LP stopped me at Kmart yesterday.

I was so pissed.

I asked my sister to go to Kmart with me so that I could get makeup and offered to get her some too, but I told her that I may or may not lift anything because I wasn’t sure how crowded it’d be and all that, so she agreed to come with me.

When leaving, my brother asked us not to lift anything because he had a bad feeling about today, THEN my mom stopped us when we were leaving and told me not to shoplift. She’s been onto me for a while, but it don’t matter because I don’t live with her. I don’t even know how she’s onto me. I’m guessing that my sister probably told her when she was mad at me or something. My mom also said that she’d pray that I get caught if I do lift.

We went anyways because I needed to buy some stuff for my house. We browsed the makeup for a little while and I put some things in the buggy that I was considering lifting. My sister really had to pee, so she went to the bathroom. After I found what I needed; I went to look for her and saw a man in a suit with a ear piece in and he was talking to a woman near the bathrooms. I went in and left my buggy on the outside and didn’t see anyone in there so I walked out and grabbed my buggy and went to look down aisles for my sister. The guy in the suit started following VERY close behind me for like 30 seconds until I turned down another aisle. I found my sister and whispered to her that LP was following me and she said “Okay, well we wont get anything.”

I went back to the makeup and saw a black man with an empty basket and he kept staring at us and I was thinking ‘Okay, he’s def LP because why else would he be in the makeup aisle?’

I left my buggy in the aisle and grabbed some cheaper makeup to buy then grabbed the stuff I needed for the house and went to check out. SO many SAs were staring at us and even giving us dirty looks. When I pulled out my wallet to pay, the cashier kept eyeballing my purse, as if she was trying to see inside of it. I just ignored it and we left. When we were walking to my car in the parking lot, some skinny guy who looked like a thug walked towards us and said “How are y'all?” He was acting sketchy, so I was scared. I honestly thought that he was about to rob me or something, then I thought 'meh, he’s probably gonna give me a bs story and ask for money.’

He said “I’m LP.” And I just stared at him blankly because I could barely hear him and then he said “I’m with Kmart Loss Prevention. I noticed that you bought some feminine products, but I’m wondering where the makeup went.”

I was like “I bought makeup too. I did leave some in a buggy down an aisle because I decided that I didn’t want it.” He asked “Can I see your purse?” And I was still sketched out because I didn’t know if he was lying about being LP. I didn’t wanna hand my purse to a strange man and him take off with it, so I asked “Can you even legally do that? You aren’t a cop.” And he got an attitude and said “Of course I can do that. Let me search your purse”

I almost said 'No, call the cops and you can’, but then I remembered that I had a magnet in my purse and I’m sure that a cop knows what it’s for, so I was just hoping that this LP guy wouldn’t know. I just scoffed and said “Fine, search it.” And opened it for him. He glanced into it and moved a few things around and said “Alright, file a complaint with us if you’d like.” then walked back inside.

I had a book in the bottom of my purse and my magnet was underneath it, but he didn’t look under the book. I called when I got in the car and told them that I wanted to file a complaint about their LP. The woman said “And why would you want to do that? They’re doing their job. We have undercover Loss prevention for a reason.”

And I said “I’m not mad about him doing his job. I’m mad that he obviously didn’t have a reason to search me AND i thought he was a stranger that was about to rob me. He should’ve taken me inside or went about it in a different way.” The woman told me to call back tomorrow and speak with the manager then hung up. I grabbed my bags and marched myself in there and returned every thing that I bought because I was pissed that they searched me FOR NO REASON.

My mom called later and spoke to the LP and he said “I know that she took makeup. If I would’ve moved that book in her purse, I would’ve found it.” And she was like “Then why didn’t you look under it? I looked in her purse and her car and didn’t see a thing of yours, so no, you didn’t have a reason to search her.”

My sister told my mom about it because she was scared, thinking that the guy was gonna rob us too. Lol. So, my mom called and complained.

Lessons from this story:

-If people are obviously following you, take out everything that you’ve lifted (if you have anything) then leave. Don’t take the risk. I’m glad that I didn’t.

-Kmart has undercover LP and I’m sure other stores do too. They are literally the people that you’d least expect. The guy that stopped me was covered in tattoos and dressed like a thug. He literally didn’t come across as LP to me.

-Don’t keep your lifting materials in your purse, even when you aren’t lifting.