Home Depot employees fired for catching shoplifters

Radio Shack has pretty much the same policy.

I have worked in different retail stores and unfortunately this is the policy not just with home depot. The companies that do have lp associates have very strict certain steps that must be followed to actually apprehend a shoplifter. This is because we live in a society of sue happy people. If processes are not followed exactly and a random employee accuses someone of shoplifting, without adequate proof or evidence, that accused person can sue the company for millions, and win. I have seen it a hundred times, if someone has a bag stuffed with merchandise, they can say "whoops, i was about to pay for that". or maybe someone sees someone conceal something but in one second they could put it down because they got scared and when you apprehend them they don't have it on them anymore. believe me, it is hard to watch it when you know it is happening but it is important for the correct procedures to be followed in order for the criminal not to get away with more that a few items. they can sue for millions and win.

As a former Home Depot employee I can relate to what happened. At my store and many surrounding stores the official company policies make it virtually impossible for an employee to succeed. Many worse things happen on a daily basis at all Home Depots. It's a terrible company and I would urge anyone I know to stay away from their stores.

As long as our society allows thieves to get away with stealing and allows unjust lawsuits to be filed by the thieves this is what we deserve. I agree with the gentleman who went back into the Marines, civilian society is messed up. The crooks are rewarded and good citizens pay the price.

I will not shop at Home Depot again the employs were trying to do what was right.There is way too many people willing to stand by and let others break the law,the ones that stand up and try to stop the criminals should not be punished. This is a bad message to give crimanals or to teens and other people trying to make a fast dollar or two. what would home depot do to a non employ who tried to stop a shoplifter have them arrested.

home depot is stupid. i will never go there again.

Give me a break!!!! The employees who stopped the shoplifter had not been trained or hired to stop this kind of crime. Perhaps they should watch one less Cling Eastwood movie and follow proceedure if they suspected someone of this. If they would of been seriously wounded they would probaly be the first to hire a lawyer and sue Home Depot. You got a job do it and stop the superman routines.

I am a Lowe's customer! After reading this article I know I will always be a Lowe's customer. How stupid and spineless can Home Depot mangement be?

They should take the people that stole the items and make them work the checkout counter for 2 months as punishment. I guess it is a job that everyone hates that works @ Home Depot because there is never anyone working in check out. I hate shopping @ the store for that reason.Only as a last resort will I shop at Home Depot.

Most retail stores have this rule in place. I noticed when I worked at Rite-Aid, if the alarms went off, we were allowed to ask them to walk through the doors without their bags or without a purse, but we were not allowed to search them. If they just kept walking, we were not allowed to chase them. We were supposed to log in a book what time the alarms went off.. Umm.. yeah, so much for getting your stuff back.

I have worked at home depot for a year now. In our orientation we were told to never pursue a shoplifter. The farthest we are allowed to follow a person is through the entrance after that we are not to follow. All we are suppose to do if we suspect someone has taken something is to "customer service" them until they leave the store. Despite this I agree firing the employees was a bit uncalled for.

I currently work for HD and i have to agree that their policy sucks..i hope the 4 people who got fired sue HD..In the store that i work at we have a shoplifter who "we know" we know him by face name..etc..and HD will do nothing about it..we do not have LP in our store and i dont know about other employees but i do not feel safe to work their knowing crimials are walking around and can do anything they want. I just dont understand i know that in most states any buisness can limit or restrict a cust from visiting or purchasing in their buisness. I brought this up in a meeting with our regional manager about getting the police involved and atleast having the police tell this person they can not come back or they will get a no tresspass ticket..and he did not want to hear about it and of course did nothing...i dont know about you but i dont want these people running free in the building i work in

Believe it or not the "other home improvement" store have the same type policy

I lost my job for catching two punks stealing Dewalt Batteries because I held two middle school aged youths until LP showed up. I did not man handled them, I didn't mistreat them, just held them until LP showed up. Instead of LP charging the youths with Petit Larceny 115.20 P.L., I was released from employment for "breaking company policy." It didn't stop there neither...I had earned my "Success Sharing Bonus" from this fiscal
year before...would you believe they tried to cheat me out of it because I was released the week the checks were cut. As it happens , because they inc luded the success sharing bonus money in my W2, and I paid tax on the amount, by law they had to pay me
what I had coming to me.
Aside from that, please note, and this may be a separate investigation for you, that Home Depot Loss Prevention Managers are more interested in catching losses through employees than they are about catching thieves. If you every get to witness the "write ups" they are misleadingly written to make the offense worse than it was.
But to no avail, Home Depots' Customers are always
right.
You could be a sales person. Being polite and nice, and I can come cause a scene and have the Manager discipline you, with me liing about you,
and in some cases even fire you for" breaking complany policy" I wish I could have an undercover
reporter come in East Colonial Home Depot and do a report on their schemes.
Thank you for an opportunity to voice my concerns. J.P. Mora

I really can't understand why Home Depot would fire probably their best employees. They should have been rewarded and not punished. We customers are paying higher prices to pay for their lost. It's just plain stupid what so many stores are doing, just so they will not get sued. But as for me I just keep shopping at Lowes, because who wants to shop with Theives.

as a former home depot employee who was fired under the same rule wake up depot get the lead out boys. we need bernie back cut the crap and get back to what you did best customer service and if someone steals from the store well beat him down and get back to work.

just go to lowes

................
Wow.
Carlos Mencia's gonna love this one.

Just blame the lawyers. It is their fault that this country is so screwed-up with stuff like this. They will find any way to spin anything. They make good people out to be evil and evil people out to be good.

I agree that there should be different methods of catching shoplifters and not putting other people in danger, but where was the lost prevention at this time? As a former Cashier and Customer Service Manager at a local Wal-Mart store I can see the employees fustrations. Although our loss prevention was on top of the problems most of the time. The store employees lost a lot of bonuses due to theft. If Home Depot is going to fire employees for trying to save their jobs and prices going up, maybe they should have more security in place.