Walmart charges Grandma with felonious Oreo eating
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About 30 years ago I was into the security industry in a pretty big way, though not necessarily investment wise. Through my training in the Marines and my experience in business and as a police officer, with a lot of research as a university professor, I got into designing security systems and consulting in the field. In most any industry one of the big threats is that of internal theft.
In many businesses where the profit margin is really small internal theft can literally mean the difference between a business surviving or not. In essence people have literally stolen themselves out of a job. So I really don’t take the following story lightly, but it does seem to be a bit of an overreach on the part of Walmart. Usually, businesses want to be reimbursed for their losses and get rid of the bad employee but having crossed paths with Wally Mart before, they really do play hard ball with any and all thieves.
Walmart will often sue shoplifters for even small amounts, if there is any damage at all to the packaging or the product. So, even though it does surprise me that the courts are charging this case as a felony, I am just as surprised that this lady was stupid enough to do what she did. After all, Walmart has one of the most extensive camera systems in the retail industry in every store.
Some people find it tempting to be around junk food and can’t resist eating it. But in the case of Penny Winters, a 63-year-old maintenance worker, Walmart sees that as a criminal offense. Winters allegedly was caught by the store’s surveillance cameras eating Oreos that she hadn’t paid for during her evening shifts at a Walmart in Portage, Ind. In response, Walmart Stores Inc. notified police and Winters was charged with felony theft, which could result in jail time for the woman described by Chicago TV station WBBM as the “Oreo Grandma.”
According to the report obtained by TheSmokingGun.com, Winters confessed to authorities that she had stolen cookies at the store in Portage, a city of 36,000 on the southern shore of Lake Michigan. And she’s reportedly conceded that she’s been eating — and not paying for — Oreos, gum and potato chips for more than eight years while working night shifts for Walmart. (The first seven years were spent at an Arizona location.)
Why did she do it? According to TheSmokingGun, she told a Walmart investigator that she “simply did not have the monies to legitimately purchase the food items.”
As was reported by CBS-affiliate WBBM, Winters has been earning $11.40 an hour at Walmart — putting her above many of her colleagues at the giant retail chain, which employs about 1.4 million Americans. An incoming sales associate typically earns $8.87 an hour.
Thanks to Dan Fastenberg, TV station WBBM, and TheSmokingGun for their contributions for this story.
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I am like you Mike. However, I am fortunate enough to have more choices. We still have an old fashion hardware store in downtown Northport. Anders Hardware has been at their present location right at 75 years. What they have done is to build a warehouse where the can store yard fertilizer and equipment at a competitive price but their front store is still fill with bins of nuts, washers and bolts. They still have copper tubing hanging on the walls and it has the small town feeling. The employees know what they are doing and can answer darn near any question you have about tools or hardware. While some of the stuff is a bit higher than Walmart I would still rather go shop with Roger and his kids than go to Wally Mart.
I loathe Walmart, but living in a rural area makes it a necessary evil. The local store is dirty, poorly staffed, know nothing employees, and ever decreasing inventory. That being said I shop there several times a week. I have little choice.