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Legal advice - shoplifting?
mooshoepork
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
A very close friend of mine has gotten herself into some possible legal trouble. I'm looking for advice on her behalf. For reference, she is eighteen years old, and lives in Victoria, Australia. Advice on whether or not to lawyer up, while helpful, might be hard to follow through. She has a 700 dollar credit card bill she was expecting to be able to pay off, but due to this problem she'll be unable to and practically has twenty dollars to her name with her parents in a similar situation.
Here's the story
My friend, we'll call her Jessica, worked at a local supermarket (not a large chain) from April 2007 to present. Basically she has discounted approximately $500 (AUD) worth of groceries for friends by just not scanning them. I'm assuming it'll be hard to see whether or not she isn't scanning them as she'd still move them over the laser. Her friends do this too, but worse. One of her friends works in the alcohol department and doesn't scan stuff. He's probably stolen about 20,000 dollars worth of booze over a two or three year period.
Basically the ten or so people who are involved have been fired at once. Except for her.Her shifts were all cancelled and she went into enquire as to why.She was told she wasa person of interest and they were investigating her. They basically threatened her (a security guard and the manager) to rat out all her friends. She said she had nothing to tell them and left. The cameras in the store above the register are approximately 3 metres away and positioned on the roof for reference.
Her friends, who are in a similar situation have been offered a contract of say 20,000 dollars, 15,000 dollars or 3,000 dollars that if they pay that amount within two years, they won't be charbged. It IS possible to get a copy of this contract. I'm assuming this is hella fucking illegal.
As of now, they haven't formally charged anyone, but a few of her friends have signed payment plan contracts to "make it go away"
I of course told them to lawyer the fuck up, but what can you do.
SO. Advice? What's the worst case scenario that can arise for her? Can she get arrested? Will they send police to her house like they said they were going to? I'm pretty sure they're just bluffing and taking advantage of people, but it's got my friend pretty upset. What kind've punishment would she receive if she was found guilty? As I said she's eighteen, hasn't done anything ever before, is at university and is generally a fine...upstanding citizen I guess.
ANY advice is most welcome, I've calmed her down a bit, but I don't know much in the way of criminal law only civil.
Here's the story
My friend, we'll call her Jessica, worked at a local supermarket (not a large chain) from April 2007 to present. Basically she has discounted approximately $500 (AUD) worth of groceries for friends by just not scanning them. I'm assuming it'll be hard to see whether or not she isn't scanning them as she'd still move them over the laser. Her friends do this too, but worse. One of her friends works in the alcohol department and doesn't scan stuff. He's probably stolen about 20,000 dollars worth of booze over a two or three year period.
Basically the ten or so people who are involved have been fired at once. Except for her.Her shifts were all cancelled and she went into enquire as to why.She was told she wasa person of interest and they were investigating her. They basically threatened her (a security guard and the manager) to rat out all her friends. She said she had nothing to tell them and left. The cameras in the store above the register are approximately 3 metres away and positioned on the roof for reference.
Her friends, who are in a similar situation have been offered a contract of say 20,000 dollars, 15,000 dollars or 3,000 dollars that if they pay that amount within two years, they won't be charbged. It IS possible to get a copy of this contract. I'm assuming this is hella fucking illegal.
As of now, they haven't formally charged anyone, but a few of her friends have signed payment plan contracts to "make it go away"
I of course told them to lawyer the fuck up, but what can you do.
SO. Advice? What's the worst case scenario that can arise for her? Can she get arrested? Will they send police to her house like they said they were going to? I'm pretty sure they're just bluffing and taking advantage of people, but it's got my friend pretty upset. What kind've punishment would she receive if she was found guilty? As I said she's eighteen, hasn't done anything ever before, is at university and is generally a fine...upstanding citizen I guess.
ANY advice is most welcome, I've calmed her down a bit, but I don't know much in the way of criminal law only civil.
mooshoepork on
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Did she steal anything herself? Not really, and since it was only what, 500 dollars worth of stuff over the course of 2 years? That's a pretty good track record for a young cashier. She can probably just claim user error on the machine.
If they had anything to charge her with, they would charge her. All she really has to say if she hasn't admitted anything yet is, 'I don't know what you are talking about, I've never stolen anything. I must have just failed to ring them up because I was not paying attention, I'm sorry.'
Some people that I worked with got caught doing the same thing. A couple got off by paying back the thousands of dollars they had stolen, one went to jail for a few months. Honestly, they watch the employees scanning stuff more than customers. You definitely shouldn't give them a reason to want to watch you on the cameras.
This only works until they go back to review the video and see that it was the same people every time. They definitely do that sort of stuff.
Is it illegal to pressure them to sign a repayment contract?
i doubt it. from my limited experience (listening to my girlfriend's law lectures!) an offer to make or not make a legal filing in exchange for some compensation can be a legal and binding contract
I just figured it was essentially blackmail "pay us x or we will go to the police"
Any actual lawyers here? The contract thing isn't a big deal, I'm more worried about my friend. She hasn't been offered a contract yet.
It's not blackmail. They caught her red-handed stealing. They're doing her a favor by offering her a way out that doesn't involve getting arrested and having that follow her around the rest of her life. Trust me, she's going to have a hard time finding a new job with this as a criminal mark on her record.
Is it probably cheaper for them to just get her to pay? Undoubtedly, but don't act like they aren't doing her one huge ass favor too. Because they are.
Which is nothing compared to others who are getting done for 20k ++
I doubt they will be able to follow through with this unless they get more than one of the involved people as witnesses to her stealing. anything else can be passed off as mis-scanned items which even the best of cashiers do sometimes. She needs to lawyer up, admit to nothing and never do it again to say that they will be watching her closely from now on is a severe understatement
They told her she was at the bottom of their list, but they were still investigating her.
She isn't lying to me. I know that much. They are targeting everyone on front registers as far as I know. About eleven people. They have all been fired except her.
edit: They haven't even charged anyone yet.
if they haven't charged anyone it's probably just to assemble evidence and so they can get a few people to sign contracts.
Obviously if she is looking for a job I would not list them as a reference.
I just needed to point out that they've been taking advantage of the store for a long time so I dont think what the employees are doing is considered taking advantage as much as getting paid for all the shit your friends have been stealing.
That said, I don't imagine they keep footage for more than a short period unless they have some fancy camera system with DVD backup and for some reason they choose to keep footage for a yearly basis. If anything its common for it to be only 30 days, especially if its a tape system.
And if they knew shed done anything shed have been fired, they're fishing.
If they're investigating it likely means just that, they don't know exactly what she stole so they are looking into it. If they've already nailed others then I'm sure they will end up with something legitimate on her. She should probably wait to see exactly what they end up getting on her.
Finally, this isn't a great thing for you to be posting about on a public forum.
Victoria is a big place man. I don't think I've given enough information for that to be a problem.
everything this man said
also even small places will usually keep things for 90 days or more. the least I've ever known about was when I worked at mcdonalds we were one of the ones on the old system and they only kept footage for 2 weeks...
it's fun to look at a company and say they're screwing over employees because they don't' have a face, but the people screwed up and got caught. The company has every right to do this. No one can tell you what the company is thinking or what evidence they have so I will say this again...
LAWYER UP
It'll vary on the size of the store I imagine. We are one of the biggest stores in our very big chain but we only keep our poor quality footage for 30 days before taping over it.
not really that big of a deal, he gave no name or address that can be linked back, anything anyone can gather from this is completely circumstantial.
listen... If you want to ignore everything that is being said, you're more than welcome to but keep in mind the things we are saying help. "I don't think they have that good of a camera setup" will only get you screwed when they go to court with more than you think they can have. Obviously they have the money to put these cameras into place in the first place and that's the expensive part. A hard drive that saves it all is the cheap part of the deal.
Second it doesn't matter if there are a million stores in that area. If someone is looking for a reason to look for more evidence and something about this thread rings familiar, they can't use it as evidence but they can use it as motivation. there is a difference between one of the involved mentioning her name to get out of paying extra money and an uninvolved third party mentioning the exact thing on the internet, on a website which shows up on google a lot.
probably can't and probably won't only work after you've gotten your defense built for if they do. which judging from the looks of things is likely
DVR backups aren't all that expensive. Also, the whole 3-meters up thing? You don't know what kind of security they have. They may be able to look at both the transaction data and the camera at the same time, watching as an item passes over the scanner but doesn't show up on the transaction log. If this happens multiple times in a transaction, and multiple times with the same customers, the business has the proof they need.
It's called Sweethearting. We've caught quite a few people doing it and fired them for it. One of the only things our company fires people for anymore.
https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970666737/
Erm; basic. This isn't even some first offence bullshit where you steal some laundry detergent and get caught. This is a situation where she knowingly let someone just walk out with product.
There's no way around it, she's straight up STEALING. Finding a lawyer won't help too too much if they've got proof that she's been stealing for her friends (which seems like they do) also they would actually go through the cams and vids if it means squeezing twenty grand out of her. Either have the justice settle it out (since the charge for theft for a first offender couldn't be THAT bad over there, also if nothing can be proven then she's fine) or pony up.
If your justice system's (mentioned AUD so I'm guessing Australia) anything like Canada's then she might just get off with a fine, some community service time and a notch on her record since she didn't actually take anything (just allowed her friends to mooch off her position). But really, anything that happens to her she deserves.
Live and learn; if you're going to steal, make it worthwhile and rob a fucking bank.
Speaking from experience, most of this shit gets settled out of court, I've had enough suburban kids just be too embarassed to have a record or whatever so they agree to settle with X amount of money with their respective ex-employers, who same, are usually smaller chains or single stores, it's coming out of their pocket after all, they don't have a shrink [theft] budget like the big corporations do. I've had a guy pay close to three grand for giving his friends free expensive coffees where he worked, sad. Then was it that I realised hip and cool places stop being hip and cool when money's involved.
@Mr.Pokeylope:
Yeah it totally is, the smaller stores and chains are usually the most sue happy and aggressive when it comes to shit like this.
@mooshoepork:
Don't bother, those free legal advice places are usually the most expensive once you actually HIRE THEM. Or they're free if you put down some money (then you don't get charged for the consultation but you pay anything for the service in case you "get advice and go to a cheaper lawyer").
Also book legal aid NOW if you're thinking of getting free advice, don't think they're a McDonald's and you just walk up and *poof* out pops a lawyer.
Universities and colleges are the real free advice places ~_~ of course the ambulance chasing and expertise is lowered so it 's good and bad.
The store offering a contract is not illegal, at least in the US. Like others have said, they are basically making it easy for everyone and just offering the people to pay back the lost amounts. While my store doesn't do this, I have heard about others that do. I remember one that the police were there while the manager explained it, and they had no problem with it.
What one other person mentioned is that they might be reviewing camera footage while also looking at a transaction log. We just recently caught someone this way. Three items get scanned, five go in the bag, and you have a problem. Also has been said, but if the store notices this happens multiple times, and with the same people, thats all they need.
Finally, to reiterate another point, don't underestimate the store's security. The cameras at my store are farther than 3m away, and we can zoom in to read credit card numbers, license plates, etc. Also, although we only keep 90 days of footage on site, we can make some phone calls and review back as far as we need. As unlikely as it may seem with this store, again, don't underestimate.
And finally, as most have said, lawyer up. In the US, and in my experiance, a lawyer is usually not needed for a misdemeanor. As in, you can get one, but in all the cases I've seen it doesnt make a bit of difference, except costing the person money. But with anything $500 or up it is a felony, and a lawyer is definately needed. Not sure how the laws differ in Australia, but a lawyer is definately a smart choice.
Also, if they offer her a contract, I would personally take it. Shes admitted to you that shes stolen. To go about lying more, claiming she didnt realize it, training error, etc, is in my opinion stupid. Not to mention even more dishonest. I highly doubt that would go over well with a judge, and then if she is found guilty, she is bound to get a harsher punishment for the attempted lie.
EDIT: This is going to depend on Australian law, but at least in the US, we don't need the police to arrest. Its basically a citizen's arrest, based on some part of English Common Law on merchants catching thieves (as I understand it, a lawyer might be able to explain it better). But anyways, although the police come out to write the ticket/take them to jail, she might be able to be arrested by certain employees.
I find that incredibly hard to believe. Settling out of court is pretty common for almost any organization or company.
yes, in the US, some property crimes can be "civilly compromised", which is basically a financial deal between defendant and victim
sometimes this is encouraged because the defendant avoids any criminal prosecution or possible conviction and the victim is made whole
Concealing a crime in return for money is a crime in itself.
my state has a specific statute that authorizes a criminal case to be dismissed if the victim and defendant have civilly compromised it
they are not "concealing a crime" they are saying look we won't pursue criminal prosecution if you just pay us back for the property you took without permission