They're Falsely Accused of Shoplifting, but Retailers Demand Penalties

[yallerdawg]

Walmart and other companies are using aggressive legal tactics to get the money back, demanding payments even when people haven’t been convicted of wrongdoing.


Source: New York Times, by Michael Corkery


Could you be next?



“I didn’t feel like I had a prayer,” said Crystal Thompson of Eight Mile, Ala., whom Walmart accused — mistakenly, an employee later acknowledged — of shoplifting about $70 in groceries. A lawyer for Walmart threatened a lawsuit if she didn’t pay $200.

Ms. Thompson, 43, was baffled and scared. An agoraphobic, she had not shopped at a Walmart in more than a year. She was taken to a Mobile jail, searched, held in a small room and required to remove her false teeth, something she didn’t even do in front of her husband.

Four days after she returned home, the letters from Walmart’s lawyer started to arrive. The lawyer demanded that Ms. Thompson pay the company $200 or face a possible lawsuit. She received three letters over two months in early 2016.

Walmart and other companies have created well-oiled operations, hiring law firms to send tens of thousands of letters a year. Walmart set a collection goal of about $6 million in 2016 for one of its go-to firms, Palmer Reifler & Associates, according to a court paper filed as part of a lawsuit Ms. Thompson brought against the retailer. The firm also pointed out to Walmart that minors tended to pay off more frequently, the filing said.

“It is my word against this company,” said Ms. Thompson, whose criminal case was dismissed after no one from Walmart appeared at a hearing to testify against her. “I’m nobody special. I didn’t feel like I had a prayer.”

Read it all at: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/17/business/falsely-accused-of-shoplifting-but-retailers-demand-they-pay.html

[Johnny2X2X]

1. Corporate power is growing.

An absolute corporate fascist state is where we’re heading.

People need to know what they consume that is made with prison slave labor.

https://www.cheatsheet.com/money-career/things-you-own-prison-inmates-made.html/

[Codeine]

2. Fucking WalMart, man.

I’m in at least one several days out of the week (for business, not shopping, never spent a dime there) and they’re always packed. Why are people putting up with this shit? I’ve seen the prices, and they aren’t THAT much cheaper than the competition on most items. On groceries they actually aren’t competitive at all in Southern California.

What is the appeal?

[dalton99a]

4. It's the only place to shop in many small towns

[Codeine]

5. I guess that's easy to overlook.

It’s a very crowded and competitive marketplace where I live, which I don’t suppose is true everywhere. Thanks.

[yallerdawg]

6. In my lifetime, THIS corporation destroyed American manufacturing...

THIS corporation cemented low wages, no benefits, and NO UNIONS into our employer lexicon, and THIS corporation destroyed competition and hometown business from one end of this country to the other.

I have no idea why the appeal.

[dalton99a]

3. This is an extortion racket.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

7. K&R

[Blue_true]

8. I never leave a store without a receipt in one of the bags.

I never do, I don't need a receipt stuff. If anyone stops me, I will take out my phone, demand that they check the receipt against each item in each bag. And I will film the whole thing, every single act they do.