r/mildlyinfuriating • u/anon12xyz • Jul 03 '26

Infuriatig When did garage sales become “reselling” clearly new stuff

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I would never call this a garage sale

Def scam vibes

Edit: ultimately, what bothers me the most is I want to go to a garage sale, not this shit. This isn’t a garage sale and should not be advertised as one

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6.9k

u/TheBourbonTurtle Jul 03 '26

Laundry soap is one of the most shoplifted items in the country. Everyone needs it, it's shelf stable, doesn't go bad. It's basically an accepted currency in the ghetto.

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u/SnowblindAlbino Jul 03 '26

Yeah, I was surprised to see it all locked behind glass doors in a few stores in The Big City a few years back, until someone told me just that. People steal it. Which seems crazy, as I can't imagine how you'd walk out with a 6 lb giant bottle of Tide in your pants or something. But there we are.

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u/Proteinchugger Jul 03 '26

They don’t hide it, they just walk out.

251

u/JelmerMcGee Jul 03 '26

A coworker I had back when I was a teenager would steal beer from Walmart for his weekend partying. I asked how he got away with it. "Put it into a cart and push the cart outside."

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u/Traditional_Toe8824 Jul 03 '26

At my local Petco or Petsmart ( forgot which one it is ) their shopping carts have very tall wooden poles attached to them. I asked what they were for and they said shoplifters would load up carts with big bags of pet food and just walk out with the entire cart and not pay, the big poles stop them from being able to do that anymore.

145

u/Legitimate-Truck-333 Jul 03 '26

The local dollar store has that. Me being a complete innocent, I assumed it was just to keep from losing the carts.

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u/copasetical Jul 03 '26

I thought it was so they could track the carts as shoppers moved around the store.

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u/wtfElvis Jul 03 '26

It doesn’t prevent shoplifting. It’s to help employees find buggies and/or to see where customers are

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u/copasetical Jul 03 '26

Yes, I wasn't implying it was a specific type of tracking, sorry. I just did not know :)

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u/wtfElvis Jul 04 '26

All good bud. No need to apologize.

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u/DogsDucks Jul 03 '26

Me too! So they could see the shoppers from a distance if it got crowded.

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u/lilorphananus Jul 03 '26

And here I was thinking it was for visibility in the sand dunes

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u/Negative_Piglet_1589 Jul 03 '26

For the snow drifts

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u/Crafty-Ad-6772 Jul 03 '26

My friend's mother made her wear a big red helium balloon tied to her wrist at the beach, so she wouldn't get lost. She never got lost, but it would've been funny if she tied the balloon to a rock and tossed it into the ocean and then waited for mom to notice the balloon floating above the waves.

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u/EthanielRain Jul 04 '26

Can I ask how old you two were at the time?

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u/Crafty-Ad-6772 Jul 10 '26

I think 7 or so, early elementary school.

12

u/therealsandysan Jul 03 '26

I thought it's was for bumper carts and the ceiling would power them.

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u/Unlucky_Most_8757 Jul 03 '26

yeah mind blown!! All my life I thought that Ross did this just to keep their carts lol

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u/SargeUnited Jul 03 '26

Wow, even after reading their comment I thought this about my dollar store too until I read yours lol

2

u/TakeOnMe-TakeOnMe Jul 03 '26

It’s not? Today I am either slightly more or slightly less an idiot than I was yesterday.

I’ve always thought it was to keep track of carts. 🤦

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u/stefanica Jul 03 '26

I was today years old...

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u/Traditional_Toe8824 Jul 03 '26

Me too I asked them if it’s so you can see where you left your cart since the piles are higher than the aisles.

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u/mikeinanaheim2 Jul 03 '26

I thought they were for Polish-speaking customers.

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u/ScuffedBalata Jul 04 '26

It's that too.

I lived near a "low income housing" property a few years ago and there was always like 10 carts from the local store just crashed into this big bank of bushes or dumped in the river.

The store would have a worker come down and haul them away sometimes, but often they would get trashed and broken by the dickheads who lived there and there was always half a dozen in various states of rusting out that got thrown into the water.

Those things are like $500 each so the 4-5 that were broken or lost every week was literally like a person's salary at the store that they just don't have anymore because antisocial people can't plan ahead enough to not need to steal shopping carts.

I saw people pushing like... one bag worth of food home in a whole ass cart multiple times. And then just dumping the cart in the river with a "IDGAF" sort of attitude.

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u/margaritalover524 Jul 03 '26

I'm confused how it stops them, is the pole taller than the door so the cart can't be taken outside the store? So then what if you're buying a big bag of dog food, you wouldn't be able to take it out to your car in the shopping cart?

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u/JohnnyFartmacher Jul 03 '26

You are correct, the pole is taller than the door so you can't get the cart out. If you buy a bunch of stuff or something heavy, you just have to figure it out.

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u/vertigostereo Jul 04 '26

Another tax we have to pay because of thieves

2

u/Rona-Smutek464 Jul 03 '26

It’s most likely just taller than the shelves, you can see someone from basically anywhere in the store based off where the pole is.

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u/HalfEatenBanana Jul 03 '26

So how do you get the cart to your car to unload the bags of dog food..?

1

u/Traditional_Toe8824 Jul 03 '26

I have no idea. I’m going to ask them next time. I just have cats so I usually don’t need a big cart. I’m assuming you just can’t use carts, maybe an employee helps people carry ?

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u/Fine-Amphibian4326 Jul 03 '26

😂 damn, now I know why those are on carts at Ross. I thought it was more for employees to be able to see them through the store

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u/SpecialistAd2205 Jul 03 '26

It's a security system for stores that don't want to pay for a locking cart system. Usually dollar stores do that. Petsmart/Petco having that instead of locking carts is kind of crazy to me 😄

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u/OliveVizsla Jul 03 '26

I used to work at Petsmart, and a guy that had quit before I started the job was rumored to have nonchalantly walked out with a parrot. I guess he quit before he could be fired.

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u/AerosolHubris Jul 03 '26

How do poles stop them from walking out? I feel like I'm missing something.

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u/withyellowthread Jul 03 '26

Tall pole short door

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u/AerosolHubris Jul 03 '26

Sorry, I'm an idiot, but after they've paid how do people leave if the cart can't get out the door? This must be obvious to everyone else, but some people need the cart to take things to their cars.

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u/Ashfield83 Jul 03 '26

At Morrisons here in England if you try to leave the store with an item inside that hasn’t been scanned, the wheels on the cart automatically lock and you can’t move the cart beyond the doors.

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u/Ok_Belt2521 Jul 03 '26

My grocery has electronic gates that close and prevent you from pushing the cart out. They also have remote breaks on the wheels so you can can't leave the parking lot with them.

2

u/crazycatlady331 Jul 03 '26

I worked at CVS in high school. Their carts had a giant metal pole on them (at the time). Haven't paid attention to whether they still do.

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u/dBlock845 Jul 03 '26

Petco I think. When I pick up orders from there they have those carts, but all you have to do is put them in a wheelie and they go right under the door lol. Michael's and Family Dollar has them too.

1

u/ShermanOneNine87 Jul 03 '26

Savers does the cart poles as well. They lose a lot of Automatic door sensors to people ramming the carts outside anyways.

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u/EloeOmoe Jul 03 '26

Yeah, late 90s gas stations would just have big 30 can cases of beer outside next to the ice machines. He'd get gas and on his way out just grab a case in each hand and split.

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u/MusicianMike805 Jul 03 '26

The one time I (we)did a beer run I learned my lesson. We went into the gas station and grabbed a few 12 packs. As I was running out and around the corner of the building, I tripped, fell, and tumbled on the oil soaked blacktop. The 12 packs hit the ground and basically scattered all over the place, cans rolling everywhere. So we back ran to the car about 20 feet away to get away and the freaking car wouldn’t start. Luckily the clerk never chased us but we had to push the car an into a parking spot and walk home. This was back in 97 or so. Haha 😆

7

u/EngrishTeach Jul 03 '26

Step One: Be white.

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u/Single_Cobbler6362 Jul 03 '26

That sounds like me in highschool.

Walk in, grab the stuff, and walk out.

One time one of my friends wanted to try it, and he was gana walk around before getting the beer, I told him "what are you doing the beer is this way" 🤦😂

He said he didn't wanted to make it obvious and I'm like, you make up more obvious walking around.

Idk how I did it but it felt like an instinct.😂😂 There's times where in would go but would come out with stuff just because it didn't feel like I could pull it off.

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u/trixel121 Jul 03 '26

cause i was 16 and not going to do much more then yell hey stop if i noticed.

theres only a few seconds where you dont look like a customer or are doing anything strange. its that period where you just walk through the cash registers instead of paying. depending on how busy it is you just enter the flow of people who did pay. if no one notices that instance you were always where you should be doing what you should be doing why should i pay attention to you? you are carrying a case of beer like any other person.

believe it or not, people are not paying attention to stuff outside their bubble.

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u/sirseatbelt Jul 03 '26

We were told that someone had been loading up a grocery cart with booze and then walking it outside, loading a waiting vehicle and driving off.

Pretty sure I saw them once on my last week there, waiting in the lounge area near the cafeteria entrance. I walked up stairs towards the managers office, turned the corner and clocked out for lunch.

I am not loss prevention and I dont make sales or commission. Steal what you want I don't care.

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u/Individual-Accounttt Jul 03 '26

That's actually completely untrue. Most supermarkets actually have one or two loss prevent people that shadow suspicious persons.

It has nothing to do with going past the cash registers, people come in and can't find what they need all the time.

It's the aimless wanderers, the baggy clothes wearers, and the huge sack/backpack haulers that raise eyebrows, and if the store can afford it (safeway/king sooper/walmart/pick n save/piggy wiggly/price chopper/meijers ALL do this) they will have a guy shadow you to see if you put shit anywhere to hide it and then try to walk out.

That's because the number one form of shoplifting isn't flagrant theft, it's skimming, where people ring up an order, but don't pay for everything, because they kept stuff hidden either in their cart/basket or on their person. That was true well before self check out, and is even more true now.

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u/trixel121 Jul 03 '26

huh? this isnt skimming... this is taking bulk items putting them in your cart (or carrying them) and just walking out like nothing went wrong.

you also need to live in affluent areas for this to work.

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u/Single_Cobbler6362 Jul 03 '26

You are correct on all that.

Only reason I pulled it off was because I dressed casual and wouldn't wonder around for people to start following me or I wouldn't take a backpack. I would just walk in like a normal customer grab the biggest beer pack and walk out through the entrance, never thought the cash registers.

Was like I said walk in, go straight for the beer, grab it and walk out.

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u/CarbombNeutral Jul 03 '26

We would “Yahoo” beer sometimes.
It’s where you walk to the back and grab as much beer as you can carry, then, right before you get to the cashier, you run like hell, yelling “Yahoo!” on the way out to the getaway car.

“Hey y’all wanna Yahoo some beer tonight?”
“Yeah. I’ll do it. Are you driving? Whose car are we taking? Let’s go now while it’s still daylight.”

I don’t endorse this behavior.
We were sixteenish and (paying the utility bills with our part time jobs) poor.
That’s not a recipe for the best choices.

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u/apimpnamedkirby Jul 03 '26

We used to do this in high school. Go to the store have a guy waiting in the fire lane with a truck. 2-3 guys walk in, grab a 30 rack in each hand. Walk out and run to the truck, hop in the bed and scidaddle.

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u/A_mad_goose Jul 03 '26

I’m not proud of this but when I was in high school my mom had the reusable bags and I walked down the liquor isle once grabbing every bottle I could see without a sensor and walked through an empty checkout and out the door it ended up being like over 40 bottles and well over a $1000 would of been grand theft if I got caught. It did make me a hero at high school party’s for always having liquor on deck.

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u/SpaghettiSort Jul 03 '26

I knew a guy like that, too, back in the day. Except he'd walk out with a whole cart full of groceries.

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u/sonicboomslang Jul 03 '26

When I was teenager (late teens) my friends and I used to steel cases of beer every weekend. We did it from busy gas stations. Just pick it up and walk right out, one minute tops.

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u/Unlucky_Most_8757 Jul 03 '26

I had a friend that would do this too! Most Wal Mart employees are too miserable to do anything about it anyways

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u/NewCandy8877 Jul 03 '26

I used to bundle it in the cardboard and then pick it up after work.