Food retailers have seen a “massive” increase in pensioner shoplifters over the last year, a security firm has said.
John Nussbaum, director of service for retail at Kingdom Security, said his staff were seeing a “different sort of shoplifter now” as the cost of living “pushes people to something they’ve never done before”.
Food retailers have seen a “massive” increase in pensioner shoplifters over the last year, a security firm has said
While I am sympathetic to anyone who has to shoplift to eat, I’d suggest a little skepticism after noting two things:
One the time period (almost exactly lines up with the period that Labour has been in power) and,
Two the source - the Telegraph is nicknamed the Torygraph for a reason…they are the mouth piece for the conservative party and make no bones about it.
I’m no fan of the Blue Tories - Sir Keir would comfortably fit into the Conservative party of a decade ago (before their heads exploded) - I’m quite disappointed in their performance. But I’d counsel a little caution on taking what smells strongly of a propaganda piece at face value
Edit Red Tories doh. The American reversed colours has seeped into my psyche lol
Not to mention the telegraph claimed source. A private security company. Conveniently claiming they have no documentation because their customers (the supermarkets) do not want negative publicity.
Well spotted, yes indeed
He added: “Retailers don’t tend to involve the police when they’re dealing with pensioners. Stores tend to want to handle it on their own.
“It’s not good publicity for a supermarket if it got out that a pensioner had been handed over to the police for shoplifting.”
Sounds like the numbers could be higher then, if it’s not getting reported.
.
But at least UK is free of the EU bureaucracy
I think anyone who’s worked in retail knows they’ve always been a high demographic with shoplifting. No one reports it because it’s just an old lady/gent and mental health comes in as a blanket enablement. Now we have people unable to meet their own basic living standards and having their support taken away in benefit of the rich, you’ll obviously see a lot more of it.
Reminds me of that Seinfeld episode with the bookstore
If you see someone stealing food, no, you didn’t.
Depends on the food. Not going to be overly sympathetic to someone stealing caviar and steak.
Folklore says steaks can easily be converted to cash and that’s why they are more heavily guarded. Not so sure about caviar though.
Where I live there are frequently people that come into pubs to sell things that were clearly stolen from the nearby Morrisons.
I’ve found blocks of cheese to be an extremely frequently stolen item.
Makes sense. Fairly easy to conceal, surprisingly expensive (depending on what you get, like £8-16 per kilo), doesn’t usually come with security tags like steaks often do these days, and there’s lots of potential buyers for cheese since it’s used in a lot of things and it’s bloody lovely.
Ex-barstaff come assistant manager here from a local boozer from many, many years ago.
We had a rule that the barstaff got first dibs on the deals if the smackheads came in with their goodies like you say (meat / coffee / Gillette triple bladers were big sellers…), and only then the customers came second. Crazy how even then your sweet old lady having her shandy top was in that queue 🙈
Jesus, how fucking depressing is that
And yet they’re the only demographic who gets a pay that always matches or exceeds inflation. Seems weird that they’d see a disproportionate increase in shoplifting.
Boredom and mental illness.
I’m sure glad they have their pension triple locked so it always goes up with inflation at the least…
Good for them. If the most vulnerable can’t afford to live, fuck the corps and government.
