth however much you’ve got, take them out of the store and stash them somewhere, then go back in and buy the exact same items. While leaving the checkout, make a big deal about it. “Am I doing the right thing? Will she like it? Will it fit him? etcetera” and then “what the heck!” (Make sure you don’t go overboard and push them to mention keeping the receipt or worst of all mention it yourself!) Pay for it. About half an hour to a couple of hours later (not too long) take the stuff back to the same sales people and they’ll usually give you cash without a receipt because they remember selling it to you. If you pull it off you’ve got a cash receipt and your stolen goods which you can exchange at another store.
Leaving the store safely:
1. Always double back just as you are about to leave the store so that you can check if anyone is following you (99.9% of the time they will follow you out of the store before they approach you). Alternatively, go up and down an escalator or in a lift and press every button in the lift and it will be obvious if anyone is following you.
2. If people are watching you, whatever you do, do not try to discreetly dump stuff unless you are absolutely sure that you can get away with it. If caught dumping stuff they usually won’t charge you but they may f*** you around for a few hours.
3. If you are caught dumping stuff never let a store detective know it was because of them. Always make out it was a result of a sudden guilty conscience. Never let a store detective know that you know that they are on to you, because they won’t put them on you the next time. That way you get to know store security and are able to keep your eye on them as much as you can.
4. If you want to have a bit of fun and don’t plan to continue shoplifting that day, or ever, or you just don’t give a shit, go up to a store detective and treat them like a sales person, asking them for help etcetera. It is just as embarrassing for them to be caught as it is for you. It is always a good thing to break their spirits or at least bring them down every now and again. Alternatively, use reverse psychology on them. Say “I’m going down to such and such department. I’ll see you down there”. Often they’ll be too embarrassed that they’ve been busted and think that you won’t do it now that you’re being watched and you will have the run of the mill.
5.NEVER GET TOO CONFIDENT or you will start to make silly mistakes.
The end:
Finally, if you get caught — lie your teeth out! Never admit to premeditation. Always say that the opportunity arose, so you took it. Don’t act tough or be a smart arse. Cry. Bawl. Admit a guilty conscience. Beg them not to call the cops. Tell them that CSV will take your kids off you and then weep.
Even though some stores say they have a policy to call the police it is not necessarily true and they may, after lots of tears and admissions of guilt, just get you to sign a statement which says you’ll never enter that store again. If the cops do arrive, it’s a good idea to act scared shitless because they may assume you’re a first offender and not bother to check your record. Don’t antagonise the filth — it is their personal discretion as to how bad you get busted.
You are most likely to be charged with ‘theft’ if caught shoplifting, but you can be charged with ‘burglary’ as well if you don’t have any money on you. ‘Equipped to steal’ is what you will be charged with if, for example, you have a slit in the lining of your jacket for concealing stolen goods. ‘Obtaining financial advantage’ and ‘deception’ are what you are likely to be charged with as well as ‘theft’, if caught exchanging stolen items.
We would again like to emphasize that The Art of Shoplifting is not published to encourage any person to commit any illegal act, but for purposes of informing discussion of the issues at hand
What about security tags?
OMG thaaank yooou! im 16 and i’ve been doing this for four years now, and this rly filss in some gaps:) Thamks for making my pastime soooo much easier!!!
*BTW,could you do one on bookstores??
Thankz, but wasnt this a egg on rotten before???
yea, how do you get rid of all the securtiy tags that trip off the metal detectors and stuff??
Nice artical….now to make my self look bad.
Walmarts sell gift cards and crap…grap a few iTunes cards and go to the restrooms or changing rooms
and scrach off the gray tap and write down the code. Place them back on the shelf
Now if you like to go to the libary u could cut all the barcodes off books
then sell them on eBay for the price on the back of the book.
Just ideas…. Never had the balls to attempt. I wear wigs when I do this stuff along fake moles and shit on my face
so if u get caught stealing load of things your able to reenter as your normall self when you need to.
Man there was some stuff on there that I didnt know thanks!
@LEILA
bookstores are the easiest, c’mon.
Another thing you can do at any place with a self checkout is to cut off barcodes from similar cheaper items and tape them over the existing barcodes. If the item it rang up for weighs alot less or more than the actual item put it in the bagging area then immediately take that bag off and put it in your cart. I do this with my groceries to get the more expensive name brands for the price of the crappy store brand stuff. Watching you on camera, they can’t tell what youre bagging isnt the same as what is ringing up and the person monitoring the self checkout isn’t close enough to notice either. And I don’t cut off barcodes in the store, I do it at home. In changing rooms you can also switch tags on clothing, like putting a clearance tag from one shirt on a more expensive shirt. The cashiers don’t ever notice it doesn’t ring up as what it actually is as long as the item you switched tags with was similar to the one you want.
honestly you are not really in danger unless you are spotted by a loss prevention officer, I spent a year working LP and as part of the training you have to maintain continuity of the product. What this means is that you must see the person take the item from a shelf (or didn’t enter the store with it), see them conceal the item, and then arrest them once they leave the store (because only once they leave the store is it actual theft, anywhere inside the store is not legal theft, ergo no grounds for arrest).
The legal rationale behind this is that if you didn’t see the person take the item, or even if a sales clerk did, you have no way to prove that they stole the item in court. In order to make a citizen’s arrest (the only real legal section granting LPs the ability to arrest someone) you must PERSONALLY see the person commit the crime in its entirety.
Otherwise the person could claim that they brought the item with them and sue wal-mart, you, or whatever 3rd party-loss prevention company you belong to with wrongful detainment. Companies are so SCARED SHITLESS of lawsuits that they ensure LPs must be able to prove in court that the crime was committed or else just let the person leave the store.
Not saying this is legal or even recommended, and I can’t stress this enough, this is just what I’ve seen the successful thieves do, I can not endorse stealing.
- they enter the store and find their target item
- they grab the item and throw it into their cart or carry it among other items
- once they find a “blind spot” (somewhere without other people or cameras) they hide the item somewhere on them, sometimes by going into a bathroom
- at this point the thief either leaves the item within the store concealed somewhere in a blind spot (one unlikely to be discovered by staff) or attempts to leave
– if the thief concealed the item, they will usually return within a few hours or a day to see if the item has been moved (usually if it is hidden amongst items that have a low restock rate there is little danger to them of it being discovered by staff)
– if the item has been moved and they are confidant it wasn’t as a result of another customer or staff then they will know they were followed, if however it is there, they can once again pocket their item in that blind spot without leaving a chance for LP to spot the concealment.
- once the item has been secured usually the person will make for the exit and stop just before the doors to look back to ensure there is no one rushing for them, because theft isn’t committed until a person leaves the store they usually simply return and ditch the item if the LP is detected rushing towards them, they ditch the items without penalty or legal grounds for arrest.
- one of the mot successful strategies I’ve seen employed involves the thief planting the item somewhere inside a garden center where they can reach the item from outside after closing and drive off.
- if at any point the person is caught, the only way I would EVER let the person off is if I was unsure about if I had maintained continuity, my biggest fear as a LP was if I made a false-arrest or if someone turned around and accused me of falsely arresting them. Otherwise we would detain that person and the company as a whole would take them to civil court (after criminal proceedings) and sue them for the wages of LP employees and various other “legal” fees (sometimes as much as $300 for a $1 item).
cameras only ever help LPs catch thieves if there is someone monitoring them, the recordings are wiped every month and you can’t arrest someone for something you saw them do on camera even if its only a day later, once they leave the store and drive off with the product you lose your chance for an arrest.
NEVER TAKE THE WHOLE PACKAGE TAKE WHATS INSIDE IT. IF IT CANDY JUST SCRATCH OFF THE SECURITY TAG
NEVER TAKE THE WHOLE PACKAGE IF IT A BB GUN OR SOME THING THAT COMES IN A PACKAGE THEN TAKE WHATS INSIDE IT.IF IT CANDY JUST SCRATCH OFF THE SECURITY TAG
Most security sensors in use now are the same (not counting ink-shooters) they have 2 little sheets of metal in a blister, whenever you take that through the 4-foot-tall pillars near the door it senses the way the little metal tabs vibrate. To get around these blisters you can either hold the product over your head when walking through the pillars. If you have access to the blister you can scratch over it HARD with a pen to bend the metal tabs, if you don’t have direct access you can use a strong magnet to deactivate them (neodymium magnets scrounged from old hard-drives work well)
Some shoplifters make specialty bags layered with tin-foil to carry their products, these usually don’t work as well as the shoplifter expected because you’ve really got a lot of work to turn a bag into a Faraday Cage, and 95% of people who do this only put about 1/2 as much foil in as they would need.
Those ink-shooter tags are a pain, they’re usually a sharp pin with a big blob of plastic on one end that connects to a thing full of ink (to dye splotches on the item in question when it breaks) I’ve heard if you freeze them that you can pop them off with pliers, but a lot of them work with magnets as well, I’m sure there’s a tutorial out there somewhere but I wouldn’t bother with all that work.
The locking slat-wall pins (they hold those clam-shell blister-packs & boxes with a tab on top) are magnetic too, the “Key” for these is usually kept in a drawer by a register, but they’re all the same. One will work wherever you go. Unfortunately these products usually have a blister security tag hidden inside somewhere (Like in DVD boxed sets) that is hard to deactivate (Even at the counter) so beware.
Also if the theft alarm at the door is already going off, it probably won’t re-trigger so if it’s already beeping like crazy & somebody’s stopped letting the door-attendant check their bag/receipt just walk on through & don’t worry about the sensors.
What I have been doing for about 11 years is just walking in with one of those hollow books with the inside painted with X ray absorbing paint(you can buy it for like 80 bucks. just google it), finding a blind spot, and putting the product in the book and buying some cheap thing like a pack of gum to make them think I was there for a legal reason. I might be over doing it with the expensive paint but it has always worked for me. Just don’t leave any gaps in the layer of paint 0.0 This is my advice as a guy who has been shoplifting fairly continuously for 11 years.
How do you get past those spider things? Those things that have wire wrapped around the box. I assume if you cut the wire and it retracts, the alarm will go off, and if you walk past a censor it will go off. Will taping the wire or preventing it retracting work if you cut the wire and put the box in a bag?
Also, just go to the apple store, there is no real security. just put a box with something expensive in an apple bag you got from a purchase you already made and walk out with it. I got a B&W Zeppelin that way. It’s nice.
I been doing it at Walmart for 8 years. When I’m getting about $200 or more in groceries. I just put the stuff I want free in the bottom of the basket, then as they’re bagging I start loading bags on top of the items. They never notice! I’ve gotten at least one of everything that way not counting TVs and stuff. I did get a nice set of TV trays and an entertainment center. It’s easy peasy! If they do stop you. It was a mistake! As far as security tags, I take them off, every walmart has blind spots. I never pay for printer carts. or anything like that. 2008, I pretty much furnished my house for free!
Too much communism, did not read
@Josh
Just cut around the little buggers. Unless your after a 46″ LCD hdtv you can get the item out. Just be careful of the spider wrap and cut the box around it with a razor or a knife making sure the wrap doesn’t come off the box. Pull the item out. Check for security tags! Also you can take the spider wrap off by using two small high power magnets on the flat back piece of the wrap. Basically a home made S3 key.
One of you above said that you used to work in LP. Are you sure that they actually have to SEE you stash the item? So if I like go into a dressing room and stash it they can’t legally do anything? Even if they suspect me?
@rdmg
Are you sure that they actually have to SEE you stash the item? So if I like go into a dressing room and stash it they can
I have been working loss prevention for 4 years although some of these things may be true None of them ensure that you will be sucsefull, But it is very true if you know the in and outs it would be easy but really the only way to know how to do it is work as loss prevention. I have seen suspects use hundreds of diffrent methods in attempting to get merchandise. If a loss prevention assiocate has experince it is very easy to spot you No matter how hard you try you cant hide your intentions
iv walked out with a 42″ tv once, all i did was took the tv put it on a cart and just walked up to the door and asked if i could get help taking it to my truck, they called up some kid and off i was with a brand new 42″ plasma screen tv for free
I would like to start a website with detailed store department maps for shopping Malls across the United States including all entrances exits, elavators, esculators, all dressing rooms and the quietest ones, all departments, some department stores that I like are Nordstrom, Macys, Sears, and JCPennys, looking for others interested in doing this will help all who are interested, it’s good idea to change shopping Malls, I can also give tips on how to spot undercover cops who try to get you busted when your that good. Star at ringshill1974 [at] gmail [dot] com
What a lot of people don’t realize is that you do not have to actually shoplift anything to get it for free. Last year I went into a major chain in a mall during the holidays when the store is very busy. I purchased a camera for $319 on my visa card. Right away I hid my receipt in my wallet. I went back in the store to browse a little more and got rid of the bag my camera was in. After about 20 minutes I left the store at another location away from the cashier that rang me up. Someone stopped me and asked for the receipt which I had hid and acted like I could not find it. To make this quick, I allowed the police to come and arrest me. Then I produced the receipt and the police called the store which had already found the sale by scanning the camera on the register. Too late, false arrest, lawsuit, and I settled for $74,383 and all legal costs. Not a bad payout and remember, no shoplifting took place.