Retail workers see all kinds of things, including some clumsy attempts at theft.

So, what would you do if you spotted a customer trying to quietly steal merchandise right in front of you?

Would you call them out directly?

Or would you find a more subtle way to stop them?

In the following story, one retail worker handles this very situation in the best possible way.

Here’s what he did.

Guy tried to steal a speaker

This happened one morning when I had been stuck opening our small store by myself due to the second opener running late or something.

Unfortunately, it was also a busy morning, as I had six or more people at the door the moment I opened it.

Luckily, it wasn’t my first rodeo opening by myself, so I set to work getting everyone situated before running the gauntlet of customer service.

Also, most of them were just there to pay a bill when I got to the third person in line.

Now this guy was definitely on something, you could tell by the way he carried himself, his mannerisms, and the way he talked.

He could see the guy perfectly from his vantage point.

I forgot exactly what he came in for, but he tried to get into an account he didn’t have access to.

He then turned to leave, and I started to help the next customer; however, out of the corner of my eye, I watched this man look up and down our accessory wall.

For context, the store itself was a giant box with almost the entire left wall behind where we hung accessories at the time.

The very end nearest the door was where we held our speakers due to how corporate wanted us to display our products.

Now they were locked on the pegs, so you couldn’t just pull the items off.

The man decided to make a move.

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched this man hold up his jacket to cover himself, ripping a JBL speaker box off the peg, breaking the tag you used to hang it by, before he set it on a small side table we had near the front.

He then began to hold up his jacket again to try to cover it. Putting his hands in his jacket pocket and lifting them up and over the speaker to look inconspicuous.

I told the customer I was helping to give me a moment, then walked over to the guy and put on my best customer service smile.

“Hey there, sir, were you looking to get that speaker?” I asked.

Later, they had a good laugh.

The guy then jumped cause I don’t think he realized I had seen him take it.

“Oh, uh, no, I was just looking at it.”

Was his response as he lowered his jacket and backed away from the item.

“Oh, alright. Since this seems damaged, I’m just gonna go put it up front, then if you change your mind.”

I said, referring to the damage he had caused, since now we couldn’t hang it back on the wall. He looked a bit defeated and then walked out.

I later told my awesome supervisor, who was on the closing shift and watched the cameras.

You could clearly see him look back at me while I was helping the customer to see if I wasn’t paying attention to try to rip the speaker off the wall.

We had a good laugh at it.

Wow! That guy had no shame!

Let’s check out what the people over at Reddit think about it.

That’s one word to describe him.

So sneaky.

He sure did!

This person couldn’t deal with thieves.

He handled that perfectly!

However, in some instances, it may have been dangerous to approach a thief.

Either way, glad it worked out for him.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.