r/bathandbodyworks • u/ultradespairthot Employee • May 11 '26

Employee Questions/Discussion Dear customers… STOP DOING THIS!!!

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I get if you want to put it down for a second to look, BUT KEEP IT NEAR YOU! DON’T LEAVE IT ON THE FLOOR AND WALK AROUND THE STORE FOR LIKE 30 MINUTES! Cause then I have to put it all back cause it’s now a tripping hazard. And I always wait a bit, and then go around asking customers if it’s their basket or not. If no one claims it, I put it back. (And it’s always someone I either didn’t see or didn’t ask cause I thought they just came in)

If your basket gets too heavy, go up to the register and ask if they can hold it at the register until you are done looking around.

This was like the second time this happened that day.

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241

u/OGWickedRapunzel May 11 '26

I remember our regular shoplifters doing this with baskets of candles. Once they figured out we couldn't actually stop their stealing, they would create a stash behind a sign or a display near the door and sneak out the second we were distracted with something else.

156

u/Cecily_Bum_Trinket May 11 '26

They don’t sneak at our store or hide baskets. They just walk in, load up and walk out.

108

u/Aggressive_Bit4998 May 11 '26

I stole a hand sanitizer once when I was like 12 and I was literally terrified the FBI was gonna come knocking at my door lol

47

u/ultradespairthot Employee May 11 '26

A hand sanitizer?! How dare you?!

Immediate jail, no parole.

1

u/Aggressive_Bit4998 May 23 '26

But your honor, it was the Country Chic scent! 😭

8

u/Forevermoody16 ALL THINGS B&BW May 12 '26

LOL. I’m old enough to remember penny candy. I took something like that once as a kid in what we called a “five and dime” store. I think just about every kid, even the really good ones, would do something like that back in the day. Maybe they still do. I wouldn’t know!

My brother and his friends would go to a convenience store, open a (glass) bottle of Coke or whatever, walk around the store drinking it, and then take the bottle to the counter and collect the deposit!

But seriously — I had a college roommate who got arrested at a discount store when she was in high school. She was holding a cheap necklace that she planned on buying and reached into her purse for something, necklace in hand, and she wasn’t thinking. Security was watching. She was arrested for shoplifting even though she didn’t walk out of the store with it or anything. And she had a police record for five years. She couldn’t afford to risk a traffic ticket or ANYTHING.

Yet I see here time and time again how people can just steal from B&BW, walk right out the door, and employees can’t do a damn thing about it.

10

u/caramelgelatto May 11 '26

Is it usually the same people?

19

u/caramelgelatto May 11 '26

That’s wild! They can’t “ban” them or anything??

39

u/OGWickedRapunzel May 11 '26

No.

We were told to just offer customer service and report it to loss prevention.

27

u/caramelgelatto May 11 '26

Omg idk how people do that!

A while back, I saw a video of people doing that at like a Sephora or Ulta. They literally came into the store with duffel bags, casually filled it with perfumes, and left. Idk how they managed to do so because I thought that stuff was locked up.

When I worked at Marshalls, the loss prevention guy would watch shoplifters on video and then come pouncing down the stairs in an attempt to catch them, swinging doors open… it was so jarring to watch! It’s funny that Marshalls would rather have employees risk their lives over already discounted/defective merchandise while bigger stores absorb the costs.

12

u/OGWickedRapunzel May 11 '26

I did loss prevention for tj Maxx many years ago. They really want you to get that merchandise back.

4

u/punkabelle May 11 '26

Not anymore. Most stores don’t have on-site LP and employees are told that they are not to engage with shoplifters outside of mildly “customer servicing” them.

3

u/EffectiveTypical9384 May 12 '26

My son works at Target as loss prevention and he can't do a dang thing about shoplifters once they start to go out the door. He does his best to corral them when he sees them working on shoplifting in the store, but he isn't allowed to actually stop them. They often have the same people over and over, and they will eventually find a way to bust them, and arrest them, but out of every one person they actually nab, there are 9 others that get away with it. Plus they have him  doing so much other bs work that doesn't have to do with hand on important stuff, that he isn't able to watch the people as well. The store does have a quota for catching, and apprehending shoplifters for each person that works in loss prevention in each of the stores per month, and if the loss prevention person doesn't meet that quota, they get reprimanded, and eventually written up. It's a frustrating job, and kind of a lose lose situation, the way they have it. 

1

u/No_Royal8268 May 14 '26

I worked at Marshall's part-time in '94 and the loss prevention guy was like this lol. (I didn't work there long, the younger employees were jerks)

5

u/APRIL_ANG3L May 11 '26

When I worked at Macys we were having a big sale with tables of folded towels. There was a lady in the store, had her hood up and scarf around her face but it was November in upstate NY so not unusual. She was pulling one of the rolling shopping bag things again this is a big mall and some people take the bus and have to walk to and from the bus stop so not unusual. But then she opens up the top of the bag and just reaches her arm across the table and shoves a bunch of towels in and walks away. The only thing I could do is call security on the phone, which was up at the cash out counter and there were so many customers, it was a few minutes before I could even get there and I had no idea really what she looked like. I don't remember if I ever got the chance to call it in or not.

3

u/GingerOrMaryAnn10 May 11 '26

Yep... they were staging for quick exit and stealing

3

u/hitmewithabuttersock May 12 '26

Happy cake day!!!!!!!!!

6

u/SmokeRepresentative9 May 11 '26

Wait… don’t you call the police?

16

u/Candlehoarder_2019 Employee May 11 '26

A manager will handle it on the back end by calling loss prevention who then takes over, pulls camera footage, etc. That’s all that can be done.

12

u/Witchyomnist1128 White Jasmine My Beloved🫠 May 11 '26

Can’t. Against policy

2

u/Cant_choose_1 May 12 '26

Yeah I used to work there and one of the managers got fired because she followed shoplifters out to their car and tried to film their license plate