Good point, that you don't have to be detained by anyone unless they are 
the police. You have rights, even though some people would rather you 
didn't know.
Also if the door alarm sounds - you don't have to stand there like a 
deer in the headlights and let them search your stuff, you can just say 
"I didn't steal anything" and keep going. They may, of course, call the 
cops - but they probably won't.
This all depends on how brave you feel at exercising your rights.
--
Martin K


Tachyon wrote:
> Yeah, I had a similar experience. A friend and I were standing in an
> aisle, discussing what shampoo it was his girlfriend had asked him to
> pick up. A non-descript guy came up behind us, accused us of
> shoplifting, and threatened us with a baseball bat. Needless to say,
> that didn't go over too well and his threat had the opposite affect to
> what I think he intended. I didn't back down or cow to him and instead
> made my way to the store's office with him following me screaming to
> stop or he'd call the police. I acted as if he no longer existed, went
> to the manager, and demanded that HE call the police so I could press
> assault charges. They then refused. I sent my friend to the pay phone
> outside to call them. When they showed up, they denied it all, and
> claimed we had been acting suspicious and were believed to be the people
> who had been shoplifting there recently. I showed the cop my drivers
> license, pointed out that I lived over 500 miles away and had never been
> in that store before. My friend and a woman shopper backed up our story
> about the threat, but the cop said is was still our word against his,
> and told us it wasn't worth pursuing. The manager asked the cop to give
> him our licenses so he could copy them, and distribute to his corporate
> security office with a recommendation of banning from the premises.
> That's when the cop turned on him and told him that then I'd have
> something to sue them about. The manager shut up, the cop gave us our
> IDs, and walked out with us and kept the manager and security guy from
> following (they threatened to get our license plate too).
> Since I started following some of the anti-walmart sites after that,
> I've seen a lot of similar stories about their staff and security people
> getting rude, and even physical with people. Detaining people, searching
> them, etc..
> If that's how they treat their customers, it's not hard to believe the
> stories about how they treat their employees and their competitors.
>
>
>
> David VanHorn wrote:
>   
>>> Can somebody document a bad experience at WalMart so I can get
>>> understand this?
>>>     
>>>       
>> My wife and daughter were detained there one afternoon, on suspicion of
>> shoplifting.
>>
>> They had receipts for everything, but the security people weren't
>> interested.
>> They took my granddaughter away from my daughter,  went through EVERYTHING,
>> and managed to break something on the stroller.  The girls were not allowed
>> to call anyone.
>>
>> In the end, we resolved it satisfactorally, the manager was unaware, and the
>> appropriate people were sacked.  If I'd been there, things would have gone
>> down VERY differently.  At the point where they tried to separate the
>> granddaughter, someone would have needed hospitalization.
>>   
>>     

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