Who is the thief, shoplifter or debt recovery company?

A friend of mine who suffers from depression among other things went into her local Boots store for a prescription from her doctor. While waiting she had a look around and accidentally put a very small lipstick in her pocket, value £12 approx. and before I get flamed, I know it was wrong but she didn't mean to shoplift as she has more makeup than she needs, and all are bought. She rarely ventures out of the house as she suffers panic attacks as well.
What it is, when police were called, they were angry that they had been called out for such a petty offence and as it is her first time they said she will probably just get a warning. They told them that they could have saved them coming by just banning her.
What it is though is something I don't think a lot of people know about.
Regardless of how much the product costs, Boots, Tesco, Asda and all the big companies have a deal with debt recovery agencies. They sent her a letter demanding £89.50 for the bother of the security guard catching her, time wasted in calling police etc etc.
I googled them and this is common practice by them.
They are called RLP, civil recovery specialists if you want to check them out because they do this time and time again.
I feel this is against the law and told her to tell them to shove it where the sun doesn't shine!
Yes she was wrong to shoplift, there is no excuse I know, but who is the thief , her or them?

Fouud this today, are they the same as penalties demanded by some PPC's? www.bbc.co.uk... quote " Citizens Advice estimates that about 600,000 civil recovery letters have been sent out over the last decade. The introduction of civil recovery was not based on any new law. Instead, companies such as RLP have made use of existing civil law. Its dramatic growth has so far received little public attention. According to letters seen by the 5 live Investigates programme, RLP usually demands £87.50 for items allegedly stolen worth less than £10 and £137.50 for items worth between £10 and £100. Citizens Advice believes thousands of people who are accused of stealing petty amounts are being charged unreasonable sums for shops' losses."

reply to post by scotsdavy1


Obviously...she was the thief. Without her initial wrong doing, we wouldn't be here discussing this issue.

Des

She's the thief. She "accidentally" put a 12 pound tube of lipstick in her pruse, but she was "depressed." One way to have avoided all this is not to have "accidentally" placed tube of lipstick in her purse. So the deby guys want 80 pounds from her? How about she spend some time in jail? She got off lucky. If the :fine: is only 80 pounds, maybe she should steal something bigger next time.

never mind....

I knew it would start flaming here, I know she is the thief, what I'm saying is how can they try to charge her that amount? If the court did then she would accept her punishment but not from that other cloud, no way.

Originally posted by schuyler
She's the thief. She "accidentally" put a 12 pound tube of lipstick in her pruse, but she was "depressed." One way to have avoided all this is not to have "accidentally" placed tube of lipstick in her purse. So the deby guys want 80 pounds from her? How about she spend some time in jail? She got off lucky. If the :fine: is only 80 pounds, maybe she should steal something bigger next time.

You don't get jail here for something so trivial ....

Originally posted by scotsdavy1
I knew it would start flaming here, I know she is the thief, what I'm saying is how can they try to charge her that amount? If the court did then she would accept her punishment but not from that other cloud, no way.

I can almost guarantee you. If she stiffs the reasonable *fine* being assessed to her, she'll not get off so easily with the courts. Hope she likes sitting in jail.....Because she will be sued by the debt collection agency. They will win a judgement in court...she'll be held responsible.

You are giving your guilty friend some piss poor advice...

Des

Tell her to give them nothing.Even with CCJ because they are issued in England the judge has only got the power to say you are due the money but no power to make you pay it back in Scotland.
As for the poster above who seems to think this is a fine as punishment,no she only got a warning from the police that is her punishment.
These companies are at it she never entered into any sort of contract with the store so she is owe them nothing.

reply to post by glen200376


Cool. I think all us other countries, should send all our thieves to your country.....

Des

Originally posted by Destinyone

Originally posted by scotsdavy1
I knew it would start flaming here, I know she is the thief, what I'm saying is how can they try to charge her that amount? If the court did then she would accept her punishment but not from that other cloud, no way.

I can almost guarantee you. If she stiffs the reasonable *fine* being assessed to her, she'll not get off so easily with the courts. Hope she likes sitting in jail.....Because she will be sued by the debt collection agency. They will win a judgement in court...she'll be held responsible.

You are giving your guilty friend some piss poor advice...

Des

edit on 28-1-2013 by Destinyone because: (no reason given)

Can't jail you here in Scotland for debt from companies like them, please get your facts right.
Can't get blood out of a stone as she is unemployed and at worst, she can pay 50p a week.

Alleged is not the same thing as guilty. In other words in law these people are innocent. If the retailer has a case, then go through the proper channels and prosecute… If not, well, too bad, frankly. Blackmail is an ugly word, is it not? It seems, however that not all has gone well for RLP, as a judgement in April went against them and they would rather people not know about it: At Oxford County Court in April, two teenage girls were sued by a leading retailer. The judge ordered that their identities should be kept anonymous. RLP’s client lost and the judge criticised the legal basis of its case. And why was this? RLP had demanded that the girls pay £137.50 towards the costs of the retailer, but the judge dismissed the claim saying the costs had been exaggerated.

reply to post by scotsdavy1


Tell her to throw the letters in the bin.If they come to the door tell them that communication is to be done in writing only.If they say anything else tell them that any more actions by them and they may be in breach of the harassment act 2007.They will then go away.

Originally posted by scotsdavy1

Originally posted by schuyler
She's the thief. She "accidentally" put a 12 pound tube of lipstick in her pruse, but she was "depressed." One way to have avoided all this is not to have "accidentally" placed tube of lipstick in her purse. So the deby guys want 80 pounds from her? How about she spend some time in jail? She got off lucky. If the :fine: is only 80 pounds, maybe she should steal something bigger next time.

You don't get jail here for something so trivial ....

as violating a Commandment. Um, yeah. I get it. This is a classic case of blaming the victim. Your friend STOLE from this store and now you're whining that they retaliated. Maybe next time she'll think twice before "accidentally" slipping a tube of lipstick in her purse. The real tragedy here is people putting the criminal on a pedestal and condemning the victim of the crime. What a bass ackwards culture!

I'd like to hear how it goes - so please update as and when...

Personally I would have refused to pay it - unless I'd been shoplifting!!!

I don't know your friend, so I wouldn't have a clue whether she was or not (apart from what she told you). I've never purposely stolen anything in my life... once I was in a city a shop assistant gave me a fiver extra in change, I didn't notice until I'd gotten to the car (and was on my way home)... a few weeks later I was back in the city, and walked into the shop and gave them a fiver (bless his heart, the assistant, same as had given me the wrong change, was foreign and didn't understand why I was trying to force money on him. Hahahaha! Luckily his wife came and translated)... I'm honest, and would never purposely steal anything... and still I've "shoplifted". There's been a few times I've been to the supermarket, and stuck large items like toiletpaper underneath the trolley... gone to pay, paid, and happily wandered out of the supermarket never giving it a single though... until on the way home, when the thought creeps in "did I pay for that?".

So I can understand that it's possible to accidentally shoplift. A lipstick would be something like that... lipstick in hand, trying it on, a second or twos distraction, lipstick in bag (as you would with a lipstick you own), it's nearly instinct.

So, sorry to hear this happened to your friend, if it was an accident... and she should stand her ground if it was. If not, she might as well just stick her hands up in the air, admit it, and pay the disgusting (£12 would have been a fair one!) fine.

Originally posted by schuyler

Originally posted by scotsdavy1

Originally posted by schuyler
She's the thief. She "accidentally" put a 12 pound tube of lipstick in her pruse, but she was "depressed." One way to have avoided all this is not to have "accidentally" placed tube of lipstick in her purse. So the deby guys want 80 pounds from her? How about she spend some time in jail? She got off lucky. If the :fine: is only 80 pounds, maybe she should steal something bigger next time.

You don't get jail here for something so trivial ....

as violating a Commandment. Um, yeah. I get it. This is a classic case of blaming the victim. Your friend STOLE from this store and now you're whining that they retaliated. Maybe next time she'll think twice before "accidentally" slipping a tube of lipstick in her purse. The real tragedy here is people putting the criminal on a pedestal and condemning the victim of the crime. What a bass ackwards culture!

She is not whining as you put it. She is saying about the underhand way they are trying to bully her into paying money they are not entitled to. They got their unopened product back, police were happy and gave her a warning, should have been the end of the matter. Unless you are one of the few, have you never stolen a,sweet from a shop?
Please don't act all high and mighty as it doesn't wash with me. I'm only stating the facts,nothing else. Anyway, read this,and see that they haven't a leg to stand on.

Hollow demands Indeed from RLP, among the more than 10,000 civil recovery cases dealt with by Citizens Advice Bureaux since 2007, including the more than 300 cases examined in detail by Citizens Advice, there is one common feature: if the sum demanded is not paid, the threatened county court proceedings do not materialise. And, of the more than 600,000 demands seemingly issued since 2000, as far as Citizens Advice can establish only four unpaid demands (less than 0.0007 per cent) have ever been successfully pursued in the county court by means of a contested trial – and none of these four cases involved a ‘fixed sum’ demand relating to alleged low-value shoplifting.13 In extensive correspondence with Citizens Advice since June 2009, the agents and their retailer clients have repeatedly declined to provide evidence of any more successfully litigated court claims in respect of an unpaid civil recovery demand.

reply to post by schuyler


We all know she stole that is why the police came and gave her a warning i.e.her punishment.
You seem to be advocating big business handing out their own fines regardless of the polices punishment.
Now that sounds backwards and just wrong.

Originally posted by aspiechick
I'd like to hear how it goes - so please update as and when...

Personally I would have refused to pay it - unless I'd been shoplifting!!!

I don't know your friend, so I wouldn't have a clue whether she was or not (apart from what she told you). I've never purposely stolen anything in my life... once I was in a city a shop assistant gave me a fiver extra in change, I didn't notice until I'd gotten to the car (and was on my way home)... a few weeks later I was back in the city, and walked into the shop and gave them a fiver (bless his heart, the assistant, same as had given me the wrong change, was foreign and didn't understand why I was trying to force money on him. Hahahaha! Luckily his wife came and translated)... I'm honest, and would never purposely steal anything... and still I've "shoplifted". There's been a few times I've been to the supermarket, and stuck large items like toiletpaper underneath the trolley... gone to pay, paid, and happily wandered out of the supermarket never giving it a single though... until on the way home, when the thought creeps in "did I pay for that?".

So I can understand that it's possible to accidentally shoplift. A lipstick would be something like that... lipstick in hand, trying it on, a second or twos distraction, lipstick in bag (as you would with a lipstick you own), it's nearly instinct.

So, sorry to hear this happened to your friend, if it was an accident... and she should stand her ground if it was. If not, she might as well just stick her hands up in the air, admit it, and pay the disgusting (£12 would have been a fair one!) fine.

If she had been in court for this small amount, it would have cost a lot more for lawyers etc and she would get that for free as she is unemployed but would have accepted her punishment even though it was an accident. She never ever shoplifts, it's not in her nature at all.
What I'm, trying to get across is how this company have the nerve to extort money from people even if the court or police throw out the case.
Some people on here think they are better than others and hide behind a keyboard, maybe if it happened to,a friend of theirs it would be different.
As you said, a lipstick to a woman is second nature and could easily have been distracted. After all, she was in the store for a prescription to be filled. She never got up and said, today I will shoplift a lipstick!

Originally posted by glen200376
reply to post by schuyler

 

We all know she stole that is why the police came and gave her a warning i.e.her punishment.
You seem to be advocating big business handing out their own fines regardless of the polices punishment.
Now that sounds backwards and just wrong.

I am saying it is completely wrong with big business hassling people for money they are not entitled to.

reply to post by scotsdavy1

Boots can be a right pain in the behind from what I've read... A few years ago I read (a woman writing in to a magazine complaining about how her daughter had been treated by Boots) about a teenager having opened up a lipstick in Boots, as there was no tester, to see if she liked the colour. She never took the lipstick, just checked the colour... got stopped by security, police called (and subsequently the mother called in too) and reported for shoplifting (yes, without even having taken anything out of the store).

Originally posted by aspiechick
reply to post by scotsdavy1

 

Boots can be a right pain in the behind from what I've read... A few years ago I read (a woman writing in to a magazine complaining about how her daughter had been treated by Boots) about a teenager having opened up a lipstick in Boots, as there was no tester, to see if she liked the colour. She never took the lipstick, just checked the colour... got stopped by security, police called (and subsequently the mother called in too) and reported for shoplifting (yes, without even having taken anything out of the store).

I looked up RLP there and found this on a website from someone in same position.

What we are trying to get across to you is that RLP is entirely separate to the criminal justice system; paying them won't affect Boots' right to report the matter to the police - which they are extremely unlikely to do. Paying RLP will mean that you give a significant amount of money, substantially more than the value of the goods you stole (which is all Boots are really entitled to, if the goods weren't recovered in saleable condition), to a company that will still put your details on the Cireco database (it's owned by RLP). Please read my first reply to you again; RLP is not a statutory authority - they cannot take you to court; they cannot affect a CRB check. They cannot contact your parents. Boots could take you to court if they wanted to, but it's extremely unlikely that they will. Out of hundreds of thousands of letters sent out by RLP and the like, only a handful have ever gone to court, most of which were employee thefts. Significantly, only one case was properly contested in court; even though the defendants admitted stealing, and the police had been involved, the retailer lost. It's very, very unlikely that a retailer would want to risk the costs and bad publicity associated with such a case. In fact, the Law Commission said, in a recent report, that the legal basis of RLP's claims was unclear. You realise that what you did was wrong. Paying RLP will not make it right. It will not make you feel better - only poorer. If you think you have a problem, see your GP. Today you are panicking. Tomorrow you may still feel bad, but not as bad as today. You will get through this, even if now it feels as if you won't. RLP will send you letters. They will be designed to scare you, but you know what? They're just pieces of paper with some printing on. Why not get a piece of lavatory paper, and a red pen, and write some long, legal-sounding words on it - et voila! you have a perfect facsimile of an RLP letter - only useful. Paying RLP means that you are giving in to bullies whose only interest is to line their own pockets with your money.

Boots got their lipstick back, it wasn't even opened at all. If they try to get money from her, I will gladly go to court with her and also inform the papers here about how they treat people by extortion.

Originally posted by scotsdavy1
She is not whining as you put it. She is saying about the underhand way they are trying to bully her into paying money they are not entitled to. They got their unopened product back, police were happy and gave her a warning, should have been the end of the matter. Unless you are one of the few, have you never stolen a,sweet from a shop?
Please don't act all high and mighty as it doesn't wash with me. I'm only stating the facts,nothing else. Anyway, read this,and see that they haven't a leg to stand on.

The way I see it the police are too wussy to do their jobs and just couldn't be bothered. That seems to be a common thing. This person put the store through a hassle, the cops through a hassle, and all you seem to think is necessary is a shaking of hands and a "Bye bye" with zero consequences for her actions. It's like it never happened. I think the store deserves some compensation for the hassle and that they ARE entitled to it. She didn't voluntarily give it back; she got caught. What's a little petty theivery among friends?

What kind of backwards thinking is this?

Someone steals your car. They drive it around, get caught, and the cops return it to the rightful owner. Hey, she didn't wreck it. It's in perfect shape, just minus a couple liters of petrol. No big deal, right? We don't send people to jail for stuff like that! Grand theft auto, meh?

But if they find an old dueling pistol in your house that your grandfather liberated from Germany during WW II, then that's an automatic year in prison.

Justice.