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TikTok videos showing people how to steal
FOX 26 Business Reporter Tom Zizka explains how it's happening and affecting retailers.
HOUSTON - Retailers, nationwide, say theft is costing them nearly a $100 billion a year in losses and is only getting worse. Part of that, as noted in a recent New York Post article, comes from a willing collection of social-media posters who are teaching people how to steal.
The thing is, the posters don't call it 'theft'. Instead, these five-fingered discount demonstrations are called 'borrowing'.
Tarleton State University criminology professor Alex del Carmen says, whatever the name, it's still illegal.
"I'm gonna' call myself a borrower, because calling myself a thief is, somehow, going to get me into further trouble," he says, "Which is, basically, non-sensical."
However, as the Post article noted, there's a wide selection of TikTok tutorials showing how to 'borrow'; what stores are the easiest marks; what people have managed to sneak out of the stores.
In recent years, incidents of flash-mob shoplifters and smaller, but no less brazen, thefts have become commonplace. So much so, that in some communities, major retailers have locked up the desirable merchandise or announced closures, rather than put up with the constant loss. "It's really up to us to start raising out voices and say, 'Hey, we don't want this proliferation of crime in our country'," says National Police Association spokesperson Sgt. Betsy Brantner Smith (Ret.).
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The problem, critics say, is that many communities are putting up with it, by not challenging or prosecuting the thieves. In part, they say, that's why these social media-tutorials, under the guise of 'just having fun', continue to grow.
"They're only identifying 5% of the people who are out there," says del Carmen, "They cannot keep up with the volume of individuals who are posting these videos online, instructing others on how to engage in criminal behavior."
Since the New York Post article, TikTok has removed the highlighted posts, saying the violate community standards. But many others remains. Our expert believe such things may not end, until the people doing the victimizing become victims, themselves.