NSW Accused of shoplifting at Coles

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Tigerlady468

Member
26 February 2020
4
0
1
Hi everyone, sorry if this is a long post, I just wanted to get some advice.

I frequent this Coles every morning to do my shopping for work and dinner and whatnot, it is in the same building as my job.

I usually come in with a large bag and another smaller cloth bag as well that I put my shopping in. This morning I came in with both bags, and my cloth bag had some "overspill" of stuff from my purse (a large water bottle, a kindle, a small fan, some paperwork and a bottle of coke I had brought from home from the night before).

At one point in one of the aisles I had a paper in my hand with a recipe I was getting ingredients for and one of the pages fell out of my hand, onto the floor and I picked it up and put it back in my cloth bag.

As I get to the register, the employee rudely asks to look in my bags. Now I have been going to this Coles every weekday for the past year and never ever been asked to look in my bags so it shocked me and I asked him why. He rudely said, "We saw you put items in your bag and need to check." This is when I got mad, and I asked him if he was accusing me of stealing, he said that "Security saw you put stuff in your bag a few days ago and today." I told him to bring security up there. He calls a random guy from the back, I ask him if he's security and he says "No." So I ask the clerk why he is lying to me about this guy being security. The "security" he calls up says he saw me drop something in "aisle 5" and put it in my bag. I told him it was a piece of paper, and pull it from my bag. He then starts to get angry at me and tells me he knows I am stealing items from Coles. I get very angry at this as there is a lineup behind me (there is only one register open) and I pull out every item from my cloth bag and ask him if they sell these items. The last item I pull out is a small bottle of coke, which I say I got the day before. This bottle is warm, I hadn't stored it in the fridge. The guy grabs it from my hand and asks if I have a receipt, I tell him no I don't but it's WARM. He claims that he just "put the cokes in the fridge an hour ago" and I took this coke. I get really loud and mad at him and tell him to check the cameras and he gets all flustered and tells me to leave and if I come back in they will call the cops on me.

What rights do I have in this situation? I am afraid that they are going to show up at my work with cops or something because of a bottle of coke....also I am really upset I am not allowed back in there, I haven't done anything wrong...If I go back in and they call the cops on me what will happen? Thanks for reading my long post and thanks for anyone who can give me some advice.
 

Tigerlady468

Member
26 February 2020
4
0
1
I forgot to add that the "security" guy was just a stock person, and he said that he saw me "Leave the other day out of the entrance without paying for anything." I didn't realize that not buying something is a crime now? Sometimes I will come in and look around to kill time and then just exit the store without buying something, I have done this numerous times. I feel like a criminal now and I have done nothing wrong :(
 

rjm

Well-Known Member
2 February 2020
92
8
314
Should be fine as long as there isn't video of you putting the coke in your bag, or stopping in front of the area where the coke was on display & blocking the camera with your body, & then putting something in your bag.
Tip for next time though - if you're planning on taking something into the store that they may suggest you've stolen when you leave, have it in your hand & clearly visable when you enter the store. Stay calm if this happens again. One time I purchased an item that was on sale. When I got home I checked the receipt and discovered I'd been charged full price. The next day I took it back to the store. On other occasions when I've noticed at the checkout that the sale price hasn't scanned correctly I've stayed at the checkout whilst a staff member has gone to check if the item was on sale. I've lost count how many times the staff member has come back and said I was mistaken, that it wasn't on sale. I'm very careful about checking the tags and am quite sure that I've been lied to on many occasions. That considered this particular day I returned with the item in question, but rather than go to the front desk I entered the store, with the product clearly visible in my hand. I went and checked the tag. Sure enough, it was on sale. I then took the item, receipt, and the tag to the register. Now the scanning policy is that you're supposed to receive the item for free in this scenario. On numerous occasions however I've been forced to argue the point before they comply. On this day I had already decided that I didn't have the energy for that argument and that I'd be happy just to get a refund. The checkout operator didn't offer to abide by the scanning policy and infact tried to insinuate that I'd taken the item off the shelf today and was trying to get a refund with a receipt from the day before. As you can imagine I was unimpressed. I politely asked him to be careful before calling someone a thief and a liar and directed him to look at the video camera before he went any further with the accusations. He backed down and gave me the refund, despite the fact it should have been free. I didn't even get an apology.
I've stood up for other people when I've overheard the staff giving invalid reasons for abiding by the scanning policy. One of their favourite excuses is that the item is no longer on sale. If the sale tag is still displayed you still get it for free. It's up to them to remove it when the sale period has ceased.
I've noticed that many Coles stores don't even display a copy of the scanning policy anymore. They used to be at every register. Then only at the service desk. Now you're lucky to see one even there.
 

RAFAEL

Member
27 February 2020
1
0
1
Hi i need help!!! I get cought for Shoplifting in Coles with a ticket of 74$ and Police Carme and said to me i have to go to court. Do you know what amount is going to be the fine? And what is going to happen with me? Thank you i am so worried!!
 

AnnaPa90

Active Member
20 December 2023
7
3
34
No police are going to show up at your work over a bottle of coke. Even, hypothetically, if you clearly stole the bottle of coke off the shelf and they caught you, this is not grand enough to warrant police intervention.

Always remember, the onus is not on you to prove you had stolen something, but rather for the store to prove you did.

Asking the staff to pull up CCTV a show you the video of you stealing is always smart; OR suggest they call the police and then have them explain away why they called them when no one has stolen anything (they cannot call the police over this - they wouldn’t show up).

Do remember that for theft, the items in question need to be over the collective value of $50 for the police to even THINK about showing up, even then, it is extremely unlikely they will. Even if they did, you’d just tell them you had it when you walked in, the police would ask staff to show them CCTV, there would be no proof of you’d stealing anything, the police would probably become extremely annoyed at the incompetent store staff for wasting their time and would probably apologise to you for wasting yours, too.

You haven’t been clear as to whether or not you were banned from the store; staff cannot ban you from the store for theft, if no theft has been committed.

If a theft HAS been committed and the store takes your ID, and you go back on the store, technically, you could be charged with trespass and they could ask you to leave the store.

However, you haven’t committed any crime.

Go back in and do your shopping; do not take this nonsense from anyone.

Even if you had stolen, if they don’t take your ID info and keep a record of your ID, they have no way to prove if it is the same person back in the store (I mean, you would look exactly like ‘them’, but that’s proof of nothing, except proof of looking like someone).

You’ve done nothing wrong, relax.