Some shoplifters make it too obvious for employees to spot them.

This pharmacy employee stopped a woman walking in because she set off the alarm.

The woman showed her the security tag on her coat, which made her even more suspicious.

Read below for all the details.

Thief doesn’t seem to know why her obviously stolen coat makes her so suspicious.

It’s a couple of days before Christmas, and the pharmacy that I work at is swamped with people trying to buy wrapping paper and other such nonsense.

We’re in a small lull between waves of customers, and this lady comes through the auto doors.

When she comes in, she sets off the security alarm, which beeps loudly and says, “Please see a store associate to complete your transaction.”

Like any time this happens, I make sure to try and memorize the color of her hair, her general age range, and the color and type of clothing she’s wearing.

I flag down a manager as surreptitiously as I can and try to involve the woman in conversation.

She’s wearing black, thin, cheap-looking clothing under a black fur-lined coat that swamps her, and is carrying a large purse.

The exchange between this employee and the woman went like this.

Me: “Oh—no, did the door go off when you came in?”

Thief: “Yeah, it’s no big deal, probably just my coat.”

She reaches up into the collar of her coat and pulls out the clothing tag. On it is one of those big plastic security-tag things that department stores typically use.

In my head I’m like, “Ex-squeeze me! Don’t you know how dumb you look now? If that coat had been acquired legitimately, you would not have that security tag stuck to it, making every automatic door sensor that you go through scream ‘THIEF!'”

Of course, my manager walks up behind her as she is saying this. My manager crosses her arms, taps her foot, and waits for her to finish rambling about her coat.

Manager: “Is there anything that I can help you with, ma’am?”

Thief: “Oh… no… I think I can find it.”

The woman was obviously nervous.

She walks farther into the store, and the manager keeps her in her eyesight the entire time.

The thief is showing signs of nervousness now, looking around constantly and jumping every time someone else goes down the same aisle that she’s on, which is frequently because we were busy, and my manager was on her like white on rice.

After about fifteen minutes of her wandering the store, as my manager straightens the end of every aisle she goes down, she wanders up front and asks me to help her find something.

I’m checking out a line of customers, and I know that she is trying to get me to distract my manager away from her.

It doesn’t work because my manager has camouflaged herself on the other side of the line from where the thief is standing.

Me: “Just a moment, ma’am, and I can get someone to assist you.”

Thief: Smiles as the manager sneaks around the line and up behind her.

Me: “Oh—Manager—there you are. This lady in front of you is looking for a blabity bloo. Do you know if we have any blabity bloos?”

Manager: “Come with me, ma’am, and I’ll show you where we keep our blabitys and we can see if we have any bloos.”

Then the manager put up the thief’s photo and details for future reference.

A couple minutes later, I see my manager chasing the thief out of the store. My manager comes back in after about ten minutes.

She shows me the picture of the thief getting into a car and its license plate that she took with her phone, and tells me that they got in a screaming match.

A picture of the thief, taken from the security camera that watches the door, now lives below where we hang our work schedule.

On the bottom of the picture are the words, “Kick out on sight!”

That’s the wrong way to be subtle!

Here’s what other people have to say about this.

This one shares a related experience.

Valid question.

This person offers some useful advice.

Here’s a good point.

And finally, people are giving the “thief” the benefit of the doubt.

Setting off the alarm is such a rookie move.

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.