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Hello all.
I've been trying to find the right information on the forum as I'm so fed up and a bit stressed out really, but still haven't managed to figure out my mess so hoping you guys can help!
I'm one of the many fools who decided to try shoplifting (at an age I should know better) and didn't get away with it. I was in the Primark (oh the shame!) and got caught with about £40 worth of items. Seemed easy, but I got pulled in when walking out of the door. Worst walk of shame ever through the store into the detention room.
So a run through of what happened was (it's a long story!):
We got to the back room and there was two security guards, one was a giant and really scary and aggressive but the other guy was so nice. The nice guy and the manager of the store just felt sorry for me because I was clearly upset and already realised I'd been super dumb - they even said that they wouldn't bother pressing charges if it wasn't for store policy because I was really co-operative, admitted straight away and 'didn't seem the type'. They even joked around with me to make me feel better. Unfortunately the other guy was horrible and shouted at me, which obviously terrified me. I was returning some stuff to the store as well that day that I'd bought the day before and he accused me of stealing stuff to return and said he saw me do that. It was so frustrating because I hadn't actually done that and had admitted my mistake but he caused so much fuss that when I tried to defend myself it made it worse as I wasn't very credible at this point.
They had to phone the police, who were SUPER nice and didn't want to charge me really but this guy was insisting. They also felt sorry for me as it was clear I had just made a stupid mistake and they did loads to make me feel better and were really quick with getting everything sorted. I also tried to defend myself on the false fraud claims, but they said that to be honest, it didn't really make a difference what I did at this point in terms of a charge so best just not to rile this guy up. I actually can't believe how nice these guys were, it made me feel even worse about wasting their time but at least it wasn't as scary! The Primark guys took the items back from me, double checked my bags etc so they got everything back but because of this fraud claim, they said I had to pay back for the stuff I'd returned which was about £20 worth of stuff. This was infuriating because, it meant I'd actually now paid £40 for stuff I hadn't stolen and didn't have at home! I just paid it because I was dying to get out of there and felt like 'oh well, I guess it's kinda paying for my mistake'. They didn't even bother escorting me out of the store like they are supposed to because the guard and the officer said they didn't want to embarrass me more.
A couple of months later, I got a letter from the police saying they'd decided they weren't even going to give me an official caution (even though they'd said that on the day) because it wasn't worth giving someone like me a criminal record (phew!), they'd just keep my info on a database for two years then its completely gone.
Although, a week or so after the incident (which happened at the end of November), I started getting harassed with a letter every week or two from RLP saying that I owe Primark £130 for staff costs and security etc. So irritating, considering the whole incident was over in about an hour or so including my time on the shop floor AND they had already had £40 off me for stuff I didn't even have! It really stressed me out for ages but I decided to ignore the letters based on advice I'd read on here and after a month or two, they lowered the amount to £90 before stopping the letters completely. That was about a month or so ago and I thought it has stopped but now I've just got a letter from a company called County Collections Ltd who are asking for the original amount of £130. I was going to just ignore this one too but one thing worries me: they are threatening a 'County Court Judgement' which sounds more serious. They said if it 'remains unsatisfied for 30 days, it may also affect your credit rating' .
It sounds like maybe more scare tactics, but it's a new threat I haven't heard yet and can't seem to find much about.
Can anyone shed some light on what course of action I should take? Ignore it again?
Thanks so much!
I've been trying to find the right information on the forum as I'm so fed up and a bit stressed out really, but still haven't managed to figure out my mess so hoping you guys can help!
I'm one of the many fools who decided to try shoplifting (at an age I should know better) and didn't get away with it. I was in the Primark (oh the shame!) and got caught with about £40 worth of items. Seemed easy, but I got pulled in when walking out of the door. Worst walk of shame ever through the store into the detention room.
So a run through of what happened was (it's a long story!):
We got to the back room and there was two security guards, one was a giant and really scary and aggressive but the other guy was so nice. The nice guy and the manager of the store just felt sorry for me because I was clearly upset and already realised I'd been super dumb - they even said that they wouldn't bother pressing charges if it wasn't for store policy because I was really co-operative, admitted straight away and 'didn't seem the type'. They even joked around with me to make me feel better. Unfortunately the other guy was horrible and shouted at me, which obviously terrified me. I was returning some stuff to the store as well that day that I'd bought the day before and he accused me of stealing stuff to return and said he saw me do that. It was so frustrating because I hadn't actually done that and had admitted my mistake but he caused so much fuss that when I tried to defend myself it made it worse as I wasn't very credible at this point.
They had to phone the police, who were SUPER nice and didn't want to charge me really but this guy was insisting. They also felt sorry for me as it was clear I had just made a stupid mistake and they did loads to make me feel better and were really quick with getting everything sorted. I also tried to defend myself on the false fraud claims, but they said that to be honest, it didn't really make a difference what I did at this point in terms of a charge so best just not to rile this guy up. I actually can't believe how nice these guys were, it made me feel even worse about wasting their time but at least it wasn't as scary! The Primark guys took the items back from me, double checked my bags etc so they got everything back but because of this fraud claim, they said I had to pay back for the stuff I'd returned which was about £20 worth of stuff. This was infuriating because, it meant I'd actually now paid £40 for stuff I hadn't stolen and didn't have at home! I just paid it because I was dying to get out of there and felt like 'oh well, I guess it's kinda paying for my mistake'. They didn't even bother escorting me out of the store like they are supposed to because the guard and the officer said they didn't want to embarrass me more.
A couple of months later, I got a letter from the police saying they'd decided they weren't even going to give me an official caution (even though they'd said that on the day) because it wasn't worth giving someone like me a criminal record (phew!), they'd just keep my info on a database for two years then its completely gone.
Although, a week or so after the incident (which happened at the end of November), I started getting harassed with a letter every week or two from RLP saying that I owe Primark £130 for staff costs and security etc. So irritating, considering the whole incident was over in about an hour or so including my time on the shop floor AND they had already had £40 off me for stuff I didn't even have! It really stressed me out for ages but I decided to ignore the letters based on advice I'd read on here and after a month or two, they lowered the amount to £90 before stopping the letters completely. That was about a month or so ago and I thought it has stopped but now I've just got a letter from a company called County Collections Ltd who are asking for the original amount of £130. I was going to just ignore this one too but one thing worries me: they are threatening a 'County Court Judgement' which sounds more serious. They said if it 'remains unsatisfied for 30 days, it may also affect your credit rating' .
It sounds like maybe more scare tactics, but it's a new threat I haven't heard yet and can't seem to find much about.
Can anyone shed some light on what course of action I should take? Ignore it again?
Thanks so much!
xx
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