(AlishaV)
A woman in Chicago who purchased $40 in groceries at Whole Foods but was later snagged by security with a purloined bottle of kids vitamins in her bag is now persona non grata at the overpriced grocery chain.
According to the banned shopper, she had just wrapped up a bit of food shopping with her two kids at her local Whole Foods when she remembered that she had forgotten to get some chewable vitamins. And amid all the distraction — kid needing to pee, husband texting her, etc — she says she didn’t realize she’d put the vitamins in her bag until after security flagged her down in the parking lot.
When confronted, she expressed her embarrassment and offered to pay, but the guard escorted her inside where a manager photographed her and officially exiled her from Whole Foods forever.
Displeased with being labeled a shoplifter, the woman escalated her complaint to Whole Foods management. She received a response from that store’s team leader, in which he defended both the store’s policy and the actions of the guard.
And though he told her he would reinstate her, allowing her to shop at Whole Foods once again, he did bring up a good question: “Would you want me in your home if you found me leaving your home with property of yours?”
Things then went from bad to strange for the woman, who subsequently received a demand from a collection agency for $250 on behalf of Whole Foods. A rep for the grocery chain now says that was a mistake and the woman is not expected to pay.
It’s all left her with a bad taste in her mouth:
Protocol or no protocol, Whole Foods projects an environment of community and friendliness, and it’s not real… They didn’t leave the slightest margin for human error. I’m just a frazzled mom.
Where do you come down on Whole Foods’ zero-tolerance policy? Should they have just let her pay for the vitamins since she’d already purchased $40 worth of groceries? Or is it better that they show their policy will be enforced regardless of the situation?
Whole Foods Versus Shoplifters: The Conundrum [Chicagomag.com]
Thanks to Gene for the tip!
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To get reinstated, she just needs to drive her $70,000 dollar European SUV (12 mpg) down to a oil company demonstration and hand out “Hope and Change” bumper stickers.
Penance accepted and back into the cult
+10
Ooh, edgy.
Yeah, being a dude I can’t say I’m an expert on purse-handling. But…
I would think that one would keep their purse zipped closed all the time so stuff doesn’t fall out, opening it only when one needed to get something out. Which means this woman absent-mindedly unzipped/unsnapped/unwhatevered her purse and then absent-mindedly put something inside.
Hmmmm
i’m not sure why a person who uses the ‘frazzled mom’ excuse should be given any more leeway than any other customer who shoplifts… intentional or not, it is still technically shoplifting.
I dunno, let’s try it.
“Sorry I left that clamp in you, I’m just a frazzled surgeon!”
Sounds natural and blameless to me!
Sounds like an honest mistake to me. I can see how you could get distracted. I think the store should have just let her pay for the vitamins and be on her way.
If I were in her shoes. I would definitely not shop there anymore.
It’s easy to say things seem suspicious, but unless everyone on here posting is a parent (I am) then you can’t possibly understand being in the store with kid(s) where they want to touch everything in the place and they have to pee every time you go into a store… It can get a little crazy. I get a headache just thinking about it…
Where is the humanity? Does no one have compassion for other human beings anymore? So you ban a paying customer (she did buy $40 worth of groceries) for a $3 bottle of vitamins? Yea she put it in her purse, but how much money does the lost business cost you in the long run?
It’s funny you don’t realize how much of a distraction kids are until you actually have them. People without them fail to realize that you’re responsible now not just for yourself, but keeping your children safe also…and that takes a lot of attention away from other things.
And for the “if you can’t control them, don’t take them” crowd, they’ve obviously never seen how fast a kid’s mood can change. And not taking them isn’t always an option….you can’t exactly leave a toddler at home or in the car.
I have kids, i fully realize that you can’t always control them and that they can certainly cause a distraction. However, I have never stuck any unpaid for item in my pocket at the store and used them as an excuse either. Doesn’t it take longer to open up your purse and put something in it than it does to just toss it in the cart?
It tells me you can not handle shopping and your kids at the same time. Sorry, but I didn’t make the choice to have my prices increased because you got knocked up. If you can not handle your responsibilty to parent and pay for items at the same time, DON:T DO THEM TOGETHER.
I once banned a man forever for accidentally leaving with one of my pens. You will be missed, Mr. Uniball
It *may* have been an accident, but personally I’ve never “accidentally” put a product in a purse, bag, pocket, or other container that would conceal it then walked out of a store with it.
Since there is absolutely NO way to tell what was going through her mind when she concealed the product prior to leaving without paying for it, the obvious assumption by me would be it was intentional.
The fact that she paid for some stuff but not for all is COMMON with shoplifters…
I come down on While Foods side in this one.
It *may* have been an accident, but personally I’ve never “accidentally” put a product in a purse, bag, pocket, or other container that would conceal it then walked out of a store with it.
Since there is absolutely NO way to tell what was going through her mind when she concealed the product prior to leaving without paying for it, the obvious assumption by me would be it was intentional.
The fact that she paid for some stuff but not for all is COMMON with shoplifters…
I come down on Whole Foods side in this one.
Involuntary manslaughter is an entirely different crime from larceny, so you’re comparing apples to oranges. When you steal something, you have to intend to steal it. When you kill someone, we have different requirements for the different levels of homicide.
Collections agency a mistake? Ha.
It sounds like they ran her through the gauntlet testing to see what she wouldn’t complain about and calling their dumb actions a mistake every time she complained.
I think the next step in hanging for Whole Foods.
Might not she have had to go into her purse when she went to pay for her other groceries. I know some women’s purses are cavernous, but you think she might have seen the vitamins in there when she was checking out….
I did this today… Got all the way through my purchase and realized I was still holding an eye-liner tube. Asked the guy “Hey, I never gave this to you did I?” Then proceeded to checkout again.
I believe her case was an honest mistake.. I nearly left the store, too and I’m not even frazzled!
well, I don’t WANT to blame the op…really…but where’s the whole story? How did they get into her purse? I can see if she had one of those shopping bags everyone bring with them nowadays and forgot to take it out to pay for it…but if it’s in the pocket book, did it fall in there? did her kids put it in there? I’m just jaded after years in retail and hearing the same thing from everyone who is caught shop lifting. “oh I forgot…sorry….or “my kid put it in there” it can happen, but 9 times out of 10, it’s shop lifting. That is something petty thieves will do, too. Buy some stuff to avoid suspicion, and pocket something like under 10 bucks.
Read the original article. There is no mention of any vitamins being concealed in a purse.
Then, let’s find out why the editor, Chris Morran, wrote something that wasn’t in the article in the first place.
I think WF was in the right. They hear all kinds of stories and they have no way of knowing which ones are real or not. Everyone who shoplifts claims they are innocent. Also, I can’t ever think of a time when I out an unpaid for store item in my purse. That is a bit strange.
I’m with Whole Foods, and this from someone who as a teen was banned from a K-Mart for attempting to shoplift $2 worth of plastic.
It may appear that she “accidentally” walked out with the vitamins. Maybe she did, maybe she didn’t. But what if everyone caught doing it on purpose said it was an accident and was allowed to get off scott free? No, sir, that wouldn’t do at all.
Lesson: PUT STUFF IN YOUR BASKET EVEN IF IT IS OVERFLOWING!!! FIND A STAFF MEMBER AND ASK FOR ANOTHER ONE IF YOU MUST!!!
Sorry but I have to take the side of Whole Foods. I have kids and grandkids and have NEVER been shopping and mistakenly placed something that didn’t legally belong to me in my purse. I don’t buy it.
Sorry but I have to take the side of Whole Foods. I have kids and grandkids and have NEVER been shopping and mistakenly placed something that didn’t legally belong to me in my purse. I don’t buy the excuse she’s frazeled? Sorry
I’d have to side with the store. Anybody can say “oops I forgot I put that [where I can easily steal it]“.
I’ve done this before by accident, just recently in fact. I was in a grocery story with my 1 year old in the stroller. I put the deli cheese I bought on the little fold up canopy, because I had run out of room in the basket underneath the stroller. After I walked out the door and down the block, I extended the canopy to cover my son from the sun, and there was the cheese. I walked back and paid for it. But from the sounds of some of you, I should have been labeled a thief for an honest mistake.
Your mistake I could excuse but if it was in your purse no way…
I work in retail and we have apprehended a number of customers that have purchased something while also having concealed unpaid merchandise. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve watched people in line to pay for products conceal other merchandise while waiting to pay! My favorite was the woman with a $3000 Chloe purse stealing $400 worth of makeup. She had a Black AMEX card in her wallet and lived at the freaking Ritz! It takes all kinds! This could have been an honest mistake on her part, but how is Whole Foods to know?
No offense, but why did she put the vitamins in her purse? I do not put things I am intending to buy at a store in my purse or backpack, I put them in my shopping cart.
She FORGOT that she’d put them in he purse?
Bull.
Simply put … she should never have put them there in the first place. And Id on’t believe she “forgot” anything.
Some of the gummy vitamins can cost upwards of TWENTY dollars a bottle, it’s a lot easier to steal a small bottle of expensive vitamins than say twenty dollars worth of organic fruit.
Whole foods can refuse this woman’s business if they like. Let her complain.
If there was video as opposed to just a roving plainclothes they could play it back. It would be pretty obvious if it were intentional or accidental. I must admit I’ve put a small item in my short pocket once, but caught myself before leaving the store. Doing that distractedly vs surreptitiously looks completely different.
Now for small items I hold them away from my body like a wet sock to prevent myself from doing it. I’ve also not scanned an item at self service. Not sure why the “unexpected item” alert didn’t go off, but I caught it on the receipt and went back in and paid for it after dropping the rest of my items off at the car.
Who puts merchandise in their purse?
When I was a teen, I walked out of a bookstore without paying. I was thinking about the chores and errands I had to run, walked past a security guard with the book in my hand and was at my car before I realized I forgot to pay. The clerk was confused when I walked back in and bought the book I pulled out of my jacket.
I think Whole Foods has to keep her banned because if they unban her, they open themselves up to a lawsuit from a shoplifter who is of a different racial/ethnic/religious/socioeconomic group. Not to say that a shoplifter would have a greater tendency to hire a lawyer for a frivolous lawsuit. People sue because hot tea is hot. Please don’t sue me.
I’ve got to go with others here… there’s no such thing as “inadvertent” shoplifting. If her husband is texting her while the kids need to pee, she needs to ignore the text and pay attention to her shopping.
She stole some stuff, she didn’t get terribly punished, she hopefully learned her lesson.
I’ve done that. My kids have too. And I go back in, pay, and it’s never been a big deal. Whole Foods policy may be fine, but enforcing it in a draconian way is irrational. I hope that the woman never goes back and tells all her friends. I’m certainly less likely to shop at Whole Foods after hearing about this incident.
I don’t shop at Whole Foods, mostly because they are expensive. But your remark that it is an “overpriced grocery chain” has no place in this story. I don’t see that they did anything wrong. Even if the woman was careless (and I have done stupider things myself) they have the right to ask her to shop elsewhere.
20 years ago i used to shoplift a lot and i would do exactly what she did – buy some stuff and nonchalantly put one small/expensive item in your bag or pocket and if caught (i was only caught once) you say you weren’t paying attention and you forgot it was there.
you don’t put stuff in your purse or pocket on accident.
this usually only works for white people because of racism. i bet it works great for a mom with kids. she has probably done this dozens or hundreds of times before.
why did she put them in her purse? big mistake; i never put unpaid merchandise in my pockets.
Maybe it was an honest mistake, but I just don’t see why you’d put something in your purse in the store when you have a shopping cart or basket right with you. Personally, if I saw someone in a store put something in their bag or pocket, I’d assume they were trying to steal it. I can’t think of any other valid reason to do so.
Hi, I am a former professional shoplifter, and used to steal $300-$1,000 daily. I find it highly suspicious this woman put the bottle in her purse inadvertently…meaning she probably knew what she was doing. I cannot tell you how many times I “accidentally” put store merchandise in my purse while also making legitimate purchases.
Someone please tell me– since when is someone who shops at Whole Foods is not supposed to feel entitled???
Zero Tolerance means, sadly, everyone gets tarred.
Point blank if they let her go then the next person who walks out with an item can point to her and claim racial/age/sex/whatever bias and sue the shit out of the company.
Here is my question, how did they notice/catch her? I cant imagine someone was following her to see if she was going to accidentally drop an item in to her bag (is that grocery bag or purse?) unless she was either 1) blatantly doing it or 2) Someone they already suspected of shoplifting.
As to the blatant thing, someone who pays for their items, bags them, then grabs an additional single item off a shelf would be noticed, and since it was just a single item. And the fact that she grabbed that item and never walked near a register is something an employee would notice. The fact that she headed toward the bathroom is also not in her favor, as thats another shoplifting trick.
Who’s to say she didn’t put them in her purse with the intention for theft? Anyone can do that and say “awww sorry brah, I was distracted”, but it’s difficult for me to think, when I put myself in the shoes of Whole Foods, that I’d actually buy that.
The fact that she went back in, specifically to get the vitamins, then LEFT without going through the registers to pay for said vitamins makes me suspect that it was a deliberate act..
Putting something in your bag or even a coat pocket while picking up a couple of small items is understandable, not smart but understandable. The fact that not only did she “forget” the vitamins were in her purse but also “forgot” that she picked them up to begin with just boggles the mind.
The thief got off lucky.
Some serious chutzpah by Ms. Portes. If you want to not be treated like a shoplifter, don’t walk out of a store with its property. It seems fairly cut and dried to me.
Did Ms. Portes mean to shoplift? She’s the only one who truly knows. The rest of us have to look at her actions. I think it’s reasonable to expect an adult to pay sufficient attention to her actions that she doesn’t end up walking off with things she doesn’t own.
Whole Food should have stuck to its guns. One day there will be a minority member who gets popped for shoplifting while claiming similar circumstances, that person won’t get reinstatedfor whatever reason, and they’ll sue for discrimination.
Whole Foods is 100% correct. If her kids distract her that much, then it could happen the next time she brings them in. Whole Foods should not be held responsible for her failure to multi-task when her kids are around. I also have an issue with putting the vitamins in the bag. It would NEVER be acceptable to put unpaid for merchandise in the same bag as paid for merchandise. I wonder how much the kids excuse would fly if she swerved in her car and killed somebody?
So dumb, there have been one or two times I left a store with soda in the bottom of the cart! I simply didn’t see it and I went back and payed for it. People make mistakes. But if I was treated like that I certainly would never shop there again. Backinpgh is right, shop at Trader Joes, they are much more friendlier! To top it all off, Whole Foods has a bad rep with me, I sick once eating from their sandwich/hot food bar, never more!
I’m surprised by all the people posting about how they routinely place small things on/around their purse in the cart. I never leave my purse in the cart at all — it’s far too easy for someone to lift it and go.
Of course they should let her back in. Doesn’t everyone occasionally miss the cart and put merchandise in their purse?
If it’s a simple mistake, let her pay and go… if she’s caught a 2nd time she should be banned…
Too many people probably create their own “discounts” this way… buy 9 items, steal a 10th…
I am unclear how or why she put vitamins in her bag. Did she have a shopping cart or hand basket Don’t all unpaid for goods go in there?
I am impressed that security found it. Did they have security tags on vitamins? Was security eying her the whole time?
Accident or not, Whole Foods did the right thing. “Frazzled Mom” doesn’t (and shouldn’t) mean anything in the way of shoplifting; they handled it better than they could have (i.e., jail time). It isn’t up to Whole Foods to determine whether it was an accident or not; they follow policy regardless. She got off easy.
Wow. If she can’t handle such distractions as texting and a kid needing to pee, how does she get through the day? Turn the phone off (or zip it up in your purse) and take the kid to the bathroom. There, now you can focus.
Besides, it’s considered unsafe to have your purse wide open in the shopping cart anyway. I think there’s more to this story. Security actually took notice of her followed her into the parking lot, which indicates that they thought this was a lot more than just an accident by a frazzled mom.
Doesn’t matter how the store treated her (within reasonable limits of course). The woman is a thief, plain and simple. If the security guard didn’t flag her down, she probably would’ve thought “Woot! Made away with a free bottle of overpriced kiddie vitamins”.
This isn’t a case of big-chain-store vs. poor victim consumer, this is a case of big-chain-store vs. pity-seeking-thief.
I don’t get how people (women people) think it is OK to put items in their purse before paying for them. If i were a store manager I would have a really hard time believing that you intended to pay for the item you put in your purse.
And yes i do have kids, and i do shop with them. I find the cart carries all my purchases just fine without me having to put anything in my pockets.
She left the store with something that wasn’t hers. Maybe she needs to get a babysitter for the kids so that she can be a bit more attentive to her sticky fingers. Maybe it was an honest mistake, to correct it she needs to make changes, I don’t think it is up to the store.
Yes we are all busy, we all have people who need to be taken care of, but we all need to take a deep breath and start paying a bit more attention.
If you want what Whole Foods and all are going for, try your local market. We have a couple near us (within the same distance it would take to get to WF, Walmart, Target or Krogers) and are about the same price or a couple cents more expensive than Walmart prices for vegetables.