November 11, 2010 - iHateTarget
Its OK to steal from Target!
This is my story.
So my father was recently employed by Target and he would have made two years soon. Anyways he made an apprehension of a white female shoplifter. She stole less then $20 worth of merchandise but according to company policies they cannot make an arrest unless its more then $20 but they can trespass a shoplifter. So she was trespassed. She was going on about how her husband is in the military and this would look bad for him and she cannot go to jail. Now if you go to the Target website they are big supporters of the military. But military or not that does not give anyone the right to shoplift.
So this lady turns around and makes a complaint against my father at another Target store. We don’t know what she said because they never told him other then she made a complaint. The STL (Store Team Lead) of that store has her AP ETL (Assets Protection) do an internal investigation on my father. My dads been doing this for over 20 years longer then this guys has been doing Loss Prevention and my dad has never made a bad apprehension. He is damn good at what he does.
A couple of months pass and his ETL (APS ETL) pulls him into the office and sits him down for a coaching. He insures my father that he will not be fired and this will not cost him his job (an implied contract) but he has to write him up because its coming down from the district office and he is just doing his job. My dad is shocked, he can’t believe what just happened. He was cool headed and told him do what you gottah do and my dad swallowed his pride and signed the papers. Now my dad is under the impression that he doesn’t have to worry about his job because he was insured by his ETL that everything would be OK. But my dad was furious because he knows of many incidents that was covered up by his previous ETL. There were incidents where other APS had made false apprehensions, NPI’s, and they violated company policies but his previous ETL covered it up and it was as if it never happened.
A week or so later he is pulled into the office once again by his ETL and now the STL (Store Team Lead) and he is half way through his shift. This time they have an envelope full of cash and all his paper works, they were terminating him because of the incident which took place with this shoplifter. They called it an NPI (Non Productive Incident), prior to this incident my father had a clean slate. He was never written up or coached other then that last coach he had about the same incident. How can it be an NPI when the lady actually did steal and he recovered the merchandise??? Because its not caught on camera thats an NPI???
Every good Loss prevention agent, specialist, manager knows that there are 5 steps that must be taken before you can apprehend a shoplifter and that does not include it being witnessed on camera. But thats what they claimed, because they didn’t witness all the steps of the apprehension on camera it was a false apprehension. The five steps are as followed: Witness the subject enter the store without any of the companies merchandise, witness the suspect remove the item from the stores shelf, witness the suspect conceal the merchandise, witness the suspect not pay for the items, and finally the fifth step Witness the suspect exit the store with the merchandise. It never ever says the apprehensions need to be witnessed on camera. The only way it would be on camera is if you are working a two man show where one person is on camera and the other on the floor. When your flying solo you must have visual on the suspect at all times.
Now my father is out of a job because of this lady and because Target decided to defend the shoplifter. They are even fighting his unemployment, so for a few months now he hasn’t received any money at all. The lawyers say the best they can do is get an apology from the company because we are in an At-Will state. My father dedicated his life to protecting the assets of many companies for over 20 years and to providing a safe environment for customers and employees. But who would have thought it would take a shoplifter to end it all. How can doing what is right be so wrong???
My dad was devastated because it was wrong what they did. He is depressed, withdrawn from us, he just isn’t himself anymore. Have you ever seen a grown man cry??? I’ve never seen my father cry. It took him a week to pull himself together and go do his unemployment. He can’t trust anyone anymore he poured his heart out to this company and they took away his chance at making a better life for his family. He really believed Target would change his life. He put so much faith into this company and they shit on him the worst way possible for doing what he thought was right for doing what hes done for over 20 years but unfortunately because of the At-will Law it is legal. How BS is that???
Target is not a good company to work for. They are racist, they look out for their own people who have been there for a long time, they will replace you with their own friends, and you will be terminated just for doing what you think is right and to top it off its legal.
So I end this by saying pass this on to everyone you know that likes to shoplift and who are really good at lying that its OK to steal from target because they will fire their Assets Protection Specialist if they arrest you. When they bust you just go to another store and make a complaint against the agent who apprehended you and tell them that your husband or wife is in the military they will go and fire the person who busted you.
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Amen to the second to last paragraph.
i'm so sorry to hear about your dad 🙁
i work there and everything you've said is dead right! 🙁
I know its been a while since you posted this but I recently experienced the same with Target Assets Protection.
I was a newer TPS for Target, and watched as a woman stuffed her purse with perfume and other items, so I contacted our local police department to stop her, and when they pulled her over, she didn't have any of the merchandise on her person.
The woman and the police were not mad or disgruntled in any way. But, my ETL-AP still filed it as an NPI, and within 6 days, I was handed an envelope full of cash.....exactly halfway through my shift.
This is what happens when you try and do your jobs to achieve results, and Target pays you back by giving you a nice kick to the face. I got along very well with my co-workers and ETL too, it sucks.
This may be old, but i think your posts still has relevance today. I have stolen and got caught at target before, but i felt i was discriminated against, because they did not stop a 6ft white guy, or a black guy from going out the store, they triggered the alarm, yet the security guard dint even bat an eye, just let him go. granted i did steal things was stupid enough to not check for the tags. After a 2 years i went back to target to steal more cards, hopefully getting the target get shut down. The fact that target makes it so easy for people to steal, they are just asking for it. They dont even attempt to "cage" some of thier items, like with video games. Im guessing caged items are less likely to be bought by customer, because of immediate inaccessibility. i have never thought of complaining, until now though.