8 ms·

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

Mathnerd314 8y ago
Seems similar to the copyright infringement shakedown https://torrentfreak.com/us-online-piracy-lawsuits-break-record-numbers-180704/ https://torrentfreak.com/us-online-piracy-lawsuits-break-rec... I wonder how many other threat letter business models there are.
- greggarious 8y ago
  >In some states, companies have been able to collect more than the value of the allegedly stolen items, up to $1,000 in some instances. Seems to set up a perverse set of incentives - might be more profitable to pursue people who steal low ticket items than it is to actually sell them...
  - yardstick 8y ago
    Not that I completely agree with the extent of the punishment, but if you only ever charge the person the amount you would have made from the sale, and don’t provide any other punishment (eg fine on top, conviction, community service etc) then there is little to no incentive for anyone to pay for them.
    - nyolfen 8y ago
      avoiding criminal charges is a pretty big incentive for most people
    - Broken_Hippo 8y ago
      it would make a lot more sense to have a set charge on top of the amount: $40-50 charge for a $20 item. Otherwise, it is just making sure that those stealing even though they have the means to pay can avoid criminal charges and further hassle, but someone stealing a few groceries due to lack of money cannot. Like the other poster said, wanting to avoid criminal charges is enough deterrent for most folks. A shoplifting charge can really mess up your life for many years, and that is without actually going to jail.
    - greggarious 8y ago
      >Not that I completely agree with the extent of the punishment, but if you only ever charge the person the amount you would have made from the sale, and don’t provide any other punishment (eg fine on top, conviction, community service etc) then there is little to no incentive for anyone to pay for them. I totally see where you're coming from, but IMHO fines are paid to governments. Restitution is paid to corporations. Subtle but important difference. It's extremely common in small claims for defendants to be "made whole" (paid for actual, measurable losses). But you're basically asking for emotional damages for theft... if someone stole my laptop all I could sue for is the replacement cost of the laptop and any associated costs (ex: broken car window). If you want to fine shoplifters, great. Maybe use that money towards various social programs - a lot of shoplifters are IV drug users for example. But don't just hand the fine money to a corporation that will continue to underpay it's employees to the point their salaries are subsidized by taxpayer money (food stamps).
- expertentipp 8y ago
  Landlords will arbitrarily deduct charges from the deposit, low enough not to bother with hopeless legal litigation (~1000 EUR), the difference is that landlord already have your deposit money. The American-style copyright infringement shakedown is present in Germany also with a whole alternative shakedown-protection industry.
  - user5994461 8y ago
    >>> the difference is that landlord already have your deposit money. It depends on the country. For instance, the UK requires the deposit to be put in a registered deposit scheme. The landlord cannot abuse a penny out of it. It's really good.
ezoe 8y ago
DoS attack using the law.
- eropple 8y ago
  The term you're looking for is "barratry".
  - raattgift 8y ago
    Not really; barratry is more a DoS on the system of justice (it wastes court time), however certainly some barrators could focus exclusively on one private party. Making false complaints to the police is not barratry. Maryland, which is the one of the States explicitly mentioned in the article, has a specific and atypical statutory definition[1]. It is hard to be a barrator in modern systems of justice based on English common law. Defendants of repeated claims by a single claimant can get relief from the courts, even if the claims aren't strictly frivolous. In common law a barrator is someone who repeatedly brings frivolous actions to court, knowing they are frivolous. There are statutory definitions of barratry as a criminal offence, mainly in several of the States of the U.S.A. The usual requirements for criminal liability apply, and there is usually a threshold value for the number of unlawfully-brought actions, so there is ample opportunity for courts to impose a graduated response. In most common law jurisdictions, it is essentially impossible to bring a frivolous lawsuit as licensed persons (lawyers of various types, paralegals) will generally not risk professional liability, and court clerks generally have the power to reject proceedings initiated by unlicensed persons if they are manifestly frivolous. In other jurisdictions, lists of ineligible litigants are maintained[2] and updated from time to time by the overall system of justice. Additionally, most courts usually exercise their power to make a costs order against someone who still somehow manages to progress frivolous litigation, usually on an indemnity basis, which can be sufficiently expensive when the other party or parties has had to hire legal representation that it is strongly dissuasive. Most potential barrators could not afford to reach the threshold of criminal liability, because liability for the costs of the court and defence (and collecting those costs) exceeds their ability to pay. However, access to relief from the courts is important, so there is generally a mechanism to allow such people to bring cases which have some significant probability of succeeding to court nevertheless. Unfortunately, civil lawsuits are usually settled out of court, so courts may not see abusive patterns (courts are generally shy to inquire into consensual agreements between adversarial parties) until a defendant refuses favourable on-the-steps-of-the-court settlement offers instead opting to reach a final judgment and a trial on the matter of costs. It's then that a vexatious litigant that casts its net widely (i.e., filing many dubious different courts because it can, thanks to corporate scale or whatever) is most likely to be "discovered" by a court for the first time. Harassing behaviour by creditors or their collections agents is a different matter, and threatening to bring obviously frivolous proceedings does not typically incur criminal liability -- it's only the act of bringing such proceedings, knowingly and repeatedly, that will reach the threshold of barratry (where that still exists as a specific offence) or its rough equivalents. Most "private prosecutions" are those brought by a public body with the explicit statutory power to do so, where the body is something other than the usual prosecutor. Finally, it is exceptionally rare that barratry or vexatious litigation could escape the domain of private law. Criminal prosecutions are generally brought by a public authority, and it is exceptionally rare (even in systems where it is even possible) for a private person to bring a criminal prosecution. It usually requires permission from the court or a public authority. (Even in the pre-modern system -- here roughly when professional public prosecutors were granted absolute discretion over bringing any criminal prosecution -- which depending on jurisdiction ranges from the 17th to 20th century, a private prosecutor would still have to seek an indictment, and malicious, frivolous, or vexatious prosecutions would almost inevitably fail to do so). Threatening to report innocent behaviour to police, while harassing and not in the public interest, is not the same as actually engaging in malicious prosecution. - -- [1] https://law.justia.com/codes/maryland/2010/business-occupations-and-professions/title-10/subtitle-6/10-604/ https://law.justia.com/codes/maryland/2010/business-occupati... [2] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vexatious-litigants https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vexatious-litigants -- all of these judgments are generally easy enough to find online; an example is https://www.infotextmanuscripts.org/vexatiouslitigant/vex_lit_at_gen_oneill_appeal_c.html https://www.infotextmanuscripts.org/vexatiouslitigant/vex_li... -- not all of them would have been barrators under the common law (before statute superseded barratry and many other common-law offences in England and Wales).
staticautomatic 8y ago
Shockingly, the article says nothing about whether the police or a judge actually investigated or reviewed any purported evidence prior to the issuance of the subject arrest warrants.
rootusrootus 8y ago
Seems awfully one-sided. Perhaps there should be automatic reparation in the case of mistaken prosecution, at a level that is at least somewhat punitive. The retailer should feel some incentive to get it right.
- mnm1 8y ago
  How about 1% of that year's revenue. Problem fixed. There should never be a false accusation by a merchant. This allows up to 100 of these atrocities before the business goes out of business which is what should happen to corporations that do this. It's amazing how simple solutions are extremely effective.
greggarious 8y ago
How is this not extortion? Every time I read /r/legaladvice and someone says "Hey I have proof someone stole X should I tell them pay me back or return it or I go to the police" and are shouted down that no, threatening to bring in the police is extortion. Weird how when a large company wants compensation it's not...
- twblalock 8y ago
  Threatening to file a civil suit is not extortion. If it were, it would be pretty much impossible to ever send a cease-and-desist letter.
  - wavefunction 8y ago
    It can be extortion, if it's a SLAPP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...
    - tinus_hn 8y ago
      Note that the page you linked does not mention extortion. Anti-SLAPP provisions protect people from SLAPP by making these suits short, dangerous to the party filing the suit or favorable to the defending party.
    - twblalock 8y ago
      If SLAPP lawsuits were extortion, they would have already been illegal and anti-SLAPP legislation would not have been necessary. Such legislation is about preventing companies from using lawsuits to suppress free speech.
  - acdha 8y ago
    It’s not always but when there’s a huge difference in money and power it starts to look dubious. If I sue you for $1000, you may settle because that’s cheaper than getting a lawyer even if you’re innocent; at $100k, you’ll lawyer up and win. If a company is totally inappropriately automatically assumed to be more responsible than a person and given legal advantages, that’s even worse because the cost for the defendant is actually even higher! You’ll note that this kind of unbalanced system is specifically mentioned early in the article: > In many states, retailers do not have to return the money they collect if the cases are ultimately dismissed or the people are cleared. A Walmart executive, in a court deposition, acknowledged that the company did not follow up to check on whether people it sought money from had been convicted of shoplifting. If Walmart has to pay costs every time they lost they’d be a LOT more discriminating about when to charge people.
plink 8y ago
Sounds like the prime situation for a counter suit.
- wrs 8y ago
  >...Christian Schreiber, a lawyer who filed a lawsuit in California state court against Home Depot over the practice. The suit resulted in a settlement for about 3,500 people... That’s how it’s supposed to work. More of that should cause companies to take notice.
js2 8y ago
I feel that part of being a humane society is that we have to accept that there's going to be a certain number of people that take advantage. It will cost the rest of us a bit more. But I'd rather put up with some cheaters, be they shop lifters, fruadulent insurance claimers, border crossers, etc, than allow draconian policies like those outlined in this story. Further, compared to white collar crime and all the other ways the rich and powerful are able to "cheat", surely shoplifting is a rounding error. $0.02 thoughts for a Friday evening.
- Someone1234 8y ago
  Plus there's a fair compromise here: If they get convicted then have them pay restitution. Isn't that what restitution is specifically designed for anyway?
- raincom 8y ago
  That there are going to be shop lifters, is accepted in the industry. It is called shrinkage. Every year or every 6 weeks, retailers hire inventory audit companies to calculate shrinkage. Some consulting company like McKinsey might have advised big retailers on how to reduce/recoup the shrinkage. These cease and desist letters, vague laws, etc are product of that effort.
exhilaration 8y ago
One of the lessons I took from this article is to never go through self-checkout.
- LanceH 8y ago
  Save your receipts.
  - Broken_Hippo 8y ago
    The self-checkouts here have a gate to get out of the store from the self-checkouts. To get out, you scan the barcode on your receipt.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
waterbear 8y ago
Mr. McDonald said that if Ms. Thompson’s daughter took the groceries without scanning them properly, it was by mistake. Video surveillance, reviewed by The New York Times, shows her daughter trying to scan and rescan groceries at the checkout machine for about 17 minutes. I really have a mixed impression of self checkout lanes, as they currently exist. Ten years ago, if you had asked me if they sound like a good idea, I have responded with an emphatic yes. But experiencing them on perhaps a monthly basis these days, I’ve developed an overwhelming urge to avoid them at all costs. And not because of incidents as described by this article. It’s reached the point that even when I’m holding a single item, and there are five people with full shoppings carts in front of me, I get annoyed at people who suggest self checkout to me. I know damn well that there’s a self checkout lane, and it’s my time to waste. I’m waiting in precisely the lane I intend to be in. Even though I totally agree that working a cash register should very nearly be an anachronistic job at this point, self checkout lanes are a horrid abomination in their modern form. Waiting for these machines to prompt me through the task of ringing my own items up is so far from my own experiences of actually working as a cashier, that I shake my head in dismay nearly every time. When I used to work register at no less than ten other jobs, I could rip through a collection of 20 or 30 items in a minute or less (as long as barcodes or price tags were legible), and accept payment as fast as you could hand it to me. But self checkout prompts. Stops. Waits. Prompts. Stops. Fails. Back to square one. Prompt. Wait... Wait... Prompt. And so on. Why is it so bad? Why is it worse than vending machines? So much worse. And restaraunts are trying to pull the same trick. Self service touchscreens leave you sitting at tables, unserved for half an hour, until you walk over to the bar and complain. The future is hell.
- pravda 8y ago
  Gosh, I love the self-checkouts. Always use them. I avoid supermarkets that don't have them!
- SquareWheel 8y ago
  I had an issue getting an item to scan in the self-checkout lane the other day. I've only used the machines a few times before. Eventually I got it to scan, but I'm pretty sure I would have been able to call over a member of staff to do it manually if not. In this case I wonder if an attempt at calling staff was made. If not, perhaps the instructions were not clear enough about what to do in that situation. After 17 minutes with frozen items melting beside me, I'd probably start to panic and behave more irrationally too.
jjaredsimpson 8y ago
I've probably shopped at Walmart less than 10 times in my life. It's probably because they aren't conveniently located for me. But also they have so much bad press that I just don't want to be associated with it. At the same time, I also have the feeling that this will never happen to me so I'm indifferent. That indifference is a bug in our society. It allows this injustice to be farmed out to 3rd party law shops using a system designed by corporate lobbying dollars to harass powerless individuals. Walmart isn't indifferent and they are mildly evil so the world is made worse by their presence.
mjevans 8y ago
How is this not defamation of character as well as illegal imprisonment for /mistakenly/ claiming someone is guilty of a crime to the point that they become INCARCERATED?
mtaksrud 8y ago
Why don’t people use their power as consumers and stop shopping there? I have never understood why people let large companies walk all over them. Get organised and get even!
- Broken_Hippo 8y ago
  Because of home economics and lack of affordable choices - sometimes lack of choices at all. Folks that have some money do make those choices. If Wal-mart is the cheapest retailer around you and you make $15-$20,000 a year, they are basically your only option for everyday household goods. Even if you are saving $20 per month, that's $20. Or perhaps you get more food that way. Where I was at in the states, it was the cheapest place. We did have Aldi in some areas, but one couldn't buy everything there and the opening hours weren't great. Some areas didn't have this option either. (You can survive on food at aldi, but aren't going to find underwear and bras there either. Not to mention the lack of name-brand soaps if you had sensitive skin).
mnm1 8y ago
The problem here isn't so much scummy companies like Walmart, which will always exist and make false accusations, but the police who take those accusations and without proof make arrests. They are the truly big part of the problem and need to be reigned in. They know that Walmart and other companies routinely make false reports, have no evidence, yet are more than happy to make the arrest based on nothing. Same with judges. And prosecutors who choose to go ahead with these cases. They are truly the ones to blame for our lack of a functioning legal system that tries to lock up innocent people based on some company's bullshit. Let's not pretend that these parties have to enforce these shitty laws the way they do when there are a billion other more important priorities: they choose to because they enjoy hurting people and fucking up people's lives for their own amusement and advancement. If that isn't sick, I don't know what is. Oh right, Walmart falsely accusing people of shoplifting. That's a good reason not to shop there alone. On the other hand, when a retailer refuses to refund money for a product not even delivered, that's just a civil matter and these same scummy cops won't even take a report. The law clearly does not apply the same to all parties.
homero 8y ago
A friend of mine for this extortion letter from Walmart after being let go in the store, it's pure fear tactics
Paul-ish 8y ago
Is there a list of companies that agressively use these laws to go after people?
jopsen 8y ago
It's a amazing that a company selling to consumers dares to use such tactics.. it's bound to back fire and give bad publicity. I can't believe that scam tactics like this will bring in much money either. Not compared to the cost of fixing the out publicity issues.
dimman 8y ago
What’s wrong with America? So crazy out of proportion; an alledged $25 theft may result in police officers arrest you in your home, getting handcuffed, forced into ”prison” jumpsuit etc. On top of that, stores are allowed to put lawyers on hunting cash from people no matter if they’ve been proven guilty or not by the justice system. And they don’t care, nor need to care? Where’s the sanity and human decency??
- modells 8y ago
  Inverted totalitarianism at work. Paraphrasing a passage from the Bible, of all books, this one is a good parable of human nature: From those whom have nothing, all will be taken; to those that have all, more will be given. People whom can’t fight back will be abused if there are incentives of the elite and their functionaries to extract money from these poor... like a legitimized protection racket by a proverbial Sheriff of Nottingham.
- FrozenVoid 8y ago
  Start boycotting and blacklisting these business. They only understand profits. You have thousands of alternatives to walmart(online shops, delivery, other retail chain). By not having one predatory megacorp controlling the market, there will be more competition and options to consumers.
- candiodari 8y ago
  You should look at this from a legal perspective. Now I understand the "real" situation, and that everybody should just magically know it, and the world should be just and true and ... Fact is ... it isn't. You don't know if people are playing fair or not, and that means 1) at some point you make a guess if they are ... or not. There are going to be false positives and false negatives. 2) there will be disputes about this So we need a justice system. Ok, now let's see how people react once they get into the situation where there's an actual dispute about whether they stole or not. That dispute can happen regardless of whether you stole or not, and either side may be fraudulent, uncooperative, overworked or absent, just to name some basic problems. a) they never have any real legal knowledge, so they are not capable of playing by the rules of the justice system, even if they want to. Nobody does even an introductory course (even though, you're actually sort of legally required to know all laws) b) they don't have a lawyer, and they refuse to pay for this. So they don't know the law, nor are they willing to pay for having someone explain the law to them and give them advice about their options. c) they also don't want to pay taxes to have an extensive police force. So elected officials (presumably with your approval) have instituted "pay per conviction" rules, to measure police force effectiveness. So what situation is a cop and, later, the assistant prosecutor in ? They have someone who doesn't know the law, won't get someone who knows the law to talk to you, and your boss is shouting at you that you can't explain their options to them you don't have the time, and, oh by the way, if you don't get them convicted it's 50$ less money at the end of the month. Are you starting to see how this works ? Now, get a little taste of the US legal system from a criminal justice perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE At least that video will give you some idea of exactly how a police officer will work, how a defense attorney will react in a very general sense, what the prosecution will do and exactly how people get fucked by the system. Oh and I forgot the last, sad and stupid, little fact about the legal system d) it is in the majority of cases impossible for a convicted criminal to actually uphold the judgement (say, paying for a stolen and damaged item). They just don't have the money, nor do they have the inclination to work to repay their debts. That's why the vast majority of criminals are criminals. So the only option is to punish them, no other option is available. d bis) this means that in the vast majority of cases, reporting a crime to the police gets you ... nothing. If you have a theft, you will only very, very rarely get your goods back even if they find and convict the perpetrator rapidly (which itself is not exactly the norm either). It is actually more common for people to get in legal trouble for reporting a crime than it is for people to get satisfaction. The TLDR: you CANNOT COUNT ON THE POLICE FOR ANYTHING. Unless it's a violent, personal crime, don't report a crime. You will not get stolen goods back, and it is reported that something like 20-30% of convicted criminals are innocent (at least of what they were convicted for), so what are you trying to achieve ? Get the necessary paper for the insurance if you must, but that's all. Don't attempt to give a description of a perpetrator that you only saw in a moment of pure panic and anger, because it's going to be inaccurate as hell. For the love of God, do NOT report your suspicions (everyone's neighbor was looking funnily in their window the day before the house got robbed, didn't you know ? Especially the neighbors they don't like). And I get that 5 people in your class look at you like they'd like to hurt you, if you then got robbed by a big guy, it wasn't one of them. It especially wasn't the one you like least, and you don't want to ever have any police attention focused on you or anyone you know, even if you don't like them.
user5994461 8y ago
Cannot the court charge wallmart for not showing up to the trial? They are clearly abusing the justice system. Scaring people into paying, but never showing up to the trial and letting the court dismiss the case. Showing up would cost them money. It might even lead them to lose the case or award damages, given how little evidence they may have sometimes. The whole procedure is well orchestrated.
draw_down 8y ago
Disgusting.

Seems similar to the copyright infringement shakedown https://torrentfreak.com/us-online-piracy-lawsuits-break-record-numbers-180704/ https://torrentfreak.com/us-online-piracy-lawsuits-break-rec... I wonder how many other threat letter business models there are.

greggarious 8y ago
>In some states, companies have been able to collect more than the value of the allegedly stolen items, up to $1,000 in some instances. Seems to set up a perverse set of incentives - might be more profitable to pursue people who steal low ticket items than it is to actually sell them...
- yardstick 8y ago
  Not that I completely agree with the extent of the punishment, but if you only ever charge the person the amount you would have made from the sale, and don’t provide any other punishment (eg fine on top, conviction, community service etc) then there is little to no incentive for anyone to pay for them.
  - nyolfen 8y ago
    avoiding criminal charges is a pretty big incentive for most people
  - Broken_Hippo 8y ago
    it would make a lot more sense to have a set charge on top of the amount: $40-50 charge for a $20 item. Otherwise, it is just making sure that those stealing even though they have the means to pay can avoid criminal charges and further hassle, but someone stealing a few groceries due to lack of money cannot. Like the other poster said, wanting to avoid criminal charges is enough deterrent for most folks. A shoplifting charge can really mess up your life for many years, and that is without actually going to jail.
  - greggarious 8y ago
    >Not that I completely agree with the extent of the punishment, but if you only ever charge the person the amount you would have made from the sale, and don’t provide any other punishment (eg fine on top, conviction, community service etc) then there is little to no incentive for anyone to pay for them. I totally see where you're coming from, but IMHO fines are paid to governments. Restitution is paid to corporations. Subtle but important difference. It's extremely common in small claims for defendants to be "made whole" (paid for actual, measurable losses). But you're basically asking for emotional damages for theft... if someone stole my laptop all I could sue for is the replacement cost of the laptop and any associated costs (ex: broken car window). If you want to fine shoplifters, great. Maybe use that money towards various social programs - a lot of shoplifters are IV drug users for example. But don't just hand the fine money to a corporation that will continue to underpay it's employees to the point their salaries are subsidized by taxpayer money (food stamps).
expertentipp 8y ago
Landlords will arbitrarily deduct charges from the deposit, low enough not to bother with hopeless legal litigation (~1000 EUR), the difference is that landlord already have your deposit money. The American-style copyright infringement shakedown is present in Germany also with a whole alternative shakedown-protection industry.
- user5994461 8y ago
  >>> the difference is that landlord already have your deposit money. It depends on the country. For instance, the UK requires the deposit to be put in a registered deposit scheme. The landlord cannot abuse a penny out of it. It's really good.

ezoe 8y ago

DoS attack using the law.

eropple 8y ago
The term you're looking for is "barratry".
- raattgift 8y ago
  Not really; barratry is more a DoS on the system of justice (it wastes court time), however certainly some barrators could focus exclusively on one private party. Making false complaints to the police is not barratry. Maryland, which is the one of the States explicitly mentioned in the article, has a specific and atypical statutory definition[1]. It is hard to be a barrator in modern systems of justice based on English common law. Defendants of repeated claims by a single claimant can get relief from the courts, even if the claims aren't strictly frivolous. In common law a barrator is someone who repeatedly brings frivolous actions to court, knowing they are frivolous. There are statutory definitions of barratry as a criminal offence, mainly in several of the States of the U.S.A. The usual requirements for criminal liability apply, and there is usually a threshold value for the number of unlawfully-brought actions, so there is ample opportunity for courts to impose a graduated response. In most common law jurisdictions, it is essentially impossible to bring a frivolous lawsuit as licensed persons (lawyers of various types, paralegals) will generally not risk professional liability, and court clerks generally have the power to reject proceedings initiated by unlicensed persons if they are manifestly frivolous. In other jurisdictions, lists of ineligible litigants are maintained[2] and updated from time to time by the overall system of justice. Additionally, most courts usually exercise their power to make a costs order against someone who still somehow manages to progress frivolous litigation, usually on an indemnity basis, which can be sufficiently expensive when the other party or parties has had to hire legal representation that it is strongly dissuasive. Most potential barrators could not afford to reach the threshold of criminal liability, because liability for the costs of the court and defence (and collecting those costs) exceeds their ability to pay. However, access to relief from the courts is important, so there is generally a mechanism to allow such people to bring cases which have some significant probability of succeeding to court nevertheless. Unfortunately, civil lawsuits are usually settled out of court, so courts may not see abusive patterns (courts are generally shy to inquire into consensual agreements between adversarial parties) until a defendant refuses favourable on-the-steps-of-the-court settlement offers instead opting to reach a final judgment and a trial on the matter of costs. It's then that a vexatious litigant that casts its net widely (i.e., filing many dubious different courts because it can, thanks to corporate scale or whatever) is most likely to be "discovered" by a court for the first time. Harassing behaviour by creditors or their collections agents is a different matter, and threatening to bring obviously frivolous proceedings does not typically incur criminal liability -- it's only the act of bringing such proceedings, knowingly and repeatedly, that will reach the threshold of barratry (where that still exists as a specific offence) or its rough equivalents. Most "private prosecutions" are those brought by a public body with the explicit statutory power to do so, where the body is something other than the usual prosecutor. Finally, it is exceptionally rare that barratry or vexatious litigation could escape the domain of private law. Criminal prosecutions are generally brought by a public authority, and it is exceptionally rare (even in systems where it is even possible) for a private person to bring a criminal prosecution. It usually requires permission from the court or a public authority. (Even in the pre-modern system -- here roughly when professional public prosecutors were granted absolute discretion over bringing any criminal prosecution -- which depending on jurisdiction ranges from the 17th to 20th century, a private prosecutor would still have to seek an indictment, and malicious, frivolous, or vexatious prosecutions would almost inevitably fail to do so). Threatening to report innocent behaviour to police, while harassing and not in the public interest, is not the same as actually engaging in malicious prosecution. - -- [1] https://law.justia.com/codes/maryland/2010/business-occupations-and-professions/title-10/subtitle-6/10-604/ https://law.justia.com/codes/maryland/2010/business-occupati... [2] https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vexatious-litigants https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vexatious-litigants -- all of these judgments are generally easy enough to find online; an example is https://www.infotextmanuscripts.org/vexatiouslitigant/vex_lit_at_gen_oneill_appeal_c.html https://www.infotextmanuscripts.org/vexatiouslitigant/vex_li... -- not all of them would have been barrators under the common law (before statute superseded barratry and many other common-law offences in England and Wales).

staticautomatic 8y ago

Shockingly, the article says nothing about whether the police or a judge actually investigated or reviewed any purported evidence prior to the issuance of the subject arrest warrants.

rootusrootus 8y ago

Seems awfully one-sided. Perhaps there should be automatic reparation in the case of mistaken prosecution, at a level that is at least somewhat punitive. The retailer should feel some incentive to get it right.

mnm1 8y ago
How about 1% of that year's revenue. Problem fixed. There should never be a false accusation by a merchant. This allows up to 100 of these atrocities before the business goes out of business which is what should happen to corporations that do this. It's amazing how simple solutions are extremely effective.

greggarious 8y ago

How is this not extortion? Every time I read /r/legaladvice and someone says "Hey I have proof someone stole X should I tell them pay me back or return it or I go to the police" and are shouted down that no, threatening to bring in the police is extortion. Weird how when a large company wants compensation it's not...

twblalock 8y ago
Threatening to file a civil suit is not extortion. If it were, it would be pretty much impossible to ever send a cease-and-desist letter.
- wavefunction 8y ago
  It can be extortion, if it's a SLAPP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...
  - tinus_hn 8y ago
    Note that the page you linked does not mention extortion. Anti-SLAPP provisions protect people from SLAPP by making these suits short, dangerous to the party filing the suit or favorable to the defending party.
  - twblalock 8y ago
    If SLAPP lawsuits were extortion, they would have already been illegal and anti-SLAPP legislation would not have been necessary. Such legislation is about preventing companies from using lawsuits to suppress free speech.
- acdha 8y ago
  It’s not always but when there’s a huge difference in money and power it starts to look dubious. If I sue you for $1000, you may settle because that’s cheaper than getting a lawyer even if you’re innocent; at $100k, you’ll lawyer up and win. If a company is totally inappropriately automatically assumed to be more responsible than a person and given legal advantages, that’s even worse because the cost for the defendant is actually even higher! You’ll note that this kind of unbalanced system is specifically mentioned early in the article: > In many states, retailers do not have to return the money they collect if the cases are ultimately dismissed or the people are cleared. A Walmart executive, in a court deposition, acknowledged that the company did not follow up to check on whether people it sought money from had been convicted of shoplifting. If Walmart has to pay costs every time they lost they’d be a LOT more discriminating about when to charge people.

plink 8y ago

Sounds like the prime situation for a counter suit.

wrs 8y ago
>...Christian Schreiber, a lawyer who filed a lawsuit in California state court against Home Depot over the practice. The suit resulted in a settlement for about 3,500 people... That’s how it’s supposed to work. More of that should cause companies to take notice.

js2 8y ago

I feel that part of being a humane society is that we have to accept that there's going to be a certain number of people that take advantage. It will cost the rest of us a bit more. But I'd rather put up with some cheaters, be they shop lifters, fruadulent insurance claimers, border crossers, etc, than allow draconian policies like those outlined in this story. Further, compared to white collar crime and all the other ways the rich and powerful are able to "cheat", surely shoplifting is a rounding error. $0.02 thoughts for a Friday evening.

Someone1234 8y ago
Plus there's a fair compromise here: If they get convicted then have them pay restitution. Isn't that what restitution is specifically designed for anyway?
raincom 8y ago
That there are going to be shop lifters, is accepted in the industry. It is called shrinkage. Every year or every 6 weeks, retailers hire inventory audit companies to calculate shrinkage. Some consulting company like McKinsey might have advised big retailers on how to reduce/recoup the shrinkage. These cease and desist letters, vague laws, etc are product of that effort.

exhilaration 8y ago

One of the lessons I took from this article is to never go through self-checkout.

LanceH 8y ago
Save your receipts.
- Broken_Hippo 8y ago
  The self-checkouts here have a gate to get out of the store from the self-checkouts. To get out, you scan the barcode on your receipt.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

waterbear 8y ago

Mr. McDonald said that if Ms. Thompson’s daughter took the groceries without scanning them properly, it was by mistake. Video surveillance, reviewed by The New York Times, shows her daughter trying to scan and rescan groceries at the checkout machine for about 17 minutes. I really have a mixed impression of self checkout lanes, as they currently exist. Ten years ago, if you had asked me if they sound like a good idea, I have responded with an emphatic yes. But experiencing them on perhaps a monthly basis these days, I’ve developed an overwhelming urge to avoid them at all costs. And not because of incidents as described by this article. It’s reached the point that even when I’m holding a single item, and there are five people with full shoppings carts in front of me, I get annoyed at people who suggest self checkout to me. I know damn well that there’s a self checkout lane, and it’s my time to waste. I’m waiting in precisely the lane I intend to be in. Even though I totally agree that working a cash register should very nearly be an anachronistic job at this point, self checkout lanes are a horrid abomination in their modern form. Waiting for these machines to prompt me through the task of ringing my own items up is so far from my own experiences of actually working as a cashier, that I shake my head in dismay nearly every time. When I used to work register at no less than ten other jobs, I could rip through a collection of 20 or 30 items in a minute or less (as long as barcodes or price tags were legible), and accept payment as fast as you could hand it to me. But self checkout prompts. Stops. Waits. Prompts. Stops. Fails. Back to square one. Prompt. Wait... Wait... Prompt. And so on. Why is it so bad? Why is it worse than vending machines? So much worse. And restaraunts are trying to pull the same trick. Self service touchscreens leave you sitting at tables, unserved for half an hour, until you walk over to the bar and complain. The future is hell.

pravda 8y ago
Gosh, I love the self-checkouts. Always use them. I avoid supermarkets that don't have them!
SquareWheel 8y ago
I had an issue getting an item to scan in the self-checkout lane the other day. I've only used the machines a few times before. Eventually I got it to scan, but I'm pretty sure I would have been able to call over a member of staff to do it manually if not. In this case I wonder if an attempt at calling staff was made. If not, perhaps the instructions were not clear enough about what to do in that situation. After 17 minutes with frozen items melting beside me, I'd probably start to panic and behave more irrationally too.

jjaredsimpson 8y ago

I've probably shopped at Walmart less than 10 times in my life. It's probably because they aren't conveniently located for me. But also they have so much bad press that I just don't want to be associated with it. At the same time, I also have the feeling that this will never happen to me so I'm indifferent. That indifference is a bug in our society. It allows this injustice to be farmed out to 3rd party law shops using a system designed by corporate lobbying dollars to harass powerless individuals. Walmart isn't indifferent and they are mildly evil so the world is made worse by their presence.

mjevans 8y ago

How is this not defamation of character as well as illegal imprisonment for /mistakenly/ claiming someone is guilty of a crime to the point that they become INCARCERATED?

mtaksrud 8y ago

Why don’t people use their power as consumers and stop shopping there? I have never understood why people let large companies walk all over them. Get organised and get even!

Broken_Hippo 8y ago
Because of home economics and lack of affordable choices - sometimes lack of choices at all. Folks that have some money do make those choices. If Wal-mart is the cheapest retailer around you and you make $15-$20,000 a year, they are basically your only option for everyday household goods. Even if you are saving $20 per month, that's $20. Or perhaps you get more food that way. Where I was at in the states, it was the cheapest place. We did have Aldi in some areas, but one couldn't buy everything there and the opening hours weren't great. Some areas didn't have this option either. (You can survive on food at aldi, but aren't going to find underwear and bras there either. Not to mention the lack of name-brand soaps if you had sensitive skin).

mnm1 8y ago

The problem here isn't so much scummy companies like Walmart, which will always exist and make false accusations, but the police who take those accusations and without proof make arrests. They are the truly big part of the problem and need to be reigned in. They know that Walmart and other companies routinely make false reports, have no evidence, yet are more than happy to make the arrest based on nothing. Same with judges. And prosecutors who choose to go ahead with these cases. They are truly the ones to blame for our lack of a functioning legal system that tries to lock up innocent people based on some company's bullshit. Let's not pretend that these parties have to enforce these shitty laws the way they do when there are a billion other more important priorities: they choose to because they enjoy hurting people and fucking up people's lives for their own amusement and advancement. If that isn't sick, I don't know what is. Oh right, Walmart falsely accusing people of shoplifting. That's a good reason not to shop there alone. On the other hand, when a retailer refuses to refund money for a product not even delivered, that's just a civil matter and these same scummy cops won't even take a report. The law clearly does not apply the same to all parties.

homero 8y ago

A friend of mine for this extortion letter from Walmart after being let go in the store, it's pure fear tactics

Paul-ish 8y ago

Is there a list of companies that agressively use these laws to go after people?

jopsen 8y ago

It's a amazing that a company selling to consumers dares to use such tactics.. it's bound to back fire and give bad publicity. I can't believe that scam tactics like this will bring in much money either. Not compared to the cost of fixing the out publicity issues.

dimman 8y ago

What’s wrong with America? So crazy out of proportion; an alledged $25 theft may result in police officers arrest you in your home, getting handcuffed, forced into ”prison” jumpsuit etc. On top of that, stores are allowed to put lawyers on hunting cash from people no matter if they’ve been proven guilty or not by the justice system. And they don’t care, nor need to care? Where’s the sanity and human decency??

modells 8y ago
Inverted totalitarianism at work. Paraphrasing a passage from the Bible, of all books, this one is a good parable of human nature: From those whom have nothing, all will be taken; to those that have all, more will be given. People whom can’t fight back will be abused if there are incentives of the elite and their functionaries to extract money from these poor... like a legitimized protection racket by a proverbial Sheriff of Nottingham.
FrozenVoid 8y ago
Start boycotting and blacklisting these business. They only understand profits. You have thousands of alternatives to walmart(online shops, delivery, other retail chain). By not having one predatory megacorp controlling the market, there will be more competition and options to consumers.
candiodari 8y ago
You should look at this from a legal perspective. Now I understand the "real" situation, and that everybody should just magically know it, and the world should be just and true and ... Fact is ... it isn't. You don't know if people are playing fair or not, and that means 1) at some point you make a guess if they are ... or not. There are going to be false positives and false negatives. 2) there will be disputes about this So we need a justice system. Ok, now let's see how people react once they get into the situation where there's an actual dispute about whether they stole or not. That dispute can happen regardless of whether you stole or not, and either side may be fraudulent, uncooperative, overworked or absent, just to name some basic problems. a) they never have any real legal knowledge, so they are not capable of playing by the rules of the justice system, even if they want to. Nobody does even an introductory course (even though, you're actually sort of legally required to know all laws) b) they don't have a lawyer, and they refuse to pay for this. So they don't know the law, nor are they willing to pay for having someone explain the law to them and give them advice about their options. c) they also don't want to pay taxes to have an extensive police force. So elected officials (presumably with your approval) have instituted "pay per conviction" rules, to measure police force effectiveness. So what situation is a cop and, later, the assistant prosecutor in ? They have someone who doesn't know the law, won't get someone who knows the law to talk to you, and your boss is shouting at you that you can't explain their options to them you don't have the time, and, oh by the way, if you don't get them convicted it's 50$ less money at the end of the month. Are you starting to see how this works ? Now, get a little taste of the US legal system from a criminal justice perspective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE At least that video will give you some idea of exactly how a police officer will work, how a defense attorney will react in a very general sense, what the prosecution will do and exactly how people get fucked by the system. Oh and I forgot the last, sad and stupid, little fact about the legal system d) it is in the majority of cases impossible for a convicted criminal to actually uphold the judgement (say, paying for a stolen and damaged item). They just don't have the money, nor do they have the inclination to work to repay their debts. That's why the vast majority of criminals are criminals. So the only option is to punish them, no other option is available. d bis) this means that in the vast majority of cases, reporting a crime to the police gets you ... nothing. If you have a theft, you will only very, very rarely get your goods back even if they find and convict the perpetrator rapidly (which itself is not exactly the norm either). It is actually more common for people to get in legal trouble for reporting a crime than it is for people to get satisfaction. The TLDR: you CANNOT COUNT ON THE POLICE FOR ANYTHING. Unless it's a violent, personal crime, don't report a crime. You will not get stolen goods back, and it is reported that something like 20-30% of convicted criminals are innocent (at least of what they were convicted for), so what are you trying to achieve ? Get the necessary paper for the insurance if you must, but that's all. Don't attempt to give a description of a perpetrator that you only saw in a moment of pure panic and anger, because it's going to be inaccurate as hell. For the love of God, do NOT report your suspicions (everyone's neighbor was looking funnily in their window the day before the house got robbed, didn't you know ? Especially the neighbors they don't like). And I get that 5 people in your class look at you like they'd like to hurt you, if you then got robbed by a big guy, it wasn't one of them. It especially wasn't the one you like least, and you don't want to ever have any police attention focused on you or anyone you know, even if you don't like them.

user5994461 8y ago

Cannot the court charge wallmart for not showing up to the trial? They are clearly abusing the justice system. Scaring people into paying, but never showing up to the trial and letting the court dismiss the case. Showing up would cost them money. It might even lead them to lose the case or award damages, given how little evidence they may have sometimes. The whole procedure is well orchestrated.

draw_down 8y ago

Disgusting.