Scammers

Why can't people just go out and get a job to earn their living, like everybody else? Would it be so difficult for them? No. So why do some people feel the need to go around stealing money? Do they think it's not theft, just because they're not physically sticking their hand in the till and taking it?

I'm referring to the dirty, evil con-artists that targeted our store today. It's a trick that's very widely reported across the retail industy which involves scumbags asking cashiers to change notes before diddling them into handing too much change over.

It's something that's stunningly easy to carry out. Basically, they buy something small with a £20 note. While the cashier is getting the change from the till drawer, they hand another note over and ask them to change it into pound coins whilst gibbering away so much the cashier loses track of what they're doing. By this time, they seize the moment of confusion and offer guidance as to what the cashier owes them, gibbering away to create yet more confusion, before walking away with £1o-30 too much (depending on how much they handed over).

There are no words for how low my opinion is of these fraudsters is. They deliberately go for the cashiers they believe look gullible enough to fall for it. They're polite and chatty to place themselves above suspicion. They know that any doubts in the cashier's mind will be offset by their desire not to look stupid by questioning what is going on. They're nothing but thieves.

We've started this week £30 down because of this. It's just a shame the cashier didn't get a grip on what had happened until it was too late. I certainly don't lay any blame on them though. The trick is amazingly easy to fall for - particularly when you've been on the checkouts for hours on end. You go into auto-pilot mode and it's, very often, too late by the time you realise you've been duped. It happened to me once not long after I started working at Food Place - never again. It's a very easy lesson to learn - change notes for nobody.

The crime wave at Food Place is beyond belief lately. This weekend alone we've stopped NINE people trying to walk out with trolleys full of unpaid-for goods. Each time the total was more than £150. Even on a quiet day you can spend half of your time investigating when the alarms go off at the doors. But lately even they've become unreliable. They've been sounding for no reason at all.

And then there's the ones that hide razor blades in boxes of cereal, stick reduction stickers over expensive products to get them for 7p and steal POS from the shelves to put it back on, weeks later, and claim items at special-offer prices.

Get a job you thieving arseholes! I'm not in a high spirited mood today. At this moment in time I'm so sick of Food Place I want to write out my notice and hurl it at Terry. But, no doubt, things will look better in the morning. I won't bore you with those problems - unless they persist.