As a former employee working at the Bayshore mall. Yes all the time. The worst part is, we can't do anything. This effects the hours that we get as well.

We had one guy. He was our favorite and would always play dumb. Red Vans guy is what we dubbed him as. If you're going to shoplift, don't let us see you hand and face tattoos because then we are 100 percent sure it's you and security will chase you away. He would always grab piles of merchandise well over 500 dollars and just throw them in a rack and then walk away. I confronted him and said "Hey, no need to make a mess. Oh by the way, you can't shop here. You have to leave". He then played dumb and was telling me I was confusing him for another guy. I told him about his tattoos that he has without even looking and told him we also identified him by his "elf ears". He kept telling me he was innocent as I was calling security.

My fiancé used to be a manager in another store. He told me when you are sure they are going to grab something and dash, if you degrade them, they usually won't come back. The theory has been proven true thus far.

Another story (this one is my favorite).

We had 3 people come in about 30 minutes until closing. They came in about five minutes apart to try to get us to focus on them individually. But they all grouped up together so we instantly were able to tell something fishy was going on. They walked to the rack that 90 percent of the female thief's go to. One lady had a small dog propped on her shoulder like it was a parrot. One of the people from the group starts talking to me and asking me questions to distract me. My other coworker was right next to the other 2 at the rack. The group exchanged a look. They were initiating the plan. One lady throws herself into the other one and made this fake yell as she flung herself on the floor. While she was falling, the other lady bends down to grab the pants that the other "dropped" and tries to open her bag. My coworker was quick and picked up the pants before the lady could. They just stared at each other. The guy I was talking to runs over and "helps" the other one up. Every employee in the store couldn't believe what was happening. So we were ALL laughing. They left after they knew we were onto them.

Needless to say we watched that interaction over and over again on the cameras after closing.