shoplifting

labrat

hot on the heels of love
I was thinking about this recently when woebot said he'd nicked his copy of Art into Pop; Me too! back in the days before Waterstones had ''beepers''.
whats the best/craftiest bit of shoplifing you've done ?
 
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Noah Baby Food

Well-known member
Christ, now you're talking. How long have you got? As a seventeen-to-eighteen year old jobless yoot, living in a shitty bedshit in a South Coast of England town, small-time "shottin'" and shop theft was my bread and butter. Seriously dark days, that made me the man I am today...ahem..

- on my 18th birthday taxed £300 worth of kids clothes, sold 'em to my "fence" for cash and hash, went for a meal then went raving (on red & yellows...daaaaaamn)

- me and my mate stole a HUGE soft toy of a hedgehog from Clinton Cards, making a half-hearted attempt to conceal it using both of our puffa jackets

-TDK SA90 cassettes were the LICK. Available just about everywhere, could get a quid each for 'em...me and my pals used to drive to different South Coast towns, stopping off at every Woolworth's and taxing ALLl the SA90s

- went into branch of Fosters Clothing (now defunct), surreptitiously threw about 10 children's t-shirts into the changing room, dead quickly so the shop assistant couldn't see me. Asked to try on a shirt, went into changing room, put all the child's t-shirts on, one on top of another - it was a struggle - then put my original top on over them. Then came out with the shirt, said "I might come back for this mate", sweltering hot, looking a lot thicker-set than when I went in. Breezed out of there, went to public WC, struggled to take off all kid's shirts, went and fenced 'em for weed and I was a happy brer.

There's too many to mention, really. Used to nick CDs from bargain bin (Woolworth's again), take 'em to the bogs, take off cellophane, scratch the cases a bit with a coin, then take 'em to the second hand record shop, run by a fruity old drunken Irishman. He always bought all of them off me without question (although a good question would have been "why do you have 5 copies of the Jive Bunny album?"...). Take the money, buy some fags, go to the cafe for a fry-up...

(sadly, this same shop bought a lot of my old punk vinyl...a> I was desperate and b> had "House Music Year Zero" mentality and thought I'd never want to listen to Black Flag again...you learn, eh?...)

...those were the days as a "yoot on road"...chequered past innit...

...for the record, haven't got the bottle to pinch ANYTHING anymore, haven't been able to for years...got caught too many times, then paranoia sets in...brrrrrrr.... got banned from all branches of Burtons, Fosters, Woolworths (wish I'd kept the letters)...got banned from every branch of McDonalds in the world (!) as well...that's another story...

the store detectives who used to work in Woolworths (who nicked me and my mates and thought they were something off The Sweeney) actually came in to our local boozer once...and left after five minutes, as soon as everyone realised who they were...hehe...
 

owen

Well-known member
i stole a jonathan richman album when i was 17
and a box set of william blake's illuminated books which i gave to my girlfriend as a present (i was a very romantic shoplifter)
babylon didn't lose much!
 

martin

----
-The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, by Alan Sillitoe, for my then girlfriend - I thought this was kind of apt and she'd be enthralled I did it for her - she considered me a cheapskate

- "The Factory Sampler" double 7" (priced £40) which I then sold to a Joy Division-obsessed friend for a fiver

- a pile of '80s punk singles from Kensington Market (all crap - I'm surprised the stallholder didn't use the local paper to thank the anonymous samaritan who relieved him of such tat)

- "Spleen and Ideal" by Chas Baudelaire. Cracking read, but ironically someone stole this from me

- Numerous cans of beans and coke, loaves of bread and smoked cheeses

- Not really shoplifting, but in the past, loads of hit and run attacks on Pizza Hut buffet carts

However, this is all boring compared to someone I used to know, who once stole a sofa from a department store - just by going in with his brother, lifting it up, and calmly taking it out the back and loading it into a van. Nobody checked or challenged them.
 

Backjob

Well-known member
I admire the guts in Noah's story. I only shoplifted when it was totally safe and was never that ambitious.

My stock in trade was to lift small but expensive items, like sunglasses and then buy something cheap like a pair of socks because if you leave via the cashier the store detectives don't bother you.

The other one was to go into HMV, grab a big pile of vinyl and head for the listening station. When you got there, take all the expensive import vinyl out of its sleeve and then cram about 3 12s into the sleeve of whatever was on 99p promotion that week. Take that to the counter and buy it and you've paid 99p, but got 15-20 quids worth of records. Of course, never do that in an independent retailer, only the big chains.

I quit when I got nabbed by the store detective in Sainsburies with some cheese up my sleeve. Pathetic end to a pathetic career.
 

Noah Baby Food

Well-known member
Some nice tactics there Backjob. Putting on a pair of 501s under your (baggy) jeans in the changing rooms was always a winner - good seller, used to get £15 for 'em...one time my mate ripped his hand open really badly pulling off the security tag and the shopgirl was suspicious of all the blood...hahaha...

When I used to get loads of punk/HC fanzines mail order in the late eighties, they always came with loads of flyers. One I remember was for a proposed Shoplifters Union, providing financial and legal support for those nicked nicking from shops. Don't know if it ever took off (highly unlikely eh) but it's an interesting idea.
 

owen

Well-known member
martin said:
-The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, by Alan Sillitoe, for my then girlfriend - I thought this was kind of apt and she'd be enthralled I did it for her - she considered me a cheapskate

- "The Factory Sampler" double 7" (priced £40) which I then sold to a Joy Division-obsessed friend for a fiver

.

bloody hell, isn't that utterly impossible to find?

that's awful about the book, my then girlfriend was very pleased with the filched blake

i used to take jeans and things from a bin that was round the corner from a levi's shop....was always ripped obviously but quite picturesquely so
 

martin

----
owen said:
bloody hell, isn't that utterly impossible to find?

that's awful about the book, my then girlfriend was very pleased with the filched blake

Is it? I'm always fucking up like that - I would charged him £10 if I'd known

Yes, you obviously had a more enlightened girlfriend than mine - there is something quite romantic about it isn't there? The risk of arrest, the thrill of the blag - you sort of know Blake would have approved. Whereas "£6.99 please, do you want a bag with that?" is....well the complete opposite of sex really
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
i've always been pretty fearless & shameless when it comes to filching drinks

i.e., when i'm too brok to go out . . . . then get there and realize i need a few drinks

so people turn their backs or leave drinks unattended, which opportunities i then seize

the only real hazard is unwanted disease, sore throat

back in the pre-smoking ban days, there was the risk of cigarette ash in beer bottles
 

dominic

Beast of Burden
my other big scam is to go by hostels for all the international visitors to nyc, as they often put out free pizza for their guests

tuck a couple pizzas under my arm, then head for the door
 

sufi

lala
schtum

i've already been outed as unsuccessful shoplifta on dis site, so i got no rep to defend,
and cos i have no need to cathartically get nuffin off my chest right now about my prolific other pilfers, i'll keep my own counsel for the mo ;)
 

mms

sometimes
i walked out of hmv with a copy of slk's hype hype weeks back , thinking it was quite a heavy record for a 12" i opened it and it turned out to have a fallacy record and 'typical me' by kano in it, which some would be thief had arranged for me,very cool.


i had a mate called nathaniel when i was a kid, still see him around sometimes when i'm at home and he's not in jail.
from an early age he was always a shit criminal. i remember him kicking this pipe in on the way back from junior school and it was full of shit which he got all up his leg.
then next he was taken to the police station nicking a scalextrix while we were in burger king watching later him and some mates broke into fosters thru the roof and he was caught by the cops with his foot stuck in the roof and a load of leather jackets in his hands.
things got worse from there on in and he didn't learn his lesson, he's pretty much a full time petty criminal nowdays and is in and out of jail.

another mate had a party when we were about 18 and his parents were away. nathaniel turned up and stayed the night for some reason, my mate who's party it was made me sleep in the same room as nathaniel as he was worried he would run away with the family silver.
poor nathaniel
 
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francesco

Minerva Estassi
Me and my friend Thomas used to Shoplift vinyls in the late '80 using the classic "large overcoat" trick (the first record i shplift beeing "ummagumma" and then "yeti" and "tagomago", since they were double albums.

But my favorite metod was going to house of others collectors or other people... take a couple of records when they were distracted putting those in my bag with mine... never invite me at yours home!

One night at a party of a friend's friend looked at the records of the absent father of the ower of the house. And spot a origina copy of "their satanic majestic request" mint and with the 3d cover. I opend the window and throw it away from the 6th floor, then went out to recollect, it was still intact, and the day after i selled for what, for a little kid,was big money...
 

zhao

there are no accidents
hahaha! this a funny funny thread. shoplifters of the world unite and take over!

my only moral problem with stealing: the big shops are open game, but don't steal from friends or even friend's friends. or even mom and pop shops. that is just no good.

all of this is quite a few years ago:

I have this pair of Magic Pants™, it's one of those pairs of early rave techno plastic pants, a shoplifter's dream come true: they feature these pockets on the side which go from almost hip to ankle. incredible. I can fit about 10 CD's from the used bins in each leg. they have the crumpled up baggy look so the bulge doesn't even show. when I was REALLY desperate I used to do this 3/4 times at a shop at a time, pretend I'm going outside to have a smoke or something and going back again and again, coming out with about 50 CD's, which I then sell to another second hand shop for $100 or more.

was banned from a giant independent record shop for years: every CD is in the big hard plastic cases, so I used to do the switcheroo on the price tags. Steve Lacy box set from the 70s? $6.99. Neu! number 1 original pressing? $1.99. Sun Ra Live from 1969 on Get Back? $2.99. god knows I got away with so much because most of the hoodlums working the cash registers were clueless. until one day this girl was on the know. I think it was the Steve Lacy box set. she eyed me funny and scanned the bar-code, called the manager over and I was blacklisted.

when I was about 23 I was doing the Magic Pants™ bit at a big chain, where you have to rip the plastic off to get rid of the beeper activating sticker, and because I was too greedy, after already getting about 20 things I remembered I really wanted a copy of Miles Davis' In A Silent Way... and they got me. said it was the sound of plastic ripping. caught me on a friday afternoon and kept me over the weekend, for 4 days, at the County Jail. serious business the County is. Saw a big tough Latino tattooed gangster sitting in the corner crying like a little girl; a bloody brother with half arm missing being rushed by on stretchers (there's a hospital in the place), and all sorts of fucking CRAZY shit. 4 days seemed like 3 years. not a happy place, prison. highlight was playing mental chess with an inmate... and winning.

but that was pretty much the end of the 5 finger discount...
 

King Ink

New member
There was this one time when I was of the age of 15 when some friends and I raided a coke machine -But we didn't just steal cokes and leave, we came across the lockless coke machine and then immediately scurried off to a secluded area to discuss plans for the heist. After the brief meeting, we backed an SUV right up to it (it was outside,) opened a back pack and the plundering commenced. We each drank one coke, then, as well I can recall, threw the remaining umpteenth cokes into the placid night sky in unwarranted celebration of adolescence and caffeine.
 

daren

Well-known member
Whoa. Why did I not see this thread until now?

I use to take things from the terrible Sam Goody chain and a few bookstores. Although they had beepers, I used my brains and figured out that I would just swipe the tags with a large magnet taken from a broken speaker I had. Things would go fine after that. Unfortunately I came back to Sam Goody to take some expensive goods (minidisc players, discman's, etc.,) and eventually a shopper saw me, reported me to the clerks, who reported it to the manager, who reported it to the hired cops in the mall. I had a nice chase and was tackled.

I'm more crafty these days. I'm usually taking C90 cassettes and chain-thift store clothing.
 

daren

Well-known member
I would also like to note that Sam Goody's policy at the time was that their employees had to report to their manager about the theft, and the manager him/herself had to see the thief in action before doing anything. Of course, if you did walk off with an item, they also could not stop you once you were outside of the mall.
 

labrat

hot on the heels of love
Blissblog has reminded me of what was historically the most shoplifted item ever......
 
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