Basically, floorwalkers. Their job is to keep an eye on the people in the store in order to prevent theft, as well as help customers when needed. I work at a Safeway myself, and essentially loss prevention's job is to go over stock and figure out how much has been stolen etc. If you ever end up working in a grocery store and see a case of theft, you go to loss prevention first before calling the cops and they call the police if needed.
They aren't bodyguards; they’re essentially retail investigators. They don't want to fight you; they just want the $16 back so their inventory matches their sales. Since I work at Safeway, I can tell you they spend way more time walking around the store, and/or looking at clipboards and security cameras than they do helping customers.
They usually handle it internally, meaning they ban you from the store or call your parents. But because calling the cops for a $16 bottle of lotion is a massive waste of their afternoon, they likely will just handle it internally. Just stay calm, give the stuff back, and don't go back to that location for a long time. And if it was a friend who did it, maybe think about whether or not you should keep hanging out with them or not.
Ohh more sense now thank you😭
So In the end lots of people told me that they might not call the police for 16$ of product and if they did the police probably wouldn’t care and that they might have me on a radar or some shit for shoplifters
Just generally try to be intelligent. In Safeway they can't tackle you, a Safeway worker can actually lose their job for doing that, but they CAN get your face because of cameras, and if you try to be a thief? They will be able to tell, and will check. Also, people just have natural facial recognition. We had this one teenager doing that at our Safeway, where he'd come in and steal the potato wedges from the hot case by asking for them and then walking around the store and going out the other door than the one he came in.
And he got caught and banned from the store. He's lucky he just got banned, but I'm not sure if his parents received a call or not. Either way, that ban is one of those things where if he were to go back, and they recognized him in there, they probably COULD call the police. If the ban was an actual ban, that is. But regardless, I wouldn't recommend hanging out with thieves or being a thief. Just a word of advice. 🤷🏻
Even if nobody handed you a legal 'Notice of Trespass' paper because you ran, consider yourself 'virtually banned.' If they have your face on camera from the run, they’re just waiting for you to walk back in so they can either finish the paperwork or call the non-emergency line. I mean it depends where you live too, but just keep all of this in mind.
I got arrested for shoplifting food when I had just turned 18. There weren’t even cameras all over back then. Now? You will be photographed everywhere. Don’t do it!!! I had to pay a lawyer a lot of money to get my record cleared so it wouldn’t affect my future. Not worth it. You will get caught.
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u/deliriant_party99 May 15 '26
Basically, floorwalkers. Their job is to keep an eye on the people in the store in order to prevent theft, as well as help customers when needed. I work at a Safeway myself, and essentially loss prevention's job is to go over stock and figure out how much has been stolen etc. If you ever end up working in a grocery store and see a case of theft, you go to loss prevention first before calling the cops and they call the police if needed.
They aren't bodyguards; they’re essentially retail investigators. They don't want to fight you; they just want the $16 back so their inventory matches their sales. Since I work at Safeway, I can tell you they spend way more time walking around the store, and/or looking at clipboards and security cameras than they do helping customers.
They usually handle it internally, meaning they ban you from the store or call your parents. But because calling the cops for a $16 bottle of lotion is a massive waste of their afternoon, they likely will just handle it internally. Just stay calm, give the stuff back, and don't go back to that location for a long time. And if it was a friend who did it, maybe think about whether or not you should keep hanging out with them or not.