Happy Friday: Anti-Theft Devices on WHAT?
Sent from reader, Michelle:
I don’t know if anyone else will find this funny so I am sharing with my coupon peeps! Who would think that it is so bad that we have to put anti-theft devices on laundry detergent?!
HAPPY FRIDAY!
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Hehehe! That is funny!
I don’t know who steals detergent but i’ve seen pods locked in cases at walgreens and dollar general!
Who steals these things! 😯😱😝😝
A CVS worker told me laundry detergent, specifically Tide, was the most stolen item at their store, and many others.
A long time ago, I was very surprised to see some security tabs on on some Tide bottle detergents too.
I remember reading somewhere a few years ago that Tide detergent was one of the most stolen items and fetching really high prices on the black market….I guess some things don’t change.
Whaaaaaaaaat??? There’s a black market for laundry detergent? How? Why? Seriously?!?
Diapers, formula, and laundry detergent are stolen and sold in more urban areas. The black market largely consists of this and mom and pop shops who can’t afford the overhead.
Yes, when my son was younger I had to get a sales associate to get formula since they had it locked in a case. This was at Walgreen’s a few years back.
Yup. I remember reading this also. Who knew? And who buys black market detergent??
I know of people that have a lady selling them items that she gets from couponing… so that would be very similar except its not stolen
There are many articles about how Tide is used as drug deal currency.
I read that too! Also read not to buy Tide from 3rd party sellers on Amazon or Ebay as the Tide was possibly stolen to be sold on those sites.
I’ve read the drug dealers are using Tide as currency because you can get in trouble for hauling around large amounts of cash, but not detergent. They then sell the detergent without the risk.
WOW! Thanks for the laugh!!
I was a manager at our local Family Dollar. We would catch people pouring more detergent in another bottle to make it full to top. Then they would hide the half empty one on the back of the shelf.
I saw this once at a Walmart – lady sitting right in the middle of the aisle pouring from one bottle to another. If there had been a clerk nearby I would have reported her. Stealing makes the prices go up for everyone.
OMG! What store is this? Is this for realz?
Counterfeit laundry detergent is big thing too!
What is it about tide??!! When we moved, our movers stole 4 of my jumbo sized tide dispenser tubs off the moving truck :/
I’m sure it is only on the Tide and not other brands. Tide in some areas has been stolen and sold for easy cash.
They’re just sending you a little tongue-in-cheek message! “With all those Hip2Save coupon deals, you guys are practically stealing these!” 😂 😂 😂
This isn’t new to me. I’ve seen these for years at a CVS in a ghetto area. Lol
That’s to Crazy wow atleast when they forget to take it off you can use it anyway. Worst thing ever is when you get home to find out the clerk forgot to take the security device off your new jeans and you have to get your husband get the power tools out lol. It’s happened a lot of times to myself and my daughters over the years
My dollar general has body wash and glade in a case with alarms..haha
I went to a Safeway once and I saw vendy machines with shavers, pregnancy tests, etc.. lol
Black market…recent news story in WI had a lady stealing crest white strips. She made a few thousand dollars rather quickly selling them…it’s a sad world :/
I wonder who is paying so much for Tide detergent? Couldn’t they just purchase it at the store? Black market? A bit confusing
Alot of P&G items are in the high theft category. They can be easily sold on the black market and go for high prices. It only takes a few seconds to wipe out an entire store shelf. I’ve worked retail for so long that I’m surprised more things aren’t locked up. The amount of Olay products stolen daily is ridiculously crazy!
I noticed the same thing at some stores in Houston. CVS had the big bulky anti-theft tags like in your pic, & even Kroger has smaller, less conspicuous anti-theft stickers on their Tide. I also recently discovered my package of tenderloin steaks had an anti-theft sticker underneath the store label.
How does one even steal a big bottle of laundry detergent?! I’ve heard of people using strollers, but wow.
If this is Family Dollar or Dollar General I have seen that in my area these two stores are stolen from a lot. It has become and epidemic almost so maybe that is why. Sad, but yeah sort of funny to actually see it like that!
I think it’s pretty sad.. They do this a most Family Dollars. One of the clerks said people will even come in and pour High dollar detergent in cheaper detergent bottles and pour the cheap stuff behind stuff in store damaging products…
My CVS has DOVE Bodywash behind a lock box now. The manager said b/c it’s one of the most stolen items. If you want them for a deal, the cashier has to take it up to the register, you can’t even put it in your basket while you’re shopping! Same with the razors!!
forgot to add.. The only store I’ve seen anti-theft devices on Tide detergent is Walgreens!
I just posted this lol…I only use Dove and when we moved, I had to ask where it was. I was shocked!
Self checkout makes things really easy to steal. Especially in busy stores. I have taken things by mistake and have to go back in to checkout the case of water or cat food I left in my cart under my personal bags.
This happens to me all the time! Mainly small things somehow end up behind my enormous purse and I dont notice until I am out at my car. I always go back in (towing the kids back which usually makes them mad lol) even if its an item for $1. Recently the cashier at Michaels made me feel SO horrible and kept saying she “knew” I had taken the stickers! I asked her why she didnt say anything before I left the store. She just kept insisting I wanted to steal them and I knew they were behind my purse! Really?! If I wanted to steal the stickers I dont think I would have walked back in with 2 kids in the snow and pay $2.44 after tax lol I was paranoid the police were going to come arrest me after I left there!
Ignore the rude cashier! Good for you doing right 👊🏼
It’s fairly obvious if someone brings an item back in to the store that they aren’t trying to steal it. Otherwise you wouldn’t have went back in. That woman clearly needs to learn a few things.
The Giant I used to live near had Dove body wash behind the glass cases by the registers. That was a new one for me!
I recently witness a woman trying to leave the store with stolen items from Target and two security guards grabbed her. The woman sure put up a fight. I felt so sick to my stomach cause she kept screaming that they were hurting her. My anxiety kicked in and I was starting to feel sick to my stomach. The weird part was she was in the clothing section on one side of the clearance rack and I was on the other side looking but didn’t pay attention to what she was doing.
I thought you had to actually leave the store with the item before it is actual theft? I sure hope they were real security guards!
She did leave the store and they were bringing her back but not without a fight.
my sister worked at a Walgreens. I guess people steal tide more than anything… so sad
Sad! I didn’t know until they started locking it up, that laundry detergent has such a hig street value. Just absolutely nuts!
I’ve seen this for years. I do a lot of audits in Dollar General stores. It’s not just Tide or laundry products. I figure it won’t be long before there’s product placement cards for these high theft products like there is for higher end shaving products and Prilosec. Eventually you’ll just take the card to the cashier and they’ll get it for you.
Unfortunately Dollar General are partial creators of their own chaos. There’s so many high shelves/aisles that it’s more like a maze than it is a store. Sometimes, when they have a bunch in aisle cardboard displays, it’s so hard to see that you can’t find the friend you came in with and they could be standing right next to you.
It’s like, if they weren’t selling the stuff, it would be borderline hoarding!
bahhhahahahaha I agree with those high shelves
I think I’ve seen Dollar general keeps this locked up behind clear glass. I’ve also seen baby formula locked up
Wow! When I worked at a drugstore our most stolen items were vitamins/supliments and diet things. I also always found a lot of electronic things (like chargers) stolen as well. The craziest thing was probably when someone opened a big pack of batteries and apparently shoved most of them in their pockets and left a few and the package there…it was weird. My co-worker said at a different store she worked at someone shoved a TV under their shirt and walked out. Crazy, but impressive lol
Surprisingly I don’t think we had an issue with laundry detergent. We did have a lady that tried to use bogus coupons alllll the time (like $10 off a bottle of tide, $5 off a BOX of kleenex, free bottles of arm and hammer laundry detergent, $5 off Secret Deodorant) which was rediculous, she would fill carts up with 100’s of dollars in merchandise and with all of her “coupons” it should have all been “free”. I finally told her that I coupon too and if they were real I would have known about them! So I guess that’s as close to stolen laundry detergent we had. Sorry for the ramble, I just thought it’s all nuts! Lol
At the CVS I go to they have the Gillette Razors locked.
😱
I once bought a tide bottle from my local grocery store only to realize it had water in it, no soap. Someone must have refilled it with water and returned it. Until then I did not realize someone would steel soap.
A pharmacist friend once told us that detergent was the most common thing drug users steal. Apparently there is a black market for it and they can turn it over easily then use the money for drugs.i think I’ve seen a news story on it as well.
https://nymag.com/news/features/tide-detergent-drugs-2013-1/
Here’s the article talking about the issue
Thanks for sharing the article Emily – really interesting and it explains the black market comments. I’m surprised that P&G isn’t more worried. It’s going to be hard to maintain their status if it becomes known as the detergent of theives and drug dealers.
After reading the article I vaguely remembered that my mom always used Tide but somehow I missed their marketing tactics. I use Purex mostly, occasionally Arm & Hammer. I’ve never felt like we’re missing out or that I’m lower class because I’m not buying Tide. If anything I figured laundry detergent was only important to people who worked physical jobs or played sports/excercised heavily or had young kids. After all this I kind of want to buy a bottle to see what I’m missing lol
Different Emily here lol. I always thought people who bought tide only were foolish until I tried it and it’s honestly one of the best detergents out there. I’m a huge fan now. I’ll occasionally use gain or arm n hammer, but I’m mostly a tide girl now!
I heard this also. I wish people would wake up and quit the drug use. They should start with kids in preschool. Show them the daily death rate in their city, county, state. I told my daughters that in the county next to ours that enough people are dying, equal to their entire school in one year. Everyone knows they’re bad so why ever start. I guess I will never understand.
Apparently Tide detergent has some tie-in to the illegal drug industry. Evidently that’s why it’s a major target for shoplifters. I remembered seeing this somewhere on TV, so I just looked online and found this article from New York magazine. https://nymag.com/news/features/tide-detergent-drugs-2013-1/
My dad is a manager for family dollar. People go into their stores and fill trash cans with stuff like this, and then run out of the emergency exit where their getaway car is waiting.
Geez.
Off topic but does anyone have a children’s place promo code they don’t need. I would really appreciate it. Both of my kids need new jeans. Thanks. Mypony04@sbcglobal.net
Have you signed up for their email list? That will get you $10 off $40. Also, today, they are doing $10 Childrens cash for every $20 spent which can be redeemed in April in addition to the 50% off site wide and free shipping. Hope this helps!
Hey, detergent is a high commodity now. On FB, they brag and show pics about their hauls of crazy amounts of detergent piled high upto threir ceilings and then ppl comment and get into arguments about the “shelf cleaners”. Makes for some funny reading on a boring night. Lol
I’ve run into people selling their hauls at community yard sales & the like.
Yep, sounds like that’s what alot of them were doing, To each their own, but sounds like too much work for me. Lol
I’ve never thought of this being an issue! Sad. Back when I worked at CVS(around 2009), we did get a locked case for certain razors, but that’s about it. My dad works at Lowe’s now though, in a small town with big drug problems, and apparently theft is a HUGE issue there. And they’re pretty ballsy about it too.
😱 couldn’t believe my eyes but a lot of you seem to be aware of this! How do they steal such heavy bottles. I had a tiff with my husband once when he put it up on the top shelf in the laundry room and I was just not going to risk my back lifting a huge new tide can.
Few weeks ago at Kroger store i was going in and saw a guy pushing a shopping cart full if tide. He looked left and right and stormed out the door. Few aisles down i saw a manager and told her what happened. She said “again?!” and paged someone and run to the door! On my way out there there was police but the guy was gone. Manager saw me and said that she wish i told someone earlier because that is happening at least once a week and they can’t catch them.
So i totally understand why whey have security devices om them! By the way one of the cvs stores has them on detergent!
Husband works at Walmart and said individual diapers, tampons, and pregnancy tests are the most stolen at least at his store. That I actually find more sad than anything.
It’s so sad to me too. These are all the things we can get for free or nearly free.
It seems like it would be so easy to clip these security things of with a wire cutter. Don’t think it will deter someone who wants to steal them.
They can’t catch a guy with a *shopping cart full of Tide*? How fast can he really be going with a cart full of detergent, which I’m assuming he has to load into another vehicle before leaving? Or is he making a getaway in a souped-up (and perhaps invisible) grocery cart? You’d think if this was happening on a weekly basis, Kroger would be telling employees to keep their eyes open for suspicious behavior. Such as, for example, people pushing around full shopping carts of Tide. Especially near the exits. Wow. What a criminal mastermind!
Honestly places just get busy and it’s hard to notice everything at times. When I worked at Menards there was people who stole entire carts of copper wire by just walking out the door and making it look like they had paid and purposefully did it during the holidays when it was crazy busy. Copper is expensive, the rubber can be burnt off, and the metal scrapped. Thieves have a plan.
I can’t imagine being in a position where you have to steal laundry detergent,… whether it’s for drugs or washing laundry, I pray for those stealing it. How many of them have innocent children at home,… breaks my heart.
Self check out is only a smart idea for honest people. I was at Walmart the other day waiting in the self check out line. It was busy! (When is it not?! I know lol). I saw a man and a woman purchasing a bunch of baby clothes – the guy was acting super suspicious constantly looking around and watching the one employee, who was helping someone at the scanner. I wasn’t there long enough to keep watching but I got the feeling they were stealing a lot of the clothes.
It’s so sad that people steal such things. It only hurts others
I read years ago that Tide is the most often stolen product in the store. I never made the connection to drugs (so naive.) My daughter was using liquid Tide the other day (along with glue) to make goop!? I wasn’t happy.
I don’t understand why people think this is so funny? I also don’t understand why people don’t understand how people can get out of the store with a bottle (or three) of Tide? I hate big purses and only use a wristlet myself, but I’m pretty up on fashion and the mega-huge purses that many women use. I’m sure some of those purses could EASILY hold a few bottles of detergent. I honestly don’t think this is really all that funny. Many steal not for drugs but because they have no money (but actually want clean clothes). Theft also makes prices higher for everyone else. It’s not a funny issue, rather a sad issue. I honestly hope that those laughing can expand their world view to learn more about what goes around them as opposed to getting a laugh at the expense of others.
Well said. Ur a sense of humor is important too. Laughter is the best medicine.
I’m in Metro Atlanta area in in Family Dollar or Dollar general in the not so good side of town this is very common