Foil a thief, lose your job....Only at WalMart

Wal-Mart employee foils a shoplifter — and loses her jobWICHITA — Heather Ravenstein tried to save Wal-Mart some money Friday by foiling a shoplifter’s plan to steal a $600 computer, but it cost her her job.

“I’m a single mom, and I don’t know what I’m going to do,” says Ravenstein, who is 30.

She’s worked at the West Kellogg Wal-Mart for almost two years, most recently as a customer service manager.

Friday night around 10:20, she was standing near some registers when she saw a man with a computer coming up the main walkway of the store.

“Action Alley is what they call it,” she says.

“He was walking rather fast, so it caught my eye.”

Ravenstein says the man kept walking and set off an alarm. She went after him.

“Let me see your receipt, and then I’ll take this off for you,”


Read more: http://blogs.kansas.com/haveyouheard/2010/05/24/wal-mart-employee-foils-a-shoplifter-and-loses-her-job/#ixzz0otbl3d6v




some of the comments are good too

I would not risk my life for Walmart in a million years and that is what she did.

It's a liability thing, and it's not worth risking your life to save someone else's computer (which is insured for theft).

:popcorn:

The reasoning is simple. Stores risk lawsuits when they stop potential shoplifters, so only employees who have been trained in the techniques and legalities involved in theft prevention are allowed to do so. If she'd prevented him from leaving and he had been a legit customer (maybe he paid for it back in Electronics and was just in a hurry), the store could have been sued for unlawful detainment. If he'd pulled back, fallen, and been hurt, the store could have been sued for far more.

Which is why all retailers generally follow the same rules. Only certain authorized employees are allowed to confront potential shoplifters. Those employees are trained in things to look for, situations to avoid, legal reasons for detainment, and information on the types of force that are and are not permissible in various situations.

The next time she goes after somebody and they pull out a gun and starts shooting people will think she was nuts.

Google 'shopkeeper's privilege' for further enlightenment, if you wish.

Maat, J.D.

She asked, and when he refused to provide it, she grabbed the item. That's why the shoplifter kicked her, and ultimately dropped the item. She prevented him from leaving with it.

And using shopkeepers privilege as a defense in a civil tort is always at the discretion of a jury. Shopkeepers privilege, as a defense, requires the store owner to establish "reasonable suspicion" for the stop before carrying it out. A store owner cannot simply detain random customers. In this case, the stop looked legitimate, but if the "customer" had paid for his purchase in electronics and was merely in a hurry, her actions could have led to a lawsuit. Any decent attorney in a civil suit would eviscerate a store owner who tried to claim that "walking fast", by itself, was reasonable grounds for a forceful detainment.

If it is a corporate policy, they need to let employees know that, especially if as this woman claims, the first she heard of it was when she was terminated. She should file for unemployment and see what happens, though of course Wal-Mart will likely not let her get it.

And I know that Wal-mart often does little in the way of training. When my sister-in-law was changed from being a department manager (after they discontinued department managers) she was moved to being a cashier. She had never run a cash register, but they gave her no training at all, didn't even run over the machine or procedures with her. She nearly quit that day, but she could not afford to - husband was out of work and her piss poor pay from Wal-Mart was all they had to support their child and keep health insurance.

In the good old days before insurance companies began requiring retailers to adopt such a policy, companies did the opposite. They demanded you try to foil theft, or you could be punished for it. Employees were put at risk for the sake of corporate profits. Many were injured, some were killed, and sometimes the results spilled over to other employees or even customers when a thief yanked out a weapon and began firing.

Now they can't do that. Employees are forbidden to put themselves at risk like that, because if they were allowed, they would be encouraged to do it. Management would get away with the wink-and-a-nudge method of requiring it.

This employee knew that. Anyone who works retail knows that. She risked herself, other employees, and customers. She should have used her head. That's why Walmart has insurance.

Sucks for her, but you know if she had been killed all of DU would attack Walmart for encouraging it, for putting minimal profits ahead of employee safety. Thank Dog the woman only lost her job.

...if you combine that with their "have the lowest prices" policy and their "don't report most shoplifting to keep the reported crime stats at their address down, then you get: shoplifting simply encourages W-mart to pressure their suppliers for more price breaks (or provide added justification, since they do that anyway), resulting in more production shifted to low-wage manufacturing sources like China.

Totally in keeping with the basic Wall World MO: corporate doesn't take a hit, they make everyone else take it.

Goes unpunished. :P
:sarcasm:

and one thing we are always told is to NEVER go after anyone we suspect of shoplifting. We are to call management or asset protection, and let them handle the situation. I feel sorry for this girl, but that is the policy of Wal-mart(and probably most other retailers, too.).