BRAZEN CHEATS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23067, 18 June 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

BRAZEN CHEATS

MANY PETTY FEAUDS A NEW TRICK BY WOMEN SHOPS AND CAFES ROBBED jpETTY frauds, involving in the aggregate many thousands of pounds, are being practised in stores and restaurants throughout England. ' Traders in London are the principal feufferers, but business people in large provincial cities are also victimised to a considerable extent. So serious has the position become that the police authorities, working in conjunction with representatives of trading concerns, are determined to end tho mischief. The tricks of these wrongdoers are simple, but ingenious. This is what J happens in a crowded restaurant: A customer takes his place at a table ut which, • maybe, three or four other persons are sitting. In the rush nobody notices him particularly. He has, say, j two shillings worth of food. At a time which he considers appropriate, he moves to another part of the establishment —well 1 away from the "beat" of the waitress who has served him and given him his bill. Cup of Coffee At his second table he has a cup of coffee, and gets a bill for a few pence. This is the bill he pays on leaving—and the management is unaware that a fraud has been committed until tho accounts are checked in the evening. Then, course, it is discovered that there is a discrepancy—sometimes aserious discrepancy—between the waitresses' counterfoils and the bills paid at the cash-desk. Of tho many dodges employed at some of the big stores, the one that traders say has recently been on the increase, and is very difficult to detect, is that practised by light-fingered, quick-witted women at sales. It frequently happens that "extras" are engaged for the sales, and they ate unacquainted with the ordinary run of prices at tho stores. They rely, not on the quality of an article and what their experience of the place woidd teach them the pride of the articles ought to be. but on the tickets pinned to the articles In the excitement and rush, a woman manages to transfer the "tab" from a pair of sheets marked a few shillings to another pair marked £2—perhaps more. The exchange of tabs having been accomplished effectively ,and rapidly, she pretends to exaniino the better pair with the cheaper price, tells tho assistant she likes them, buys them, and goes away with her "bargain." Cunning Tricks In addition to tho losses by frauds, traders lose hundreds.of thousands a year from shoplifting. Certain benches of magistrates have adopted a new method of dealing with those convicted of this class of crime, and it is hoped that it will have the effect of securing the end in view. Another kind of trick employed by women presents extraordinary difficulties. These women display, or pretend to conceal, goods in such a way that a store detective asks them to "come to the office to see tho manager." There an allegation of theft is made, but the women turn out the goods and produce receipts tor them. The goods were purchased at another shop. There follows a claim for damages for illegal detention, and if it is not paid a solicitor is instructed. Rather than risk the worry and cost of an action, firms settle on payment of an agreed amount. This, not infrequently, is substantial.