Loss prevention officer taking pictures of my family after leaving the store...

[Ronin570]

Today I was buying and returning items in Babies-r-us (Las Vegas). On the beginning I tried to return an item, but because I didn't have the recieve, I was told that I can't return it. OK. Me, my girlfriend and the baby walked out of the store after not choosing and not buying anything. Before we left, I placed the "not return items" back in my gift bag (we got the item as a gift after the baby was born. When we left the store we passed a gentelman who than returned and stayed close to our car, pretending to not doing anything, but obviosly taking pictures of our car and us with his cell phone. I couldn't get peace with this and drove back to the store. I asked one of the cashiers (the one handling us with the return item) if this guy is working there as a security. She told me that she knows what I am talking about and said that yes, he was a security person. My question is, is the loss prevention officer allowed taking pictures of individuals on his cell? Thank you in advance.

[retdetsgt]

Yes. People can take pictures of anything they want that's in public view unless there are specific laws against it as in the case of national security.

Police get videoed all the time without their permission.

[Ronin570]

Thank you very much. I still don't like it as we are not criminals, but if that is the law, I am fine with it. Have a good day!

[mcsap]

There is a segment of society that will steal from a store and than go back without a receipt to get a refund. Stores can lose a ton of money to these people. They certainly are gonig to be more suspicious with people returning brand new stuff without a receipt. Especially younger people.

[Aussie George]

Public place means yes.

I am sure there would have most likely been a heap of cameras on you the whole time you were in the store as well. The only reason he probably followed you out was to get a pick linking you to the car for ID reasons later.

IE - there is no point having a photo of someone if you don't have a name to connect it to. Now they have a photo, and a car to tie you to. This is no way an accusation of guilt or proof you did anything, just that something you did may have stood out as suspicious (for instance they may have only seen you putting the items back in your bag) but not sufficient enough for them to stop you for suspected shop stealing. They can then review their footage, see if you stole anything and if it was shown that you probably did, they then have a car rego to tie your picture to, giving Police a way to track you down. If you didn't do anything, you won't hear from them again.

Go anywhere near a casino, airport, court house, and most shopping malls and you are going to be filmed countless times....hell, the entire last city I worked in was covered in cameras all through the main CBD area, local parks, skate parks, roads, shops....everywhere.

[highwayman]

Today I was buying and returning items in Babies-r-us (Las Vegas). On the beginning I tried to return an item, but because I didn't have the recieve, I was told that I can't return it. OK. Me, my girlfriend and the baby walked out of the store after not choosing and not buying anything. Before we left, I placed the "not return items" back in my gift bag (we got the item as a gift after the baby was born. When we left the store we passed a gentelman who than returned and stayed close to our car, pretending to not doing anything, but obviosly taking pictures of our car and us with his cell phone. I couldn't get peace with this and drove back to the store. I asked one of the cashiers (the one handling us with the return item) if this guy is working there as a security. She told me that she knows what I am talking about and said that yes, he was a security person. My question is, is the loss prevention officer allowed taking pictures of individuals on his cell? Thank you in advance.

LP doesn't waste time on surveillance that is going nowhere, sometime in the past (and I am not saying that it occured) you or someone who looked like you must've returned items that attracted LP attention resulting in you being under their radar.

Through the years the LP profession has "fine tuned" itself and became more sophisticated, and although thieves are a step ahead of us, the odds have been already mathematically calculated, everyone gets caught in the end...why??? because nobody is perfect.

The oldest trick in the book, is to steal a bunch of items and return them to get cash back, LP keeps a close eye on multiple / bulk returns of the same item/s, OR find receipts on the parking lot go inside pick up the items on the receipt then return them for cash or giftcards.

Cashiers / security / doormen / managers / keyholders could also be part of the scam and there is no other way to keep track of chains of events unless someone goes out there and start taking pictures or review CCTV footage, especially now with the holiday rush.

Also keep in mind that those pics are probably already posted in near by retail store bulletin boards, and brake rooms, some retailers instruct their LP to use whatever means necessary to catch thieves, yes LP can fudge reports to take a case to recover merchandise.