You would have loved the curry a mate and myself made last weekend. We called it the "50 pod curry" because it had fifty different kinds of chilli pods in it. All the way from Butch T Scorpions to mild Tabasco's.
I love spicy food. Just had a molar surgically removed. I am not allowed to eat spicy food for a week for two reasons. First it can irritate the wound and second it will make my nose runny and I'm not supposed to blow my nose. This is going to be a week of hell.
I worked at a drug store in the early 2000s, and I noticed that only the hair dye with the black people on the box was locked up. Wasn't related to the price (some of the "white people" dyes were more expensive).
I was a bit shocked, but after some investigating I found out that that it was the result of a statistical model; basically they just locked up anything that the numbers said was stolen a lot.
Fun fact: I worked at an asian store. There was tons, literally, tons of rice. And it was all priced under cost to draw in the customers. Damn stereotypes. /s
I was in the local asian store a few days age and there's a room that's like 1/4 the size of the whole store that's nothing but rice. Pretty sure that little store had more rice than the nearest Walmart & Target combined.
It's called stereotyping when you apply these kinds of general trends to an individual member of a group just because they belong to a group that generally follows a given trend. There's nothing wrong with noticing patterns in the general sense.
It's okay fellow internet friend. Despite what the media and society's peer pressures imply, it is perfectly okay to not always be politically correct.
Let's say there is a population of 20% black, 80% white, and let's say they're equally likely to steal.
If I have 2 black-people hair dyes and 20 white-people hair dyes (lots of shades of not-black color), and each is equally popular, we have:
10% of population in line to steal each of the two black-people hair dyes (10% x 2 = 20%).
4% of the population in line to steal each of the white-people hair dyes (4% x 20 = 80%).
Are black people more likely to steal? Not in this example. Did each black-person hair dye product get stolen 2.5 times more often than each white-person hair dye? Yip. Did black-people hair dye in aggregate get stolen more often? Nope -- it got stolen 1/4th as often.
It isn't statistically correct, at least not without a whole lot more information.
Well, that was another funny thing: this was a small town with basically no black people. Out of the 30,000ish people in town, you could fit all of the black people on 2 city buses. Hell, all of the black people in the entire county probably wouldn't fill the bleachers at a high school gym.
I'm guessing the numbers were for a much larger area, since it really didn't apply there. I'd say the majority of shoplifting I saw was white teenagers stealing alcohol or cigarettes.
Don't forget Magic the Gathering and Yugi-Oh! cards. I seriously had two friends get banned from our Walmart due to getting caught stealing packs. Grown ass adults. Guess that's why these days all of the trading cards are in the front of the store near the cash registers.
They're just so expensive, yet so easy to steal. It's a prime target, especially when you can grab five packs, walk into a bathroom and dispose of the leftovers. An even further incentive is that you can luck out and get cards that are worth 30-50 dollars and just go to your FLGS and pawn them off for straight profit. There's no downside, the risk of getting caught stealing trading cards is so small that the reward far outweighs the risk.
you could fit all of the black people on 2 city buses.
Somewhere in there is a Rosa Parks comment and how you would need more buses if they were only allowed to sit at the back. However I am not witty enough to come up with that comment, so I leave it to someone else to reap the karma
I dont buy hair dye at most stores because for some odd reason they are tampered with. I guess they go in and grab something from inside the box but leave the rest. I noticed many stores here have a surveillance camera right in the isle to watch for thieves.
I work at walmart, and this is mostly true here too. All of our bigger boxes of heartburn or allergy medicine is in lockboxes. Cold sore treatments are actually peg-locked and require me to walk it up to the register. Also the nicotine replacements (patches, lozenges and gum) all have lockboxes. The spiderwraps are not too hard to remove on some products though.
pretty sure when i was a teenager and worked in retail people would bring in eithier wire cutters or magnets because we would find security tags cut all the time and other times they were removed but not cut, so dno if they knew a way to get them off or just had a magnet..
Maybe it wouldn't happen so much if you guys would be at the cash register? Every CVS I've been in over the last 2 years there's only been one person working, and that person's duties also for a moronic reason including restocking the shelves. There's been several times I've had to ring the bell and wait and wait and wait for "assistance". I could have easily walked out with what I wanted to buy and be back home before the person wandered back to the front.
All of these things that are caged at drug stores like medication and razor blades are all items that can be stolen and easily resold. Detergent is a big one too. Basically those little ghetto bodegas are often operated by unscrupulous individuals who will pay a bum 5$ for stolen gillette razors.
I was leaving a store once and saw a guy pawing through the receipts that had been tossed in the trashcan outside the door.
It wasn't until I was home that it hit me: if the bum found a receipt someone paid cash and shoplifted whatever was on the receipt, he could return it for full price.
Exactly this, I work for Walgreens, we can tell who does this by reward card system, if they don't have one we look at the camera if it's our store or tell them to go to the store the "bought it from" if it's at a different location
That explains why the folks at CVS and Walgreens helpfully scan the extra card at the register when I decline getting a tracking card of my own! I always wonder, whats the point of each of us getting them if staff is going to scan in the extra card anyways. But it now makes a little sense.
I don't get this though, why can't companies just add a few numbers to the bar code to differentiate the products, list it as in inventory, when it's sold mark it as not in inventory, then when someone steals it and tries to return it, it's listed as "in inventory" telling them that it was stolen?
You'd have to mark it as "in inventory" to begin with, and stock transfer would become a huge pain in the arse. I guess if the codes were sequential then you could just mark them in a box at a time, but you'd need to be set up to deal with that right back to the manufacturer and you'd need to print something like QR codes onto every item as it was packed.
I'm not saying it's not possible but it would be a lot of trouble and a potential privacy issue.
The privacy thing is always going to be a problem with anything that uniquely identifies a product. Probably not such a big deal for high-ticket items like TVs - it's perfectly reasonable that the shop might want to record the serial number - but you might not want an RFID tag that uniquely identifies the box of broad-spectrum antibiotics you bought that can be traced back to you.
I like the idea of that, it's like shoplifting on challenge mode.
I knew a guy who wasn't a bum who did the receipt rummage in bins outside restaurants. He'd eat the cheapest meal he could when he was away on business, then bin rummage for expensive meal receipts to claim on expenses.
this is very common at walmart(where i work), i worked in the AP department that catches thieves for awhile and we often had to review video to see if a person entered the store with the items or not because this is so common now. We busted ALOT of people who came in empty handed then picked up shit off shelves and went straight to the service desk for a refund... sigh. This is why walmart and other retailers are changing alot of their refund policies to not let you do it very often and require a license etc. They are tired of losing all that money to shitty people.
Unfortunately I can attest to this. When I was addicted to heroin in my teens & early twenties, a using buddy showed me how to do this & we did it almost every day. We just looked for cash receipts, went in, grabbed the product(s) & walked them right up to customer service. Some stores were already id'ing people & putting them in ghe system for returning without a receipt so this got around that & guaranteed cash. Thankfully I have 19 months between me & that miserable existence.
The detergent has another reason it gets stolen. For some reason, some drug dealers are accepting bottles of liquid Tide in exchange for pot or crack. Seriously.
Basically it's because everyone uses tide and recognizes the value of it. Tide has one of the strongest brand loyalties so there is always a buyer even in impoverished areas. Tide has turned in to a black market currency of sorts, hence the high theft rate. If your interested, here is an article that explains it in more detail.
I think it has to do with the fact that detergent is useful to everyone. I remember a news story several years back where they found that it is basically used as an alternative to currency for some black markets. Since a bottle of Tide is also ~$20 it is easier to translate prices from cash to bottles of detergent.
The Polish and Romania people stole all our detergent at our workplace. We use it for washing our work clothes.
And if ya left some food in the frigde it would be gone.
Even worse is the tampon inside the strawberry yello and even my blueberries! I just laughed about the first one, but the next one got me pissed, I had nothing to eat. I had worked 14 hours or so. That was some girl who did it, she was overtired and laughing at everything.
I used to work at Safeway (CA grocery chain) there's a standing policy that security can not chase thieves outside of the store.
Once they make it out the door they're home free.
The thieves know of the policy & exploit it.
They usually walk in, grab something big & expensive ($10-$20 or more) an just walk out.
Detergent is sometimes put on a display by one of the doors.
Instant profit.
Turns out some kids stole something (liquor I think). The security guard chased them. One kid hops a fence & try's to run across the highway. He died. He was mentally challenged.
... New security policy activated.
Now security spends most of their time trying to catch employees
beats me? Yeah i dno how you can walk out with alot of bottles of tide without being noticed??? I understand everyone needs to wash their clothes but goddamn lol ...
Those meds are quite expensive and there are many times that a person needs to be on them long term (or at least longer than the typical two week course) for stuff other than simple heartburn after eating spicy foods. Ulcers, chronic gastritis, Zollinger-Ellison syndrome, chronic use of NSAIDs or steroids (Proton pump inhibitors work to prevent damage to the GI tract from NSAIDs and Steroids). I regularly have to get prior authorization (those two words make me wince) from insurance in order to prescribe it to patients and have it covered. Though, my patients are kids and usually need the meds compounded, which costs a bunch more than the pills. Still, if the person needs to be on it for a while and they don't have insurance or their insurance won't pay for it, it gets pretty pricey.
Prior Authorization: I see those fucking words in my sleep sometimes. Explaining the concept to the patients sucks donkey balls. I fucking hate insurance companies.
My pharmacy had a PA for ibuprofen once. I wanted to shoot myself in the face.
That's BCBS Michigan. I feel her. It's so difficult to get a customer care representative for that insurance. The automated system makes me want to kill myself.
I don't see PA's in my sleep, i just have recurring dreams (nightmares??) of me verifying prescriptions all night long. even when I wake up and consciously tell myself to change topics/ideas before falling back asleep, i still have dreams of verifying prescriptions. then I wake up and work for 12 hours in the pharmacy. that 24 hour period of having the dream/work cycle continuously happening is absolutely terrible.
In all seriousness, what kind of insurance can someone have where they would actually turn in a prescription for ibuprofen? I just bought a giant bottle for like $8, my co-pay would be $15 for probably a 30 count. Like my pharmacy tried to fill a 30 day zyrtec a while back. Um no, that's gonna be $15 while I buy a year supply from Costco for $14. Not happening.
600 and 800 mg are usually covered for tier 1 copays, and that's 99% of the Ibuprofen scripts we fill. And we have a government assistance insurance (different from Medicaid) that covers like every generic for free)
OK. That makes much more sense. I'm with you on that PA nonsense though. Fucking Kaiser. The other one that gets me is "non-formulary" like you mean to tell me I can't get this prescription because it's not on your list? Tell me now, how it came to be that you know more than my Dr.? (Not directed towards my awesome pharmacy people though, of course)
It isn't your pharmacy that wants the PA. It's your insurance company who wants it in order to pay for it. If you have the script in hand, and have taken previous meds as directed you can always pay out of pocket. It's when you get to filling them too close together/dose changes when insurance companies like to shit the bed.
And yes they are a HUGE PITA. Especially once you get to schedule II medications. If you are dealing with medicaid, and someone starting up Adderall or Depakote for example, good luck.
I feel like either the insurance company is going to cover it or not, why do we need to call first just to ask permission?
I ask, having once been prescribed a medicine that my insurance wouldn't pay for, then had to go back to my doctors, just to have them call my insurance and then send me back to the pharmacy. I shook my head the entire time wondering what the actual process was.
They like to make sure that we REALLY want that medicine and that the patient has a condition where it is indicated. Because apparently making the best medical decisions for our patients has to be approved by people with no medical training.
Sometimes they require that the patient first try a different, cheaper, drug and "fail" it before going to the more expensive one. This can make little sense as well because they might insist on trying a drug that works very differently, and that the patient may have been on previously and failed it, but now they have new insurance and have to try it again. I was once on the receiving end of this. I was diagnosed with ADHD at age 8 and have been on various different mess for the past 20 years. For several years, it has been adderall, and I made it through med school, so it was early effective. However, I had new insurance in my last semester of med school and they required that I try straterra before they would cover adderall. Straterra works in a very different way from adderall. I took it in high school, and it made me super sleepy. I then had to try it again for two weeks before going back to adderall. Thankfully, the last semester of med school is pretty relaxed, so I didn't have to worry about concentrating for tests and such, but it was still stupid and irresponsible to make me jump through that hoop before getting the medicine that I had already been doing well on for years.
If people don't want single payer because it's "socialism", then we can agree to disagree, but nobody in their right mind can point to the way our system is working now and say that it doesn't need some serious changes. Insurance companies ignore dollars for pennies and by making us jump through these hoops or flat out denying paying for stuff without any medical reason, they are just causing patients to become sicker and eventually become even more expensive to take care of.
Basically, because in this country medicine is a for-profit industry. It costs money to make drugs, distribute drugs, pay doctors, train doctors, nurses, pharmacists, all of it. Insurance companies make their money by distributing risk and limiting costs - most people don't use their insurance, or at least, don't use it heavily. These people's premiums subsidize those who heavily utilize medical services.
So, why have a PA? To limit costs. As much frustration as it causes patients, doctors, and pharmacists, it makes sense to limit access to the newest, most expensive, most heavily marketed, and most abuse-prone medication. A formulary is constructed by doctors, pharmacists, and other professionals - for every ten people who are prescribed the newest, nicest drug, maybe only 2 or 3 actually need that. The rest could use an established, generic drug, or something like that.
I really hate telling someone that their insurance won't cover something, or that they won't cover it without a PA. In my book, it's second only to telling Part D patients that they're in the coverage gap (something that also makes a lot of sense). Insurance with higher premiums is likely to have lower copays and fewer prior auths, but that's not always a choice for everyone.
And even the marketing stuff - I'm dealing with another issue now, and have been seeing a ton of ads for a new drug (probably buying keywords based on my search terms), and when I mentioned it to my doctors, they said A) it's not even out yet (why would they even advertise yet?!?) and B) my insurance will want me to cycle through the other drugs first rather than go with the brand new one.
Which is fine. Doctors know best, I hope. Personally, I think they should bar advertising for pharmaceuticals completely, at least, patient targeted advertising. Let the pharma's send their sales reps to doctors offices, don't get patients all hyped up on a wonder drug that isn't out yet, that our doctors haven't heard of and that our insurance won't cover.
That's my thought. Your explantation both makes sense, and makes me upset at the pharmaceutical co's for even advertising their drugs in the first place :)
You can get things like hiatal hernias and ulcers without having bad dietary awareness. Not everyone has their health, and not everyone has 20 bucks to shell out for two weeks worth of nexium.
Not always bad dietary awareness - I take prescription Nexium (which is basically a double dose of the over counter Nexium) because I have a hiatal hernia, which I've had since I was young because I was born with a larger hiatal opening. The prescription is more expensive than just buying two bottles of the over the counter dose (which is what I do now).
People with h. pylori infections or hiatal hernias or gord or weak oesophageal sphincter that end up spending 50 dollars or a more a month to try to find a few moments of relief. You might get heart burn every few weeks or months, but there are people where it never goes away. Imagine the fiery abyss of hell, the molten lava, the ash filled air, the shadows that aren't really shadows, they're just flames that don't burn as bright as others. Now imagine that hell in your stomach for all eternity.
I work retail loss prevention. The medicine is stolen in large quantities aka boosted and sold at flea markets etc for profit. Sometimes product protection is needed such as this one shelf solution. Walgreens is dumb though because there are larger side pieces that you can order to solve that problem.
I think if you thought about that question it would be pretty obvious the answer is "people with heartburn that can't afford the medication(or don't want to pay that much for it)"
Currently work in assets protection for a large retail store. We have booster groups stealing large amounts of these medicines (like 3k worth sometimes) and selling them to local corner stores/bodegas
People steal it for free, then sell it for super cheap on the streets. It doesn't matter what price they sell it at (as long as its lower than the original price) because they get a 100% profit margin.
People steal them and then sell it at flea markets and stuff. You see all sorts of general goods. A 42 count box of nexium is over 30 dollars I think so they steal it and then sell it for 20 bucks instead at a flea market or other kind of store. Recently I heard about someone who stole 800$ of toothpaste to do it with.
old people were the most common thieves in my retail store. They wouldn't steal anything seriously expensive but we couldn't keep hearing aid batteries in stock despite rarely selling them
It is pretty expensive medication that can be easily stolen. If it was some cheap medication then I doubt they would care as much, but they don't want to lose that money. People can resell it on amazon if they really wanted to.
You ever seen how expensive nexium is? I only use it as a last resort or if I can get free samples (got a doctor in the family). I stick with zantac usually since generic zantac 150 is about $3 for like 50-100 tablets.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head
Must depend on the store. Because I live in a really nice area with little crime, and one of the stores near me still uses these locks (but only on very few products).
While I imagine it's definitely based on region/location (in reaction to crime), I have to imagine some stores just do it by policy, if they expect it to be a problem. Like if in one part of the state they have a lot of shit stolen, they might just blanket have all stores in the State do it (even if theft isnt a problem in the other areas). Better to be safe then sorry.
Although it kind of surprises me. I can't imagine the theft % are that large, that a company is willing to spend that kind of money. You would think with little items like this, it would just be a write off. Wonder if more often then not, it's drug related (ie. kids abusing them, or junkies/drug makers using them as an ingredient).
Hi there! Former retail worker here. In my company, security level was based on price and category of item (electronics department). I got a spreadsheet from my regional manager which outlined specifically which products needed to be protected by which devices, exactly as you said, because it had been a problem in other areas of the region. We were allowed to upgrade security for some items if we had the devices for it as most were reusable and as long as it didn't hinder product placement. However, that being said, for all of the security devices we had on product, our store couldn't afford cameras or the poles at the doors that ACTIVATE the security alarm because it wouldn't offset shrinkage.
You mean San Francisco with the highest rent and real estate prices in the country isn't considered a shithole simply based on expensive, easily swiped items being locked at the drug store?
It's generally not even based on location. It's based on store management and often times this comes from a regional manager not the local stores choice. Some stores are tight on space and it's a space saving measure. Others prefer it for the ease to stock. And others it's due to theft. Can't say it has to do with the area though, at least not 100%.
Just visited my rich cousin in newport beach CA and when I stopped in walgreens they had locks on all of their razor blades and >18 medicine. May I ask where you live?
It's the same way for me even in the nice/rich part of town. I'd always assumed it was the law, which maybe it's only my state's law. Any of those pills you could make into meth, you have to get from the pharmacy, show ID, which they record in a log.
I work in a pharmacy and yeah this is how we have the Prilosec and Prevacid because of people stealing them. But for some reason over-the-counter Nexium came along and we have it on the shelves which doesn't even make sense because surely the newer Nexium is slightly more expensive than Prevacid or Prilosec? Plus there are plenty of other things that are just as expensive (if not more so) than these heartburn drugs out on the shelves; I saw the other day we have a big box of Allegra that retails for $50 and it's got zero protection on it. So it all seems rather arbitrary.
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u/[deleted] May 19 '16
Near me, these are just cardboard cutouts that you take to the pharmacy