Posted on 07/08/2005 10:32:59 AM PDT by flashbunny
THE HOME DEPOT STORY
Here's the email about the shoplifting arrest at Home Depot:
Charlie,
My local Home Depot store had arrested my son for shoplifting. They claim he stole a $9.90 skill saw blade. Let me give you a little more background. My son is 29 yrs old, he had just purchased my house for his family, and I told him to go to Home Depot and buy whatever he needed to make changes to the house and charge it to my Home Depot credit account. We figured two to five thousand dollars should be enough to get it ready for his wife and kids. This was his third major purchase. This purchase totaled $868.00.
While shopping at this Home Depot store, he was using a large push cart, not the kind with the basket but the kind with the flat bottom, because he was planning on buying kitchen cabinets and related items. When he arrived at the checkout line a clerk came over, and said he could help him at a different register. My son assumed it was because he had such a large order, it would speed up other shoppers checking out. As the clerk began scanning the items he notices a crack in one of the crown moldings and suggested my son get a different crown molding, which my son did. When my son got back the clerk scanned the molding and gave my son the receipt to sign.
As my son was leaving the store, he went through the detectors and the alarm sounded. My son stopped, asked the clerk if everything was checked out. To which the clerk nodded yes and motioned for my son to leave. My son left the store, unloaded the items into a truck, and was returning the push cart to the cart corral when he was grabbed by the shoulder and told he was being arrested for shoplifting. He replied that there must be some mistake, and was told that since he didn't know how to pay for the saw blade he sure knew how to unload it. My son still didn't understand but figured he go back in and get this straightened out. The West Allis police were called and he was arrested for shoplifting a $9.90 saw blade after spending $868.00 on other items. Remember this was all going on my charge account and he wasn't paying for anything, so why would he care about another ten bucks. He would have spent another hundred if he could have fit it on the cart.
What's the big deal about a shoplifting ticket? You pay the $262.00 and forget about. Right? Not in this case. You see my son was medically discharged from the Air Force. He qualifies as a service-disabled veteran and as such also qualifies for certain small business government set-asides. He has started a small business, as a distributor and prime contractor, and had started servicing his first government contract as of 1 July 05. He has at least two dozen current proposals for other contracts in the works. Future contracts will require a Top Secret clearance, which will be impossible to get if his record contains a shoplifting arrest. He is currently negotiating the installation of a video surveillance system for a military installation. What if they check his record and find a shoplifting arrest?
So we decide we have to hire a lawyer to initially try to clear this up. We're a thousand buck into it and we really can't afford more, but it will cost more. If we decide to sue for false arrest our legal bill will be over $20,000(A rough figure given by an attorney). Those hours add up at over $300/Hr. This will not be a high judgement case so it's not very attractive to most attorneys. Any suggestions?
John Gaidosh
Both of the hosts have tried to contact home depot to get their side of the story but they have not responded, and appear intent on pursuing the matter.
Too bad for Home Depot their biggest competitor menards is just about a mile away - it won't make it hard on their customers to go to another store. And Lowe's is starting to build stores in milwaukee as well. Apparently HD likes shooting itself in the foot.
To blame Home Depot Corporate, sure. But to pressure Home Depot Corporate to get the charge dropped, yeah boy. (Assuming the story as presented here is correct and accurate.)
Totally agree. A $9 saw blade in a $800+ order seems like an easy thing to miss, and it's weird that they would, first of all, not say "oh, excuse me, we seem to have missed something" whereupon your son would have paid for it, and second of all, that the cops wouldn't have tried to resolve this at the store rather than waste their time filling out reports for a $9 saw blade.
I've seen some people try to shoplift at my local supermarket, and in every case the store went out of its way to give them the chance to pretend like it was an honest mistake. Seems weird that a store wouldn't do this when it WAS an honest mistake--and a mistake by their employee, no less!
If this occurred as described, and is getting media attention, Home Depot will cave faster than a GOP senator.
Congratulations! You've just won the lottery.
Find the best ambulance chasing lawyer you can find and nail Home Depot with a million dollar lawsuit. If the facts are as presented here, you should have no trouble whatsoever walking away with a six figure settlement.
my suggestion: stick to your guns and demand the video tape be shown in court - they will back down if your story is true. In the meantime THREATEN them with false arrest and have a (different) lawyer send a letter informing them of your intent.
Any witnesses? What about the clerk who told him to go ahead? I would think that would have settled the matter right there
Hmmm.... $300/hr for legal bills? Only large corporate law firms charge this much. Sounds a little fishy.
IF it was in the bag with the other checked out items, the clerk would appear to have passed it through.
IF it was still sitting in the cart never handed to the clerk, a closer case but could be an inadvertence.
IF it was located separately anywhere on his person, that would not be good and would render meaningless the clerk's belief that everything had been checked out.
Is this for real? It sounds sorta "urban-legendy".
Agree.
It's hard to beleive that a business would have it's head so far up it's behind as this.
Did the camera show him stashing it in his clothing, perhaps?
just heard on the radio- apparently he can't return the merchandise because he's been banned from the store for a year!
Maybe the father, who is the card holder, can get into the store and return the thousands of dollars of merchandise they already purchased.
Are you near that Home Depot? You could hand out flyers on the street in front of it detailing the story and asking people to go to Home Depot's competetor.
For the last time, it's real. Click the audio link, it's on the radio RIGHT NOW, being told by a host, a former US attorney, who has read the actual police report.
My Father, Mother, and Wife were shopping in the mall. We went into a drug store and looked around for a few minutes. We walked back out to the mall and maybe a minute later, Daddy suddenly realized he had a tube of chapstick in his hand he hadn't paid for.
He told us, and went back to the store and paid. Knowing Daddy it was not surprising at all as he was very absent minded. If the store had caught him they never would have believed he was not trying to steal it.
I always liked shopping at a small hardware store down the street.
"I agree, this doesn't smell right.
I can't count the number of times I've set off the detectors at HD or Lowes, and I've never had the cops called on me."
We're on the same page. We'll see how it plays out.
No, it didn't show him stashing it in his clothing, because everything was on the cart where the clerk put it.
They knew something was 'stolen' because the alarm went off because the clerk didn't demagnetize something. AFter being waved through by the clerk, a security guard went through all his purchases in the parking lot. They must have compared the receipt to what was on the cart - and the saw blade was not on the receipt -through no fault of the customer.
And there's the rub. Even when cleared of any charges, arrest records stay with you. Even completely and totally bogus arrests.
It may take an attorney and a court case to get the arrest record removed. There are damages here - starting with the clerk, then following up the food chain of Home Depot. I'm all for a retailer protecting their inventory from theft. But when it's their own mistake, they had better admit it right up front and make certian there are no damages to the "victim" of their mistake. If the arrest is now in the computer - it's going to be a pain to get it removed. IT should be Home Depot's expense - no matter how expensive.
This young man should also be compensated for any time he looses to take care of this mess.
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