5 ms·

Two points: 1. Unless store security catches the thief at the door, many police departments don’t have the resources to track them down. So finding out that yo

Two points: 1. Unless store security catches the thief at the door, many police departments don’t have the resources to track them down. So finding out that you were burgled within a couple days isn’t much better than finding out at a quarterly or even annual inventory. 2. It’s not that big of a problem. From the article: “Organized retail crime costs retailers an average of $719,548 per $1 billion in sales”. Putting that in a more accessible scale, that’s 72¢ per $1,000 of sales.

namelessoracle 5y ago
One point about 1. Even if Store Security DOES catch them at the door. What do you do when the person says "I dont care im taking this and going" and refuses to stop for the security person. The security person is not a cop, and is probably not the very expensive armed security that banks have. If the person calls their bluff not much can be done at that point. And thieves know this. They then head to their car and leave. You try to take their license plate number. Oh wait it says "tag applied for". Criminals regularly take the plates off when they do their work, if a cop pulls them over, they can say some story about how they needed to get it reattached, and no cop pulls over a car just because of a "tag applied for" sign because they know it will likely be just that 9 times out of 10, so if they did pull over that car its some other ticket-able offense, but no registration wont be likely part of that ticket. Maybe you got a picture of their face? Except everyone wears masks now....
- frosted-flakes 5y ago
  What is a "tag-applied for" sign? Some sort of temporary licence plate? In Ontario, temporary registration is a normal licence plate with a "T" registration sticker, instead of an annual sticker.
  - colanderman 5y ago
    Where I live (Massachusetts) it's a barely legible piece of paper you tape in your rear window.
  - namelessoracle 5y ago
    Its a piece of paper that literally says "tag applied for". If you buy a car from an individual/non dealer you get a certain amount of time (couple of weeks to 30 days depending on state) to get a new tag for it. Until that point you can drive it basically unregistered. All the ambiguity involving that means you can basically just take off your license plate whenever you want and police dont look at as a particularly unusual or noteworthy thing to run across. Even if you dont put "tag applied for" at all most cops just assume thats the situation and wont pull you over for just that unless you are having some other violation going on. I had a coworker who was robbed earlier this year and the person left in a car with a you guessed it "tag applied for" paper on the license plate section of their car.
- colanderman 5y ago
  In some states (e.g. MA, NY I'm pretty sure) security cannot legally prevent anyone from leaving. The best they can do is stand in the way to slow someone down. Source: heard from an independent jeweler in New York City.
- scruple 5y ago
  I see so many missing plates these days in SoCal. Also no plate on the front. I point them out to my wife sometimes when I am bored, we'll see dozens on a 10 minute trip. I'm told by a friend who is a DA (in California) that police here are not legally allowed to stop you today for plate violations. Instead, they are only allowed to issue fines for plate violations as part of another routine stop. I also have a neighbor has a temporary paper plate on one of his vehicles that expired over 14 months ago. If there's no incentive to care then people won't care, I guess.
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    When I lived in Los Angeles a long time ago I didn't drive much so I never got around to renewing my plates (from another state). For nearly two years, it was never a problem.
moftz 5y ago
It's all part of retail business. Whether it's employee theft, customer theft, broken items on shelves, or returns of faulty items, it's all a part of doing business and it factors into the sticker price.

namelessoracle 5y ago

One point about 1. Even if Store Security DOES catch them at the door. What do you do when the person says "I dont care im taking this and going" and refuses to stop for the security person. The security person is not a cop, and is probably not the very expensive armed security that banks have. If the person calls their bluff not much can be done at that point. And thieves know this. They then head to their car and leave. You try to take their license plate number. Oh wait it says "tag applied for". Criminals regularly take the plates off when they do their work, if a cop pulls them over, they can say some story about how they needed to get it reattached, and no cop pulls over a car just because of a "tag applied for" sign because they know it will likely be just that 9 times out of 10, so if they did pull over that car its some other ticket-able offense, but no registration wont be likely part of that ticket. Maybe you got a picture of their face? Except everyone wears masks now....

frosted-flakes 5y ago
What is a "tag-applied for" sign? Some sort of temporary licence plate? In Ontario, temporary registration is a normal licence plate with a "T" registration sticker, instead of an annual sticker.
- colanderman 5y ago
  Where I live (Massachusetts) it's a barely legible piece of paper you tape in your rear window.
- namelessoracle 5y ago
  Its a piece of paper that literally says "tag applied for". If you buy a car from an individual/non dealer you get a certain amount of time (couple of weeks to 30 days depending on state) to get a new tag for it. Until that point you can drive it basically unregistered. All the ambiguity involving that means you can basically just take off your license plate whenever you want and police dont look at as a particularly unusual or noteworthy thing to run across. Even if you dont put "tag applied for" at all most cops just assume thats the situation and wont pull you over for just that unless you are having some other violation going on. I had a coworker who was robbed earlier this year and the person left in a car with a you guessed it "tag applied for" paper on the license plate section of their car.
colanderman 5y ago
In some states (e.g. MA, NY I'm pretty sure) security cannot legally prevent anyone from leaving. The best they can do is stand in the way to slow someone down. Source: heard from an independent jeweler in New York City.
scruple 5y ago
I see so many missing plates these days in SoCal. Also no plate on the front. I point them out to my wife sometimes when I am bored, we'll see dozens on a 10 minute trip. I'm told by a friend who is a DA (in California) that police here are not legally allowed to stop you today for plate violations. Instead, they are only allowed to issue fines for plate violations as part of another routine stop. I also have a neighbor has a temporary paper plate on one of his vehicles that expired over 14 months ago. If there's no incentive to care then people won't care, I guess.
- jessaustin 5y ago
  When I lived in Los Angeles a long time ago I didn't drive much so I never got around to renewing my plates (from another state). For nearly two years, it was never a problem.

moftz 5y ago

It's all part of retail business. Whether it's employee theft, customer theft, broken items on shelves, or returns of faulty items, it's all a part of doing business and it factors into the sticker price.