This one is very simple. They cannot issue civil recovery against you because you paid for the goods you had taken. If you read back in this forum you will notice that when people are detained for theft, and they offer to pay for the goods they are refused - this is because they cannot issue civil recovery against them if they do. So you won’t hear from RLP at all. If they try to even contact RLP regarding this case, it is one of the first questions that is asked by RLP, before even the name of the offender - Did the offender pay for the items? If the answer is yes, it isn’t even continued. So don’t worry about that.

The same goes for the police. Once you made payment, as far as the police are concerned - the matter is dealt with. They won’t touch it with a barge pole. There was no crime, only an ‘incident’ that was dealt with between the interested parties.

Regarding past offences, there is no chance. Quite simply - for a start CCTV images are only retained for a maximum of 31 days. And even if there was something to find in the last 31 days, they would have to watch days of footage to find the few seconds you were at the self scan. They would have to pay somebody £8-9 an hour, for a few days to sit and watch to try to find evidence of a theft of a couple of pounds. Spending hundreds of pounds. It just won’t happen.

Learn from your mistake, put it out of your mind and move on my friend.

LPG

This one is very simple. They cannot issue civil recovery against you because you paid for the goods you had taken. If you read back in this forum you will notice that when people are detained for theft, and they offer to pay for the goods they are refused - this is because they cannot issue civil recovery against them if they do. So you won’t hear from RLP at all. If they try to even contact RLP regarding this case, it is one of the first questions that is asked by RLP, before even the name of the offender - Did the offender pay for the items? If the answer is yes, it isn’t even continued. So don’t worry about that.

 

The same goes for the police. Once you made payment, as far as the police are concerned - the matter is dealt with. They won’t touch it with a barge pole. There was no crime, only an ‘incident’ that was dealt with between the interested parties.

 

Regarding past offences, there is no chance. Quite simply - for a start CCTV images are only retained for a maximum of 31 days. And even if there was something to find in the last 31 days, they would have to watch days of footage to find the few seconds you were at the self scan. They would have to pay somebody £8-9 an hour, for a few days to sit and watch to try to find evidence of a theft of a couple of pounds. Spending hundreds of pounds. It just won’t happen.

 

Learn from your mistake, put it out of your mind and move on my friend.

 

LPG

Hi and welcome to CAG.

Whilst this is true that no action can be taken, this does not stop the likes of RPL getting involved. They prey on the consumers lack of knowledge to obtain *cough* 'redress' *cough* for their acts. I have seen some threads on CAg where an 'alleged' shoplifter has paid for the goods after being caught and then been chased for security costs.

RLP like to claim that each event costs the retailer between £300 and £500 per incident and that the sum demanded is a contribution to the stores losses. This can never be true as RLP take a cut first before sending the remainder on to the store.

I could trawl this forum to find the relevant threads but I really can't be ar**d

Hi Silverfox, and thank you for the welcome.

Whilst I agree that RLP do indeed prey on the worry of consumers or attempt to intimidate them into coughing up, I can only refer to my own experience, in that I have been serving Civil Recovery on people for close to 15 years (please don't judge me!).

You have to telephone RLP to report the incident (although they have now do online reporting too), and before you get into the particulars of the offender, or incident, they ask a couple of questions, such as

"is the offender under 16 or over 65?" and

"did the offender pay for the goods at any time?"

If the answer to any of the prerequisite questions is Yes, then they end the submission there and then.

Whilst of course I am not doubting you - I'm wondering how they fell through the cracks?

Perhaps they were very old cases, or the person reporting it neglected to mention to RLP that the offender paid for the goods? Who knows.

So sign up to rlp must be a company wide global contract agreed at headoffice level for all stores, and you have to obey that eddit? And use rlp?

Always puzzled me how these stores get involved with rlp in the offset?

Hi DX,

Quite frankly, yes.

Companies decide at head office level who to use, usually RLP as they are the most prominent, and procedures are in place that state that, provided the offender meets the referral criteria - Civil Recovery must be served upon them (It's actually a simple mass photocopied A4 piece of paper that you just give to the detained person). Failure to do so can result in disciplinary action against the Loss Prevention Officer / Store Detective etc. There is one company in particular that analyse their Civil Recovery referral rate vs arrests and are very aggressive in their pursuit of it, analysing the submitted arrests and if they see no reason as to why certain arrests weren't referred to RLP then their Loss Prevention are brought into an interview to explain why.

So sign up to rlp must be a company wide global contract agreed at headoffice level for all stores, and you have to obey that eddit? And use rlp?

 

Always puzzled me how these stores get involved with rlp in the offset?

arrests?

surely its not an arrest is it?

Well, yes.

If you detain somebody for an offence you are effecting an arrest.

arrests?

 

surely its not an arrest is it?

and are staff allowed too arrest people?,

I know they can detain and take elsewhere to question and I know anyone can make a 'citizens' arrest' ,

but as to reading theirr ights etc, I thought that that is the only time an arrest could be made[after you are read your rights] and only by a policed officer etc?

You are mostly right. The powers of arrest that Loss Prevention staff have are exactly the same powers as you have to detain somebody who has broken into your car, for example. These powers are granted to us under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.

It is sometimes called a 'citizen's arrest.'

We don't really 'read their rights' in this country. For an arrest to be legal, you have to identify yourself and inform the offender what they are being arrested for as soon as reasonably practicable. This goes for both Police and private citizens. The police then caution the arrested person "you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence etc etc" Now, best practice in most companies (including the one I work for now) is that LP caution the offender before engaging in conversation with them. I personally steer clear of doing this if I can help it as it can very quickly turn a calm cordial situation into a fraught one as you sound very much like a 'wannabe copper.'

I prefer the term 'detain' to 'arrest' for the very reason above - decent Loss Prevention teams are often tarred with the same brush as the 'wannabe coppers' but in reality, to pinch a few words from the legal definition of an arrest - you are depriving somebody of their liberty in order that they answer a criminal charge, so by detaining somebody for an offence, you are in fact arresting them.

and are staff allowed too arrest people?,

 

I know they can detain and take elsewhere to question and I know anyone can make a 'citizens' arrest' ,

but as to reading theirr ights etc, I thought that that is the only time an arrest could be made[after you are read your rights] and only by a policed officer etc?