Turkey-Taking Shoplifters Caught on Camera
“Customers look for opportunity,” William Alford told ABC News.
— -- Thanksgiving is a time of giving, but for some, it’s all about taking.
Surveillance video captured by StopLift, shows a grocery store shopper ringing up an item in self-checkout, but then walking away with a turkey.
At another self-checkout, a shopper scans items but appears to miss the mark on one and walks it through.
Some security experts say theft is up to five times more likely at self-checkout counters than at manned checkouts.
“Customers look for opportunity,” William Alford, president of the International Lighthouse Group, a risk management firm specializing in identifying risks, threats and liabilities to businesses, told ABC News. “If no one’s watching them, and they say, ‘Wow this is easy,’ then they may try it.”
Another video at a regular checkout line you see the same type of theft with some items being scanned, but this time the prized poultry just remains in the shopping cart.
Shoplifting costs U.S. retailers an estimated $17 billion a year, which result in higher prices for the paying customer.
“The profit margin is anywhere from 1 to 3 percent,” Alford said. "In a regular basket full of groceries, if one item is either not rung up or destroyed, the profit for that entire buggy of groceries is gone. Does it increase prices? Yes, it does. Over the long haul it absolutely does.”
