What can a retailer do...

[nigel]

I just had the following happen:

Employee calls me stating that they were outside their store when they saw a customer coming out putting a piece of clothing in their bag with the hang tags still on it. They then went into another retailer.

They did not say anything to the customer, but went in and checked the days invoices to make sure it was paid but found none for that type of clothing.

Customer came back in to pick something up they were dropping off earlier that was complete, the clothing was not on that invoice either.

The employee walked by and snuck a photo of the customer with their phone, we now have a picture of them plus the customer information (address, phone, name) they left us earlier.

The employee did a quick spot check of all the items of clothing related to what they saw and they are missing one.

The question is, what can we do? Nobody saw the customer take the item and leave the store, we don't know if it truly did leave the store from that stores rack, or if it was brought in by that customer. This is in Minnesota.

Thanks,
N

[Admin]

You do nothing outside of take the photo and your suspcions to your Loss Prevention team. You have no clear evidence of theft only what you "suspect" happened. Your Loss Prevention team will know what to do and with the picture you took they can then watch this person next time they return to store as they likely will.

[nigel]

Thanks for the reply, that's exactly what we did, just double checking!

[Admin]

Just a word of warning. Taking such matters into your own hands can carry both legal consequences and lost of job. In future when you see something odd report it but do nothing else