A few years back
a few of old school friends, who I haven't spoken to in quite a while, decided it would be a good idea to steal 4 go-karts from a local private school, 1 of the four go-karts was broken, and the driver apprehended about half way home because he was doing about a third of the speed as the rest of them. This same group also thought it would be funny (which it was) to steal the big M from outside a macdonalds that was being put together nearby, and take it to an old, partially ruined, building on top of a nearby hill, and hang it out of one of the windows facing the town near-by. Oh what a stir they caused.
length: about 4 miles and 20ft up respectively
( Mr Jamie, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 17:36, Reply)

Having stolen a great number of magazines small toys etc.
I decided whilst rather drunk and staying at friends of a friend, place to steal a road sign, the type that says, people digging up the road.

I thought I would up the ante of the usual cones and road bollards, they kept it for quite a while afterwards.
( Wildheart Baby. Drunken Mess In A Good Way, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 17:34, Reply)

not really shoplifting but.....
Every time i visit the dentist "qotw or what?????" i always aks for more anastethic! My god do3es novoCAINE make youre eyes itch! and every female thinks youre givin them the eye! (well a complete overdose does anyway;)
(swampi thought of this, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 15:16, 6 replies)

Stolen Phone calls...
..when I was at uni, I lived in a shared house in the middle of nowhere. It was an old farmhouse, cold, with it's own pump and borehole for water. Go to uni and live in the big city? Nope, about 10 of us crammed into this huge old farmhouse 15miles away from town. Cool place, but that's my opinion now - when i was 18 I wanted some excitment beyond cows wandering into the yard.

So, we had a payphone in this place, and it wasn't too long before a couple of us realised we could get free credit on this phone by sticking a knife down the coin slot - the phone was crude enough that it registered that as credit, usually 50p.

Ideal, so we could relieve some boredom by phoning home and our mates now and again.

Of course, boredom eventually kicked in and we started to experiment.

'Does australia have a speaking clock?'
Hey, lets find out.

Lets ring random New Zealand mobile phone numbers until we get someone! Followed by a 40min phone call to some random kiwi in a pub who thought it hilarious that he'd been called out of the blue by some bored students on the other side of the world. We got to know him quite well...

Of course, eventually the phone bill came in and wondered why the coin box was 300quid short...and evicted the pikey guy, the only non-student in the house, the guy who'd shoot rabbits from inside the house through the window, and the guy our landlord thought most likely responsible.

Oops. Paul in NewZealand - if you're reading this - that's why the phone calls stopped...
(inflateable, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 14:01, Reply)

3 very short stories of juvenile robbery.
1) As a 6 year old I gained access to the cupboard at school where they kept all the blank exercise books and stole 2 of them because I thought I could use them at home to draw in, etc.

At home I was terrified that my parents would find them so I hid them away for a couple of days in case the school decided to call every parent to trace the 2 missing books (such is a 7 year old's thought process).

I would lock myself in the toilet with a pencil and one of the books to draw and practice my writing, but it was no fun doing this on a grubby carpeted toilet floor in a house with no heating, plus I was wracked with guilt and terror that I would be discovered. After a few days of this I threw them in the rubbish bin.

There followed weeks of anguish that my crime would still be discovered and I remember one evening the phone rang at 9pm while I was in bed and I sat bolt upright, heart pounding, listening to who it was. I thought the dustmen had found the unmarked exercise books in the rubbish and were calling my mum to ask her if they had been thrown away by mistake.

2) During a garden fete in the grounds of a local hospital, at age 7 I was walking around with my mum and spotted some balloons on a stall, so I took one to show her. My mum was absolutely horrified and dragged me back to the stall to hand back the balloon and apologise to the man. She then spent 10 minutes lecturing me on the evils of theft and how I was lucky that I had not been thrown in prison with all the other naughty boys, etc (no such luck).

3) As a 15 year old I stole my mate's underpants during P.E.

I do feel that these crimes are all inter-related.
( Dixipoos Bye Bye Blackbird, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 13:12, Reply)

Also fits with 'told off as adult' QOTW
A long time ago, a group of school mates and I were in the habit of going on a pub crawl, in a seaside village in North East England, where we lived.

At the end of one of these heavy sessions, we were turfed out of the pub at the end of the crawl, which was also at the end of the street of pubs.

We'd drank a fair bit and one of our cohort - 'Tim' - decided that that glass that had half a pint of his guinness in was also HIS glass. This was before Guinness went all upmarket with the clever Arab Strap adverts and branded glasses - in 1993 it was just a standard straightsided pint glass, probably cost 20p from the pub shop. Not the point, though, it wasn't ours...

So we walked out of the bar with the glass and the guinness. We made our noisy schoolboy way past all the pubs towards the chinese takeaway for our habitual feast of authentic chinese cuisine (really- if you know the place, it's absolutely brilliant).

Walking past one of the bars, managed by someone who in another village would be the world's rudest curmudgeon, but is about average given the appalling levels of grumpiness of most of the village, he was stood outside.

As we walked past, he stared at us for a long time, and just as we passed us, sucked in a deep breath and growled, told us, not asked, but said in a voice that brooked no dissent, "you are taking that glass back to the stuffed dog."

Schoolboy bravado vanished, immediately obedient, "yes, of course" all of us shuffled back to the final pub and gave them their glass back, now sans guinness. Somehow, they knew we were coming back and were waiting to take it off us.

And that is how a life of crime was avoided by us all.

Length - about fifty metres back to the stuffed dog - but with eight pints in the bladder it felt a lot further.

(First post, so still learning...)
(cheesehead, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 12:43, 1 reply)

Not theft at all.
Whilst on one of my foraging trips for cheap booze on Le continent (Perroni £8 a box- leave the Stella and Pissport 33 to the pikeys), I saw a bottle of "Black & White" whisky on one of the shelves in the Champion store we were visiting. As it has a nice label, I was instructed to buy it by SWMBO, so in the trolley it went, off to checkout, and 48 bottles of Roc De Peyrigat- yes, thats piss as well, but she likes it- and assorted foodstuffs, all is placed in trolley and then loaded in the back of the car.
On unloading back in England, I see the whisky still has the tag thing on the top of the bottle. Shit, we did pay for it, didn't we? Check receipt- yes we did. So some french till monkey has forgotten to do it, and how to take it off without breaking bottle- remember, bottle is for aesthetic purpose, not contents.
So I'm sent off to Asda, receipt in hand, to ask if they could do it as they use the same system. Never, ever again, I was looked upon as one of the great unwashed (which the store is full of anyway), and no way they would do it as it could constitute theft- how?
Took 2 hours with a Dremel in the end.
( Duke Of Belmsford has got 99 records, but Jay-Z ain't one, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 12:38, Reply)

World Cup 2006
During World Cup 2006 before Englands first game me and my friends stole a life size David Beckham from the O2 store! we hoped he would be our lucky mascot but that didnt work out!

First post yay
(ashers2k7, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 12:37, Reply)

College Vending Machines
When I was at college, they had a shiny new coffee machine. This machine had a flap covering the little pocket where your change comes out.

It took me a matter of days to realise that, if you were to push this little flap as far back as it would go, it would jam against the back of the change chute, and block it.

This resulted in about two months of me arriving in the morning, having a coffee, and jamming the change chute as I collected my change. At the end of the day, I'd have another coffee, and pull the flap back down, releasing a whole days worth of change.

Eventually they got wise and filed down the change flap. Still, it made me an easy £50-70 a week while it lasted.
(bblgoose, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 12:37, Reply)

What a way to spend Easter
Not me guvnor, but some peeps I used to work with once nicked a cardboard life-size effigy of Colonel Sanders from the local KFC take-away.

On a hill above town it had become the practice, due to some religious event or other that seems to happen just after Good Friday each year, for three wooden crosses to be stuck in the ground at the top of the hill for all the townsfolk to see.

Fast forward to the following morning and the Jolly Old Colonel Sanders effigy is to be found nailed to one of the crosses to the horror of the local God botherers. Think it was even reported in the local papers. I laughed so much, the tears ran down my legs.
(Sir Les Patterson, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 12:25, Reply)

Not exactly a shop.
But school venders.

A few years ago, before they took our venders away I often took advantage of the pricing.
With jobs and such like sixthformers were lax with their spending and would often leave 10-20p in the machine, hence it was often possible to purchase chocolate at half price. An empty victory really.

Once it malfunctioned and gave me three quid change for a 50p I put in. I felt a bit mean so used it to buy extra sweets for my friends.
(itisi shhh, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 12:19, Reply)

manky lipstick and free champagne
when i was about 7 and out shopping one day we popped into a pharmacy. whilst mum was looking for lemsips, i clocked the shiny makeup. as so many people here have said, i didn't know why, but i reeeeeeeeeally wanted it. (hmmm. this still remains my attitude to most things, come to think of it.)

i asked mum if i could have a lipstick, and of course she said no. so i palmed one. and not even a good one. the manky tester that was all squashed and missing the end.

when we got outside my sneaky little shit of a baby brother snitched on me. my mother marched me straight back in there and made me explain what i had done and hand it back to the pharmacist. in front of an entire shop of people. the woman looked at me as if i were a piece of shit and turned her back coldly on my stammering apologies. it left such a humiliating scar that i have never, ever, ever stolen anything else and am always stupidly honest.

although given a chance i'd bleed london underground dry of its fat cat profits, the useless sweaty fucktards.

so imagine my shock and horror 20 year later when my parents are shopping for a new years eve party in waitrose. my dad loads 3 boxes of champagne into the trolley with tonnes of other stuff. pays. gets it home. looking at the receipt, mother notices that the till has just charged for 3 bottles, not 3 boxes... the box must have had the bottle barcode and the till monkey had just scanned it once per box, not 12 times per box.

did my parents, who drilled such a bruising and painful lesson into my head about stealing, take it back and fork over the extra 900quid or so? did they fuck. they said the Q at customer services was horrendous and they spent so much money there every week anyway blah blah.

talk about do as i say, not as i do.....
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 11:30, 3 replies)

Not Tescos this time
I once nicked a bag full of glassware from the local Font and Firkin. Pint pots, halves, spirit glasses and ashtrays. Got busted on the door and was made to empty one then the other coat pocket. Stupid door staff never thought to look in my bag.
Unfortunately one of my mates ran up behind me and jumped on me a little way down the street. Cue hideous breaking noise and bag full of sharp bits.
Lucky for me I'd borrowed a different mates bag to go all Ocean's Eleven in, so I just handed him bag and contents and laughed.
Ho Ho

(I've never posted this many replies to a QOTW, I must be looking a right TG)
( monkeyboyalpha jumping on the bandwagon since, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 11:12, Reply)

One last one for Tescos
Surely must have been done.
In the days before barcoded reduced stickers Tescos used to get a monkey to print the reduced stickers on damaged or almost out of date stock. These stickers had nothing but the new price printed on them. As a poor student I couldn't resist peeling these price stickers off the dented cans of beans and sticking them onto the Tesco finest ready meals and fillet steaks. For a while I ate like a king.
The trick was to chose the most bored looking, young till jockey who didn't really give a shit that £20 of prime beef had been marked down to 35p.
Doubt you can still do this with the barcoded stickers now........but I'm just off to Tescos, might give it a try.
( monkeyboyalpha jumping on the bandwagon since, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 11:02, Reply)

Anxiety Porn
This is a rather embarrasing tale for my first post but alas it is the only time I've shoplifted.

I went on my first holiday to Spain with my family when I was around 13/14. Indeed, it was around this time that I noticed a temporary euphoria whilst trying to tear off a particular body part.

I had spent about a week of the holiday surrounded by my family so it was impossible to abuse myself. One day I caught/ate something that made me sick. My family had booked a bus trip somewhere so I insisted that they go whilst I stayed in bed. After a few hours I felt slightly better and saw an opportunity present itself.

However, I wanted to put a bit of effort into this one as it might have been my only chance during the two week period. I had noticed our slightly more liberal European cousins had a variety of softcore porn available in almost every shop. I headed out with a pocket full of cash ready to purchase my first piece of pornography. I was slightly nervous walking into the shop but being in a foreign country gave me a confidence boost.

Despite this I still hid my selected magazine in a basket full of Fanta, Lays crisps and Chubba Chub lollies. Whilst I was waiting in the queue I noticed an English guy the same age as me purchasing a pack of cards. There appeared to be a problem with this particular transaction. On further inspection I realised the old Spanish lady behind the till was pointing at the lovely breasts that decorated the cards. She then shouted at my comrade in hands and threw him out of the shop.

I started to panic and quickly jogged around to another aisle. I was a desperate young man and had just seen my best chance of momentary happiness being shot down in flames. Fuelled by anxiety and anticipation I shoved the magazine down the back of my shorts and headed back towards the till. As I approached I started to feel sick again. My legs started to go weak and my head light. I could feel every set of eyes on me and my anxiety grew so much that my breathing was suffering. I tried to focus in on the beeps of each item being scanned but it was no good. I managed not to faint but had to run outside and be sick before collapsing on the steps outside.

The old Spanish lady took pity on me and didn't charge me for any of my stuff. I remember thinking how nice a person she was as I headed off back to my hotel room. It wasn't until I got back and sat down on a seat that I remembered I had solid gold in my pants (boom boom). The guilt of my theft lasted about five seconds... rougly the same time it took me to do a naked strip run to the bathroom.

The last laugh was on her though as I eventually passed out on the toilet seat and cracked my head on the sink.

Length? 8 stitches above my left eye.
I haven't stolen anything since.
(bigbillybaws, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 6:22, 1 reply)

They start early
A bloke I used to work with has a little lad, around 6 years old. He told us how he'd been outside to play, and when he came back in he was carrying a hammer. Seems he'd nicked it from some workmen up the road. My mate said it brought a tear to his eye - his first ever theft. Aw!
( the ghost of last tuesday, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 3:54, Reply)

IKEA/Debenhams/Local Newsagents
In the last few years: Married, kids house etc. IKEA do these strip of LED lights 4 for £20 - which is a hell of a lot. So I got the idea (after finding several empty or nearly empty boxes) to grab a whole load of boxes and then in a quite area (IKEA has a massive shop floor as you will know) transfer all the LED strips from several boxes into one and the connector thingies into another. Got about forty strips but have only paid for about four boxes! But I have spent £1000+ in there over the last 5 or 6 years so maybe that's ok?

Also once, when I was younger I went to Debenhams with my friends and one of my friends mum. My mate tries on a pair of sunglasses that he likes but can't afford to buy them. I decided to walk around Debenhams whilst surreptitiously chewing the security tag (attached by thick plastic) and once the tag coming off, casually putting the sunglasses on and walking out of them. So I take all this risk and then give the glasses to my mate!

Finally...
Back in the 90's we had this local newsagents who had some arcade machines. Come closing time we had to get out. One evening I'm still on there (I was good at Final Fight or whatever it was) and he decides to walk out, lock the door and pull the shutter down to "scare" us! Cue me and two others grabbing the change he kept on top of his till for the arcade machines/ ciggs and porn mags. He was asking for it really (and he was a bit of a James Blunt TBH)
( ridicully, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 3:23, 1 reply)

A book about buses
As when I was a geeky 11 year old, this was the sort of thing that interested me. I put it under a magazine I'd already bought elsewhere (this was in the days when bookshops sold only books).

So convinced was I that I'd be rumbled and run into police custody that night - I hid in my bedroom under my bed and cowered each time a car came into the avenue. Such was the fear, it was, ooooh, about 2 years before I shoplifted again.
(landsberger, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 1:50, Reply)

And another one...
I went to buy a snake from a garden centre here in Milk and Beans, in all the confusion, messin around I did not have the right money. I came back on the Saturday to collect him, got to the tills, the dappy bird said "You already paid for that" I paused and said yes! 140 earth credits worth of snake for free! I took it home. It wass a feisty creature, bit the shit out of me, took half hour to get it out the box. I took it back and guess what - oh yes, they re bloody funded me. I went to Northampton Reptile place and they said this garden centre was useless and knew nothin. Well, they sold me a male milk snake for 70 quid, which later laid about 20 eggs. So much for the other place knows nothin. He even shoved a biro up its arse to check it was male or female, as that is the official test. Wanker. I got a free snake and £70 to buy self abuse magazines with, yes buy!
(goonbreath, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 1:08, 3 replies)

Rainbow Pen of God
Remerb when you were about 12 at school and stationery was some sort of replacement for how little game you actually had?

Well, I went into camberley town centre with my friends, and desperate to be seen as some sort of pirate, despite a middle class, want for nothing upbringing, I couldnt resist.

a 3 inch long, 9 colour multi biro which could have easily doubled as a pocket vaginator if it had batteries, found its merry way into my pocket.

I remeber the rush of waltzing out and realising i'd got away with it. I now had the 12 year old year 7 equivalent of a low low with spinners and hydraulics, yes, I was carrying STOLEN PROPERTY, and i'd STOLEN IT MYSELF! If only it had had the effect on girls I thought it might.

Of course this set the stage for a teen crime spree, but hey - i've settled down now.

I'm not a bad man, I just did bad things ;)
(Pensive, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 0:44, Reply)

Me and friends
Now in my troubled times of being an immature thrill seeking kid i would do pretty much anything.. anyway my shoplifting started in a nice big shop - stealing from the rich - it started of getting a couple of chocolate bars a week which then turned into anytime i went into town.. eventually i had moved onto filling up my bag at the weekends and walking straight outta the shop scott free each time - my friends however would get there school lunch everyday from this one shop.. rather unexpectedly for us one of my mates got caught. this was a real shock and i made it a new years resolution 2 years ago never to shoplift again.. and ive kept it.. so its not the most interesting story but it was jokes not havng been caught for doing approximatley 100 small shoplifts.. though i would always give something to the local tramp =]
(compy, Sun 13 Jan 2008, 0:03, Reply)

I stole..
..your partners virginity



and yer mams




and yer dads



so I'm surprised I aint got the bad aides yet!
( Signify, Sat 12 Jan 2008, 23:54, 4 replies)

not stealing
I have never snaffled anything in my life-but it still makes me chuckle remembering one incedent a few years back.me and a pal was out on the lash and i called in at a 7-11 place for a sandwich and at the time the shop had a promotion on that entittled one to a free soft drink with a sandwich.
Now we was on the ale and needed not soft drinks but security guy saw fit to run after me insisting that i took the poxy thing-yes i was hassled by security for not taking something !!!!!!!!
(shug, Sat 12 Jan 2008, 23:18, 1 reply)

TSK TSK
aged 7, one pack of Hubba Bubba GOT CAUGHT

aged 6 - 8, loadsa choccy from a supermarket checkout MANY A SUCCESS

who sezcrime don't pay?
(Dan of the Crippled Nipples, Sat 12 Jan 2008, 22:49, Reply)

don't try this at home...
Not me involved in this.
A certain male student, kicked out of Hull University after one year for failure to do any work whatsoever (aka 'Sid') once accompanied a close friend into a branch of Grandways on Newland Avenue... a foul and now thankfully defunct supermarket chain that was once pretty dominant on Humberside.
Said friend did his shopping (tin of beans, loaf of bread, pint of milk, tub of marge), got to the tills, paid and left the shop to find 'Sid' (who had left the shop moments before having bought nothing) waiting for him, and began the stroll homeward. When they got to De Grey Street where Sid lived, about a quarter of a mile down the Avenue, Sid said, 'I'll be off then, can I have my fillet steak please? and reached into said mate's 'school-bag' to pull out a juicy £5 steak in its polystyrene tray. Bastard had slipped it in when my mate wasn't looking, leaving him to face the potential music had it been discovered! A cunt indeed!
(Roger Darce sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, Sat 12 Jan 2008, 22:15, 1 reply)

more reasons..
although i hasten to add I never actually tried this being as honest as the day is long, I do have the sort of mind that likes to think about things like this.. my local (now replaced) Safeways at one point introduced these weigh your own fruit and veg machine where once you'd bagged your loose fresh veg etc you placed it on the nearby scales and pressed the appropriate product button and it printed out a barcode based on the weight of the item that you stuck onto the bag, and that the till monkey scanned when you went to pay - I never did work out what was stopping you holding some of the items up as you weighed them or adding additional ones once the barcode was printed.

On a similar but related note of theft but not shop theft I've often wondered given the limited i.e. none counterfitting measures on pay and display parking tickets just how many people if anyone just scan one in and photoshop a new one whenever they need to park.

Given that its left behind the windscreen and so cant be closely examined I reckon you'd save a fortune given the prices of car parks near me!
(Titanix, Sat 12 Jan 2008, 22:06, 4 replies)

Get off my land!
I was about 9 when my mum arranged to send me on a farm holiday with one of her friends who had a daughter the same age as me.

They had hired a cottage on a working farm in Wales and during the day we were free to explore the surrounding land and help the farmer out with stuff like collecting chicken eggs from the barn, herding cattle into the sheds and other agricultural bollocks nonsense.

One day the farmer took me for a spin on his quad bike. He gunned the engine and bombed it through the fields surrounding the outbuildings. I was well impressed. I loved the speed and power of the bike and decided the next day was rural TWOC day. I nicked the bike.

I got the keys, took it out of the shed and walked it all the way to a field with sheep in.

The big moment. I knew I was going to get in some deep deep merde but fuck it, it felt good. Hopped on, switched the ignition on and revved the throttle just like I'd seen the farmer do.

The bike shot off up the natural incline of the field with my scrawny 9 year old hands gripping the handles, trying to control the direction. Sheep scattered in panic as the bike veered off to the right accelerating even more.

I came around to the sight of the farmer, my mums friend and her daughter standing over me . The quad bike lay on its side in the middle of the dirt track which ran along the field. I had somehow gone through or over the hedge seperating field and track and had blacked out.

My mums friend and her daughter never spoke to us again.
( prem1um is full of life, Sat 12 Jan 2008, 22:04, Reply)

FFD
I was about to start with the line 'I was young, naive and foolish' and then I realised that even now, into my late twenties, I still get the occasional five finger discount on some items.

Recent acquisitions include a £16 jar of honey for someones nan, moonstones from a witch shop, a grout pen from a DIY superstore, a loaf of bread and a packet of Frazzles from a 24 hour garage, a bottle of wine from a restaurant, a snowglobe from a Christmas market and a Balti chicken wrap from Spar.

I'd just like to stress at this point that I'm not a penniless tramp, I think its more like very mild kleptomania.

In secondary school, a group of us often walked to the nearest main shopping area at the end of the day, passing by a small corner shop which was run by a Sikh with a glass eye. We came out with Kipling Country Slices, bottles of Coca-Cola, sweets, chocolate bars, etc and walked up to the train station for a picnic. The local Woolworths was my hotspot and I'd regularly half-inch liquer chocolates and various other confectionary to top up the box of goodies I had back at home. The highlight came one Christmas when I 'borrowed' a huge two foot long Toblerone thing, walking out with it in my coat sleeve, my arm at a curiously straight angle.

The tipping point was when me and a mate started choring cassette tapes from HMV. I went in on my own one day and after donning my innocent-as-a-choirboy face and loitering around the rock/pop section, I decided to make off with Green Day's Insomniac tape. In the pocket, up the stairs, out the quietest exit and FUCK the alarms go off, theres a magnetic tag inside the box. Heart plunges, legs go to jelly and I carry on walking, waiting for the hand on my shoulder. Convinced I was going to be nicked any second I think I walked about half a mile away from the shopping centre before actually stopping and looking behind me. No-one came and no-one has beaten that Power Walking record since. Me and my booty were safe...I stopped lifting stuff from that point on.
( prem1um is full of life, Sat 12 Jan 2008, 21:47, 2 replies)