Sort-of memes that are cracking you up at the moment

I worked at Morrison’s for a bit and some of the warehouse guys had two tricks. Firstly they’d pretend to have broken a box or case of something, write it in the log and then put it in the bin to collect later. Second one was going into the secure area of the warehouse with a roll of tape and taping bottles of scotch and cartons of cigs to their bodies under their overalls. In neither case were they smart enough to do it out of sight of the cameras.

I was working the night they came off shift to find the police waiting in the locker room.

LFGSS = den of thieves 😇

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rfCQ87kHGE

Self service weighing scales in Tesco mini markets aren't that clever, so I've heard.

One of the Catalogue Shopping warehouses was in my city and security was tight, impossible to get anything out, stock levels closely monitored and any discrepancies vigorously investigated. A couple of the lads from my local pub found the method, Returns. Returns never went back in to stock, they went out to auction as they came in.
So scam / theft was to have someone order their item from the book, generally watches or jewellery, things secretable (w?) and then return it as damaged or not working. On receipt in to the department the item was removed from the previously opened box, and the box put through to go out to auction for caveat emptor.
The resulting item was then worn out and back in to the pub for resale sans packaging so little worth, however good for beer tokens.

A mate worked in a mobile phone factory with red hot security and metal detectors on the doors. They slipped Nokias into juice cartons with foil lining and smuggled them out.

"Mates" doing a lot of heavy lifting the last few pages

“SWIM”

A ‘close relative’ worked in the local B&Q where items would be marked down to ridiculous prices as damaged and then subsequently returned sans receipt for a full cash refund. Occasionally smaller items, such as a full size shed with all fixings, might be damaged and find their way out to the easily accessible bins moments before close on a Sunday

I worked in a shop that was popular and fashionable with a "section of society".
We shared a loading bay with a hotel and a catalogue shop. In this loading bay was a lift that took you down to underneath one of the bridges, where the bins where kept.
A chap I used to work with, that has since passed away, used to have a trick where he would volunteer to take the bins out first thing, about 9.30am. He would then fill one or two bin liners with all the latest street wear. I'm talking thousands of pounds worth of retail value work-wear clothes here. He'd go out the back door in to the shared loading bay, chuck those bags in to the lift with the rest of the rubbish and take it all downstairs to the bins under the bridges. He'd chuck all the rubbish in the bin, and the bags full of clothes underneath the bin.
Come 6pm, he'd leave the shop, walk down the public steps to underneath the bridge, pick up the bags full of clothes and walk home.
He obviously told me about it, but probably only once he had done it once or twice. Who knows how many times he did it, but one pair of work-wear trousers was about £70, even back in 2005.
I never had the bottle to try it myself.

Edit: someone should make a new thread for stories like this.

My mate was terrible for this stuff - all sorts of things. But re supermarkets he used to fill up at the salad / pasta buffet bar thing in Sainsbury's, weigh it and put the barcode on, eat it on the way round whilst doing the rest of the shopping, then just leave the empty carton somewhere before paying for the rest of the shop.

someone should make a new thread for stories like this.

Light FinGer StorieS

All this stuff seems to have alluded me, except of course sticking 1p sweets up your sleeves when filling a bag...

Used to work in Halfords where we took those high street gift vouchers that were valid in loads of shops.

One of the staff that did all the admin had instructed everyone not to rip or 'spoil' the vouchers in anyway as doing so would mean that 'High street Voucher Co' wouldn't reimburse us.

Turns out there was some sort of loophole where the vouchers didn't get collected with all the cash and cheques that came in through the tills, they were to get sent off to/collected by 'High Street Voucher Co' every quarter or something so it took a wee while for Halfords to figure out anything was amiss by which time said member of staff had pocketed several grand's worth of vouchers and spent them in other shops.

Shrinkage in that place must have been huge.

We didn't take payments in the bike dept but we would often have to help customers load their new bikes (which might have been paid for a week or so ago, before we ordered the bike in) into their car, so members of staff walking out past the tills with bikes was a regular occurrence and didn't raise any questions. Obviously some members of staff took note/advantage of this. Pretty sure the same thing was happening with Sat Navs, roof boxes, stereos etc even more regularly than it happened with bikes.

Then there was the time the alarm at the door went off as we were all leaving the shop at the end of the day. The manager took a half arsed look through one or two staff member's bags then informed us the alarm was giving him a headache so he was going to get his jacket from the staff room and he wanted the alarm to not be ringing anymore when he got back. The alarm was just turned off.

Remember when TK Maxx was first a thing. The red markdown stickers were really easy to take off and re-apply to other items. Plus their stock/POS didn't record the item description. My girlfriend at the time was a past master at engineering some complete bargains. Her favourite score was a denim trenchcoat by Chloé, £300 to a tenner or something

a lady at my old store got nabbed here, she had a scam where she would ask people to put the damaged scratch cards aside for destruction because they couldn't be sold, worked there for decades, the teenage weekenders would never question.

turns out she was just taking them home and ripping a few in the day for good measure, honestly, a fantastic grift and it's a shame someone snitched, must have been going for years.

put my deli counter escapades in context having the pals (who had discount discretion) mark down the good stuff for the end of the day was clearly small fry.

stories here almost make me miss the retail days, much more lively than the email mines

A few pals worked in the local cinema, you could take a bag of pic and mix , they would weigh an empty bag and charge you 2p for a full to the brim bag.
Plus comp you tickets and give you drinks and popcorn for free.

This is like the anti-golf club thread

Weren't all the labels easy to peel off and re-apply?

Pretty sure I did this for a couple pairs of trainers.

so members of staff walking out past the tills with bikes was a regular occurrence and didn't raise any questions. Obviously some members of staff took note/advantage of this.

The handful of times I’ve been to Halfords some alarm or other has gone off at the door, with the robust man at the entrance being completely unbothered. Makes me wonder if he’s there to keep an eye on customers or on staff.

Maybe but especially the old red markdown ones. They peeled off in one, now I think they peel off in sections which rip easy

You ladies and gents know a lot more common thieves than I do! Considering the company I used to keep in my teenage years that's really saying something.

Remember one time when the freezers broke on the shop floor and the one's in the warehouse were full already, we were told to chuck everything, cut to loads of staff out back just shoveling as much ice cream down their gullet's as possible, felt so sick after

Used to work in a newsagents that had two branches close to each other. One in the bus station and one in the connecting train station. They used to rake it in with their airportesque prices. Especially on a Friday when all the students were heading home, just a constant stream of people all day, paying cash (before contactless). I used to have to cash up and always thought it was very lax and would be very easy to skim a few hundred a week off the top (as a student that seemed like I would be minted). There was no counting done, just make sure the notes were the right way round for the bank and put it all in the lock box for the owners to collect at the end of the day (they were probably bigger crooks). But being a good boy and terrified of getting in trouble, worst I ever did was not pay for a bottle of coke every now and then.

Turns out I wasn't the only one who thought this and I found out that another member of staff was done not long after I left for pocketing about 20 grand over the course of 5 years. They must have been keeping closer tabs on it than I realised.

That job was great for mental arithmetic. You would be working out the punters' totals two or three down the queue so when they got to the till it was just "£3.40, next, £2.60, next, £4.20, next, etc."

Wasn't there a case where some bathroom/kitchen fitters would return a whole new suite to say Homebase/Wickes in its original packaging for a refund but what was in the original packaging was the old suite ?

Ooo new memes…

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Weren't all the labels easy to peel off and re-apply?

Not if it's a passport sticker.