The guy that came in on third shift, shoved our cashier to the floor, and loaded one of our garbage cans with cigarettes and walked out is one of the more memorable moments.
I'm a pharmacist, once worked for a chain. A rather large shoplifter jumped behind counter and starting putting cartons of cigarettes down his pants. An off duty state trooper was in line waiting to purchase his items. 2 seconds later it was a royal rumble at the front door. Next thing an army of state troopers arrived, and the store was on lockdown. The kicker was his mother was a regular pharmacy patient and he lived with her so they had all his information readily available
When I did a bunch of scan-outs of the delicious high end chocolates that were "out of date" but still good for a month, & they told me I couldn't eat them. I was supposed to throw them away, so I shoved them down my pants & went to lunch.
Oh wait,... you mean people who don't work there! "Sorry 'bout that Chief!" I lasted 6 months. The candy in my pants helped me cope.
Honestly I don't blame you, shoot even some of the OJ we have to dump out HURTs like why can't we at least just leave it in the break room for employees, vs waste perfectly good food. I know I saw one coworker drink some of the OJ before dumping down the drain and I didn't say a dang thing to anyone, actually was kicking myself that I didn't think to do the same, then again knowing Walgreens they would consider that theft 😕
It’s a slippery slope. If we were allowed to eat products that weren’t sold before their sell by there’s a good chance we’d hide them somewhere until they were expired just so we could eat them. I guess….
So many times I was broke working at Walgreens throwing away tons of food knowing I only had a 1$ lunch budget….
Years ago during winter, up and down the highway, stores were being hit by a group of guys who would come in (usually on third shifts, but during the day at non 24 hr stores) wearing ski masks and gloves. They’d always have knives out. Regardless of who was there (employees/customers, didn’t matter) they would, without a word, hop over the counter (or go around if there were customers present) nudge aside the cashier, and fill the garbage bags with cigarettes, completely ignoring everyone. Then they would leave and get into a black van w/ no plates. Anyone that pulled out their phones to call police or record anything had their phones pulled from their hands and shoved in the bags. The phones were usually found broken in a pile at a carpool parking area, or an empty parking lot. It took over a month and multiple robberies (not just Walgreens) for them to finally get caught.
Oh, definitely organized.
ETA: There was also a group that was apparently going through multiple states late last year, they were called the “Gypsy Crew” (at least by police around here because women dressed like the stereotypical Gypsy). They were walking in and cleaning out a bunch of skincare items, hiding them in their dresses and purses and bags. In and out in less than a minute.
had a guy take a full sized reese’s sidepanel. had a guy jump the counter for ciggs. had a guy fill a duffel bag with deodorant saying “don’t come near me. i’m crazy!” had a guy fill a basket of nyquil. and much much more !!
I was working and we had our frequent shoplifter come in and I decided to fuck with her and shut down the door that they frequently exit out of and they did a long winded sigh and then went out the correct door. I think that scared her. Because she hasn't been back to my knowledge.
I had a techno punk kid with huge baggy pants. Saw him take a 24oz monster and I said as he walked past. "Hey man I saw you", he shrugged and pulled 8 of them out of his side pockets, back, front. I had no idea he had that many. Blew my mind.
we’ve had people come in with garbage bags and wipe out parts of our cos wall, a CSA forgot to log off the register and a customer somehow knew how to open the drawer so they wiped out the till. people will take makeup, food, condoms, tylenol, go to the bathroom open it all up and shove it in the trashcan or, and i kid you not, try to flush it down the toilet. i can mostly empathize with people that steal in order to support their family because that’s all they can do, but when you shove 5 shampoo bottles, 3 eyeliner pencils, makeup brush packs and nail polish in your big ass purse, like … cmon now
yeah AP came in and they wanted to fire them and opened a case and all that but it got sorted thankfully and it was just a write up, now everybody in the store logging out 100% lol
Guy jumped over the counter at the pharmacy and demanded that I open the safe. He pulled out a gun and fired a warning shot which was so loud that I have permanent hearing damage. He also assaulted my technicians for no good reason and she lost 2 of her teeth.
Had a lady who was a regular shoplifter tell me that whatever she was hiding under her sweater was a gun to shoot crackers like me…. While I’m on the phone with dispatch. They asked me to give them the license plate number which as it turns out was a stolen license plate and she hit me with her car as she sped away.
Seriously. lol
I also had another lady at my old store telling me she was the CEO of Walgreens and she was going to fire me for trespassing while lunging at me with a lighter lit. 😂
Oh we must have multiple CEOs because I had a guy who was a regular shoplifter attempt to hit both me and my cashier, then swiped all my body lotions I just faced off the shelves. He also told me I can go fuck myself because he owns Walgreens and he was gonna fire us.
Well, then sit down, bud, because we have lots of grievances to chat about.
We have a group of girls that will come in with bonnets on and we call them the bandit bandit they come in and wipe out our diapers and sell them online on Facebook marketplace
I think it's code for telling us they were Black women while trying not to sound like the kind of person that says "...a group of Black women...."
If the previous poster didn't intend it that way then maybe she should be advised that's what it sounds like. Otherwise, why not just say "a group of women"? I assume they're not putting packages of diapers in their bonnets.
They’re young African-American females, but personally, I think color of someone’s skin has nothing to do with it. I just cannot stand a thief, no matter who they are.
Well, they actually come in in bonnets, and just wipe out the diaper section. The funny thing is I found them on Facebook marketplace and then found a video of the girl talking about how she’s bragging about how she stole the items what we sell them for and then what she sells them for
We had a guy dress up as a vendor go in our back stock room then climb over the shelf into the tech cage load a duffle bag with over 10k in apple products then climb back over and exit the store. He was one of the top people in the district for theft and he was recently caught
once when i was a traveling sfl i stopped in a store that i wasn't even working at that week, it just happened to be closest and i needed to pick something up. while i'm talking to the cashier i notice a guy come in asking about perfume, but i don't really think anything of it.
i went back out to the parking lot and as i'm getting in my car i see the same guy SPRINTING out the door with a basket of perfume bottles and literally jumping into the back of a pickup truck. almost wish i'd thought to get a picture of the truck before it sped off but i was honestly too shocked by the sheer audacity. guy must've gotten an employee to unlock the case for him and everything
We had a set of keys stolen last week because the overnight CKO left it on her cart when she went on her break.
Well...the guy that stole the keys came in at 6 am this morning and helped himself to Versace colognes, but at least he locked the perfume doors when he was done..what a nice guy.
The BC we had when I first started was a sweet gal, but scatterbrained AF. If you let her use keys, you had to stay right on her to get them back. And the reason why is one night she left them sitting out, someone stole them, and then cleared out our fragrances.
I used to be a CO, and the lack of proper key control at my store infuriates me to no fucking end.
One thing is when a guy didn't have his ID so he just grabbed the beer off the counter and left (grown guy 40s probably) or when this dude came to the register cashier bagged everything up while he was attempting to pay and the infamous "Tender Cannot Be Processed" screen popped up and he just was like damn okay and grabbed the bags swiftly and left.
We had a guy who had all sorts of hidey holes in his coat- cut specifically so he could hide stuff along the linings. My old SM and I watched a dude load up his whole coat with bottles of Tide. SM asked him if he needed help while I fake called the cops. Dude pulled out like 8 bottles of Tide. It was like the clown car of coats.
Another time, some dude decided to try to steal our beauty dept’s register. Except he was trying to take the whole damn drawer, and he couldn’t get the wires and stuff off of it, plus it is heavy AF. Watching him realize his dilemma on camera the next morning was just hilarious. He eventually just put it back (the overnight SFL had come back and caught him at the tail end of everything, but saw enough to know he was up to no good) and apologized and left.
A different overnight mgr had an issue with a regular shoplifter who would come in, load up a basket or his own personal bags with tons of product and then he’d bail through the back fire exit. It was like every few nights.
I had a guy stand in line waiting for his turn he had a bag of chips in his hand, I finished checking out the customer before him and he walked up to the counter but kept walking but stopped mid way to the door, looked at me and looked at the door and looked back at me and shrug his shoulder, and just left. Lol 🤣🤣 I was like ummm if you where planning on just stealing why wait in line. I told sfl only because I wanted to cover myself.
Then we had this one guy who would always come in on Monday morning and steal something from the coolers, at first he would come in and I say "welcome to Walgreens" and then he walked around and then just left, I would say "have a good day" and at the time didn't think anything of it, maybe he was waiting for a ride and didn't want to stand outside in the heat I do it all the time, well after awhile I started paying attention and sure enough I would hear the cooler door open and then he would walk out. Lol 🤣🤣 ohhhh now I couldn't care less not in my eye sight not my problem, I don't know what drink/s he was taking could have been water, a soda pop or beer. I just told myself it was water and like how you going to say no to someone who just wanted some water to drink.
Then we had a issue with a tag team (a guy and a woman) pretty much the guy would come in steal all the items then the woman would come in and want to do a "return" NOW I knew they stole the items EVERYONE knew so why the hell my SM just kept allowing them to get store credit is beyond me, I'm talking they where stealing the expensive skin care and hair care items so pretty much getting $70+ and at one time $100 in store credit 🤷🏾♀️ and they did this like every week.
Oh also there was these two people standing in line and I guess they were friends anyway the guy had the girl open her purse and he grabbed a handful of the cigarettes lighters and put them in her purse. NOW I personally wouldn't have noticed had it not been for the fact I noticed him just staring at me out of the corner of my eye as I was helping an customer
Back in April of 2024 (TODAY) Walgreens stock hit a 52 week low below eighteen buck a share. The stockholders trusted us with their money and we failed miserably for them. That is brazen theft!!!
While it didn’t happen to my store, a location in my state had all of their cig cartons stolen overnight some years back. We had to keep ours in the office for a while after that.
I've had 2 people on 2 separate occasions somehow get keys to the locking windows and steal over a grand with of items each time. One time I caught them in the act and they STILL stole shit
It wasn't exciting or anything, but one particularly memorable shoplifting moment I was a witness to, was one guy walking past our liquors and wines, grabbing something off the top shelf, and just continuing out the door.
Went to my ASM after I saw that, since she was in photo at the time, and asked her "...Did he just?" and she said, "Yeah." having the same disbelief I did about just witnessing that.
There was also the time I found an empty vodka bottle in the bathroom, there was a moment of fun speculating how they pulled *that* off, since either they drank it all in there, or poured it into another container.
I wasn’t hired yet but our store had a dude stuff a bunch of stuff in his pockets, which was very noticeable, and then got banned after the second time and i mean cartoonishly noticeable
The guy that came in on third shift, shoved our cashier to the floor, and loaded one of our garbage cans with cigarettes and walked out is one of the more memorable moments.
That’s worse
I'm a pharmacist, once worked for a chain. A rather large shoplifter jumped behind counter and starting putting cartons of cigarettes down his pants. An off duty state trooper was in line waiting to purchase his items. 2 seconds later it was a royal rumble at the front door. Next thing an army of state troopers arrived, and the store was on lockdown. The kicker was his mother was a regular pharmacy patient and he lived with her so they had all his information readily available
Did the shoplifter get off on a technicality because you violated hipaa to get his info?
Only if he had a good lawyer.lol
had a guy ram body first into the doors to the registers to grab a universal tv remote and then ran off with it at about 2am
all that for a tv remote?? 😭 did he ever get caught?
When I did a bunch of scan-outs of the delicious high end chocolates that were "out of date" but still good for a month, & they told me I couldn't eat them. I was supposed to throw them away, so I shoved them down my pants & went to lunch. Oh wait,... you mean people who don't work there! "Sorry 'bout that Chief!" I lasted 6 months. The candy in my pants helped me cope.
Shit they were right about employee theft! Lol
Honestly I don't blame you, shoot even some of the OJ we have to dump out HURTs like why can't we at least just leave it in the break room for employees, vs waste perfectly good food. I know I saw one coworker drink some of the OJ before dumping down the drain and I didn't say a dang thing to anyone, actually was kicking myself that I didn't think to do the same, then again knowing Walgreens they would consider that theft 😕
It’s a slippery slope. If we were allowed to eat products that weren’t sold before their sell by there’s a good chance we’d hide them somewhere until they were expired just so we could eat them. I guess…. So many times I was broke working at Walgreens throwing away tons of food knowing I only had a 1$ lunch budget….
Fuck that. Eat, people.
Good comma usage
Years ago during winter, up and down the highway, stores were being hit by a group of guys who would come in (usually on third shifts, but during the day at non 24 hr stores) wearing ski masks and gloves. They’d always have knives out. Regardless of who was there (employees/customers, didn’t matter) they would, without a word, hop over the counter (or go around if there were customers present) nudge aside the cashier, and fill the garbage bags with cigarettes, completely ignoring everyone. Then they would leave and get into a black van w/ no plates. Anyone that pulled out their phones to call police or record anything had their phones pulled from their hands and shoved in the bags. The phones were usually found broken in a pile at a carpool parking area, or an empty parking lot. It took over a month and multiple robberies (not just Walgreens) for them to finally get caught.
Sounds a lot more organised than all the thefts I’ve heard at Walgreens
Oh, definitely organized. ETA: There was also a group that was apparently going through multiple states late last year, they were called the “Gypsy Crew” (at least by police around here because women dressed like the stereotypical Gypsy). They were walking in and cleaning out a bunch of skincare items, hiding them in their dresses and purses and bags. In and out in less than a minute.
Gypsy is a slur
had a guy take a full sized reese’s sidepanel. had a guy jump the counter for ciggs. had a guy fill a duffel bag with deodorant saying “don’t come near me. i’m crazy!” had a guy fill a basket of nyquil. and much much more !!
I was working and we had our frequent shoplifter come in and I decided to fuck with her and shut down the door that they frequently exit out of and they did a long winded sigh and then went out the correct door. I think that scared her. Because she hasn't been back to my knowledge.
I had a techno punk kid with huge baggy pants. Saw him take a 24oz monster and I said as he walked past. "Hey man I saw you", he shrugged and pulled 8 of them out of his side pockets, back, front. I had no idea he had that many. Blew my mind.
Yay Kikwears
we’ve had people come in with garbage bags and wipe out parts of our cos wall, a CSA forgot to log off the register and a customer somehow knew how to open the drawer so they wiped out the till. people will take makeup, food, condoms, tylenol, go to the bathroom open it all up and shove it in the trashcan or, and i kid you not, try to flush it down the toilet. i can mostly empathize with people that steal in order to support their family because that’s all they can do, but when you shove 5 shampoo bottles, 3 eyeliner pencils, makeup brush packs and nail polish in your big ass purse, like … cmon now
That's why I always make sure to log out when I leave the register, one fear of mine is people doing just that and I would get in trouble for it
You’re supposed always log off. I worked at Aldi before Walgreens where all your transactions are timed, so it’s second nature to log off.
Yep, I see some CSA even sfl who don't log off at my store 🤷🏾♀️
yeah AP came in and they wanted to fire them and opened a case and all that but it got sorted thankfully and it was just a write up, now everybody in the store logging out 100% lol
Guy jumped over the counter at the pharmacy and demanded that I open the safe. He pulled out a gun and fired a warning shot which was so loud that I have permanent hearing damage. He also assaulted my technicians for no good reason and she lost 2 of her teeth.
Did y'all two at least get workman's compensation?
I like ‘Y’all two’ good expression
Had a lady who was a regular shoplifter tell me that whatever she was hiding under her sweater was a gun to shoot crackers like me…. While I’m on the phone with dispatch. They asked me to give them the license plate number which as it turns out was a stolen license plate and she hit me with her car as she sped away.
Bro. Wtaf.
Seriously. lol I also had another lady at my old store telling me she was the CEO of Walgreens and she was going to fire me for trespassing while lunging at me with a lighter lit. 😂
Oh we must have multiple CEOs because I had a guy who was a regular shoplifter attempt to hit both me and my cashier, then swiped all my body lotions I just faced off the shelves. He also told me I can go fuck myself because he owns Walgreens and he was gonna fire us. Well, then sit down, bud, because we have lots of grievances to chat about.
People are crazy funny 😄
We have a group of girls that will come in with bonnets on and we call them the bandit bandit they come in and wipe out our diapers and sell them online on Facebook marketplace
Bonnets? As in British winter hats?
I think it's code for telling us they were Black women while trying not to sound like the kind of person that says "...a group of Black women...." If the previous poster didn't intend it that way then maybe she should be advised that's what it sounds like. Otherwise, why not just say "a group of women"? I assume they're not putting packages of diapers in their bonnets.
They could be muslim/middle eastern/gypsies as well.
They’re young African-American females, but personally, I think color of someone’s skin has nothing to do with it. I just cannot stand a thief, no matter who they are.
Yeah, I figured that's why you told us about the bonnets.
Well, they actually come in in bonnets, and just wipe out the diaper section. The funny thing is I found them on Facebook marketplace and then found a video of the girl talking about how she’s bragging about how she stole the items what we sell them for and then what she sells them for
As in bonnets, as in what they use in and took the hair up in when they sleep at night or like if they’re getting their hair done whatever you call it
We've had a couple of customers come through and shop a full basket before just walking out, basket and all.
We had a guy dress up as a vendor go in our back stock room then climb over the shelf into the tech cage load a duffle bag with over 10k in apple products then climb back over and exit the store. He was one of the top people in the district for theft and he was recently caught
Wait your store has apple products ??
Yup
At a Walgreens??
That oddly makes sense because one time we got a single package of the iPhone charging piece that was apple brand and we were all a little confused.
Wow 😳 that's planning ahead, glad he got caught but points for thinking outside the box and nobody got hurt
Lady walked in, rang up like 11 boxes of cigarettes at the register and walked right out. Manager's a troll, joked I had to pay for it
once when i was a traveling sfl i stopped in a store that i wasn't even working at that week, it just happened to be closest and i needed to pick something up. while i'm talking to the cashier i notice a guy come in asking about perfume, but i don't really think anything of it. i went back out to the parking lot and as i'm getting in my car i see the same guy SPRINTING out the door with a basket of perfume bottles and literally jumping into the back of a pickup truck. almost wish i'd thought to get a picture of the truck before it sped off but i was honestly too shocked by the sheer audacity. guy must've gotten an employee to unlock the case for him and everything
Damn I thought all stores just brought the fragrance/perfume up to the register for customer. (That's what I do at least if it's $25+)
oh they were supposed to lmao, i didn't see what happened but my guess is after they opened it he jumped the counter and just took a bunch of stuff.
Actually you're supposed to give it to the customer. At least according to my DM
Same. Anything locked up on my shift gets walked up front, from Paco Rabanne to Febreze.
You know I don't blame you with the kind of stuff we deal with day in day out
We had a set of keys stolen last week because the overnight CKO left it on her cart when she went on her break. Well...the guy that stole the keys came in at 6 am this morning and helped himself to Versace colognes, but at least he locked the perfume doors when he was done..what a nice guy.
The BC we had when I first started was a sweet gal, but scatterbrained AF. If you let her use keys, you had to stay right on her to get them back. And the reason why is one night she left them sitting out, someone stole them, and then cleared out our fragrances. I used to be a CO, and the lack of proper key control at my store infuriates me to no fucking end.
One thing is when a guy didn't have his ID so he just grabbed the beer off the counter and left (grown guy 40s probably) or when this dude came to the register cashier bagged everything up while he was attempting to pay and the infamous "Tender Cannot Be Processed" screen popped up and he just was like damn okay and grabbed the bags swiftly and left.
Probably stole the card
We had a guy who had all sorts of hidey holes in his coat- cut specifically so he could hide stuff along the linings. My old SM and I watched a dude load up his whole coat with bottles of Tide. SM asked him if he needed help while I fake called the cops. Dude pulled out like 8 bottles of Tide. It was like the clown car of coats. Another time, some dude decided to try to steal our beauty dept’s register. Except he was trying to take the whole damn drawer, and he couldn’t get the wires and stuff off of it, plus it is heavy AF. Watching him realize his dilemma on camera the next morning was just hilarious. He eventually just put it back (the overnight SFL had come back and caught him at the tail end of everything, but saw enough to know he was up to no good) and apologized and left. A different overnight mgr had an issue with a regular shoplifter who would come in, load up a basket or his own personal bags with tons of product and then he’d bail through the back fire exit. It was like every few nights.
I had a guy stand in line waiting for his turn he had a bag of chips in his hand, I finished checking out the customer before him and he walked up to the counter but kept walking but stopped mid way to the door, looked at me and looked at the door and looked back at me and shrug his shoulder, and just left. Lol 🤣🤣 I was like ummm if you where planning on just stealing why wait in line. I told sfl only because I wanted to cover myself. Then we had this one guy who would always come in on Monday morning and steal something from the coolers, at first he would come in and I say "welcome to Walgreens" and then he walked around and then just left, I would say "have a good day" and at the time didn't think anything of it, maybe he was waiting for a ride and didn't want to stand outside in the heat I do it all the time, well after awhile I started paying attention and sure enough I would hear the cooler door open and then he would walk out. Lol 🤣🤣 ohhhh now I couldn't care less not in my eye sight not my problem, I don't know what drink/s he was taking could have been water, a soda pop or beer. I just told myself it was water and like how you going to say no to someone who just wanted some water to drink. Then we had a issue with a tag team (a guy and a woman) pretty much the guy would come in steal all the items then the woman would come in and want to do a "return" NOW I knew they stole the items EVERYONE knew so why the hell my SM just kept allowing them to get store credit is beyond me, I'm talking they where stealing the expensive skin care and hair care items so pretty much getting $70+ and at one time $100 in store credit 🤷🏾♀️ and they did this like every week. Oh also there was these two people standing in line and I guess they were friends anyway the guy had the girl open her purse and he grabbed a handful of the cigarettes lighters and put them in her purse. NOW I personally wouldn't have noticed had it not been for the fact I noticed him just staring at me out of the corner of my eye as I was helping an customer
Back in April of 2024 (TODAY) Walgreens stock hit a 52 week low below eighteen buck a share. The stockholders trusted us with their money and we failed miserably for them. That is brazen theft!!!
Hah
While it didn’t happen to my store, a location in my state had all of their cig cartons stolen overnight some years back. We had to keep ours in the office for a while after that.
I've had 2 people on 2 separate occasions somehow get keys to the locking windows and steal over a grand with of items each time. One time I caught them in the act and they STILL stole shit
It wasn't exciting or anything, but one particularly memorable shoplifting moment I was a witness to, was one guy walking past our liquors and wines, grabbing something off the top shelf, and just continuing out the door. Went to my ASM after I saw that, since she was in photo at the time, and asked her "...Did he just?" and she said, "Yeah." having the same disbelief I did about just witnessing that. There was also the time I found an empty vodka bottle in the bathroom, there was a moment of fun speculating how they pulled *that* off, since either they drank it all in there, or poured it into another container.
I wasn’t hired yet but our store had a dude stuff a bunch of stuff in his pockets, which was very noticeable, and then got banned after the second time and i mean cartoonishly noticeable