This is a topic that really has me perplexed. My husband and I have a business that includes renting equipment to vacationers in our area. We work very hard, employ about 10 people on a year round basis, about 30 seasonal workers.
Our inventory is marked with both bar codes ( to keep track of our inventory ) as well as labels that have our company name and phone number.
We do our best to protect our property by supplying locks ( if applicable ) as well as stressing both verbally and requiring signatures on liability waivers.
Sometimes things go wrong and our inventory is stolen …a hazard of our industry.
Once in awhile , we get lucky and recover items that were stolen.
Two days ago, my husband found a rather expensive item ( approximately $800 retail ) that was in the backyard of a beach house…it was ours…bar codes , labels still on it. So my husband cut the lock and took it back. A little research showed us that it was stolen two years ago.
Saturdays are the days that are busiest for renting and delivering of our equipment …we have multiple trucks covering several beach towns . At the end of our day, my husband and I were meeting up with employees to exchange equipment and share the workload when a couple in their mid sixties came over to our truck and told us that one of our drivers
stole * something from them…my husband knew right away what this was about since it was him that took back our property. It was a lively exchange and it ended with the couple cowering away in shame because they knew they were caught in a lie about having something in their possession for TWO YEARS that they knew didn’t belong to them and threw their daughter under the bus for keeping it all this time. Both the older couple and their daughter are second home owners in a beach town…a quick google search gave a value of $699,000 of the couple who approached us.
I am flabbergasted as to why people who clearly have money chose to keep something that clearly knew didn’t belong to them…from people who are small business owners who work their butts off to support their family and support the local community by employing people ?
Wow, that takes a lot of nerve to keep your equipment for 2 years, locking it up and then trying to get it back from you!?!?! I don’t understand it but thank you for keeping so many people employed and being a great role model!
Really, I don’t know. It’s frustrating. My church runs a rummage sale every year, People who rent out condos at nearby lake resorts are guaranteed repeat customers - replenishing items that get stolen or tossed out by renters every single year. Flatware, utensils, glassware, towels…
People will steal anything! When I lived in Miami I had whole tomato plants dug out of my little garden and someone smashed the window out of my car to steal Braille text books!
Few months ago there was a realtor’s open house at my mom’s house. Afterwards my mother noticed one of her very expensive handbag was gone. Those realtors come in and out of people’s house and you are supposed to trust them.
It’s possible they bought it or were gifted it not knowing it was stolen property - but to then come back to you because of the label? They must have known they had your possession for 2 years. It’s really strange.
A kind of magical thinking in this case. It must be theirs because it’s on their property, even though it belongs to someone else. That’s awful. It goes along with the thread about why people cheat.
My last realtor would not do open houses. Between theft and one incident where she was concerned about her personal safety, she gave up on them. Plus, many stopping by are just looky-loos. Serious buyers will set up an appointment.
@greenwitch , they did not buy it…we don’t sell that item because they are somewhat difficult to get because of a patent …we keep them for a long time . From what they told us , their daughter helped herself to it because one of her tenants rented it from us . She stored it at her parent’s house , all the time knowing full well it belonged to us
I was just in Best Buy. They have electronic chips you can place on things (in inconspicuous places) and use them to track missing items. It sounds like similar to “fund my iphone.” I don’t know their range, but it’s worth checking out.
I had a supervisor who had a six figure income. He arrested for shoplifting items <$250 from Macy’s twice - once while I worked for him and once a couple of years before he became my boss. I had a reason to look up someone’s criminal record in our state’s public database and just got curious and started entering random people’s names into it and found this out.
I never had any problems with him as a supervisor - he was a nice and reasonable person at work. I would have never suspected him of doing anything like that.
W and I were checking out at AJ’s (a local high end grocery store) and over at the deli area we saw a woman take a huge handful of straws and stuff them in her purse then continue her shopping. She saw W and I looking at her in disbelief too, but just went on about her business. W and I were like, “WTH was that? She just stole $2 worth of straws before shopping in a store that overcharges for everything?”
People have all kinds of ideas about getting away with something, or they think you are rich and it won’t matter to you, or whatever.
We have rental units and even on these forums you find those who think we are in league with the devil and should let all our units out for free. We always seem to have some tenant who is 5+ months behind on their rent and thinks we should just let them live rent free…in fact we just entered proceedings against one of them. She will have to be removed by force, which is just more expense.
@oldfort - there was a couple selling their house that noticed things missing and they set up cameras. It was a realtor! He would come early for an appointment, let himself in, and steal things out of the woman’s closet. Nothing valuable, just shirts and all. Very creepy and he was busted.
Wow! That’s awful @greenwitch. A relative let her grade school friends hang out in their home and found the kids were stealing cash from her and her H. It shocked her and her H and S and really disappointed all of them.
I think it can be a mental illness–kleptomania when the thief has the means to easily purchase the items being stolen.
It’s much easier to understand folks who steal to feed themselves and loved ones, like folks who shoplift food and have no means to pay and no job.
I don’t know why people steal things. It just cuts into you when you can’t trust people.
-I’ve had people steal my ideas and take credit for them as theirs.
-I’ve given out recipes and found someone giving out my recipes as hers. (Now I know why people leave out ingredients when they share recipes.)
My college roommate, PW, called her Grammy to ask her for the family Potato Salad recipe. The recipe had been in the family for years. PW took the potato salad to a potluck to meet her future in-laws. She had the potato salad recipe in her purse (in the inner zipper pocket). She went to meet more “cousins” and later discovered she no longer had the recipe. Grammy gave her another copy. About 5 years later, PW calls me and tells me that she went to a family gathering where someone made a potato salad that was very similar to Grammy’s! Grammy often put XXXXX in the recipe. Not too many people did that back then.
-(Maybe this is why I don’t have a lot of friends), but when I was younger, I had friends, purchase outfits to go out the coming weekend. They would then wear the outfit for the evening (with the tags taped into the outfit) and then return the outfit for a refund! That’s just gross! Needless to say, I didn’t keep those friends.
-I’ve had yard sales where I’ve had “brand name” items priced at .25 cents and people try to steal them.
-The coffee shop we drive through for chai latte’s, had a drive-through window with a tip jar. The jar disappeared and I asked the girls, where’s your tip jar? The girl said “a customer took it when we went back to get change”.
If someone mistakenly gives me too much in change, I return it. If I am not charged for something, I will tell the person that they forgot to charge me. I cannot sleep or think straight until it is corrected.
Okay, kidding. I just thought it would be interesting if someone would actually answer.
I had an employee, who first strike, cheated on his wife - like crazy, also couldn’t seem to be honest. Eventually his habitual lying and over promising was enough and we let him go. After an employee leaves we usually change the code to the warehouse. Someone forgot to do it. Weeks later this employee was seen later in the evening by the warehouse. Turned out he was stealing our products. But here’s what gets me, he was a regular church goer and really freaking annoying about it. I could just envision him sitting in church on Sundays feeling so smug and righteous.
Last week, I had to run to Staples to pick up a residential lease packet. There was only one left and someone had cut the plastic wrap and taken out the first few pages …that was a head scratcher
I know a guy who owns multiple businesses. He has a zero tolerance mentality when it comes to stealing from him or his business , yet presented my staff with a few towels from a high end hotel
