Coincidental Encounters That May Not Have Taken Place If Clothing Security Tags Were Used

When you work in Retail Loss Prevention as long as I have, you collect a few funny stories to tell from your experiences. One of the funnier moments I had was as a Loss Prevention Officer for a department store chain. I was actually off-duty and was with my wife shopping at one of our neighboring stores a few miles down the road from my assigned location. We were in the mall but popped into this branch where my good friend and fellow Loss prevention Officer was working. As my wife and I were browsing in clothing I saw this young couple looking around suspiciously and looking at clothing tags rather than the merchandise. The woman was standing behind a clothing fixture and I saw a tell-tale jerk of the young woman’s shoulder which indicated to me she was pulling off hang tags. At the time our company was using few clothing security tags to protect merchandise though we did have some high priced coats and dresses with Checkpoint Tags on them. This couple was not in that area. When I saw the arm movements and the shady looks I called my friend who was in the camera room and he began observation.
   

 I need to briefly interrupt my story so I can bring some of our readers up to speed on what Checkpoint Tags are since not everyone may be familiar with them. Checkpoint Tags are hard plastic devices that are pinned to clothing. They serve to deter theft and prevent shoplifting when applied to merchandise and in this case clothing specifically. The clothing security tags are designed to be attached in a visible location so criminals know that if they try to steal the item(s) an alarm in an electronic article surveillance (EAS) tower is going to be activated. The tags also stop shoplifters because the security tags do activate alarms in an EAS tower and that gets a response from store personnel who then conduct receipt checks. Whether concealed in a bag or hidden under clothing an EAS tag will still set off a tower alarm when someone tries to smuggle stolen goods past it. Employees responding to an alarm can conduct receipt checks and root out the cause for the alarm without causing a scene when they do it properly.
     

So getting back to my adventure, my friend began watching the couple on closed circuit television. The woman took a number of pieces of clothing into the fitting room while her partner waited outside on the salesfloor. My partner could not confirm how many pieces were taken in so we worked together to get the couple to dump any merchandise they were going to try to steal. I walked over to the fixture where the woman had been standing and started picking up manufacturer tags from the floor. The guy watched me and when his friend came out I sent an associate in to look for empty hangers. The couple looked nervous and when the employee brought out empty hangers she handed them to me. The woman scurried back in the fitting room and quickly came back out. The salesfloor employee went back in and came out with an armful of merchandise that had not been there previously.
     

I spoke with my friend for a few minutes and my wife and I left the store and moved to another department store further down the mall. To my surprise there was the same couple and they were doing the same thing. I approached an employee of that store and started to tell him about the couple and the guy saw me and we made eye contact. He said something to the woman and they left the store. Another deterred theft! The story doesn’t end there however. After shopping for a while my wife and I were finally done in the mall and started on our way home but had a grocery store stop to make. Guess who we bumped into? Yup, that same couple. The male made eye contact with me, his mouth dropped open and he whispered to the woman and they left. It made my day.
     

Since then the company I worked for has increased the use of clothing security tags on merchandise. In my career I have used Checkpoint Tags on numerous items and can testify to their effectiveness in preventing theft. While we were fortunate to stop those cases of shoplifting it makes me wonder whether I even would be able to tell that story today had we used tags more aggressively back then. Probably not but the world may never know.

Get more information on Checkpoint Tags, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 today.