Theft

Last week my mom mentioned she’d seen an article about how Home Depot and Lowes are dealing with a growing theft problem. My response shocked her more than a bit, so I thought I’d share (and expand on) it.

I’ve shared some articles here, in my links posts, about the theft problem, but it can be hard to really picture unless you’re actually working it.

The first thing you need to understand is that most companies have a policy in place that forbids the average employee from physically stopping a thief. We’re allowed, and encouraged, to be that annoying employee who won’t take “I don’t need help” as an answer. But anything more aggressive than that is forbidden. If we spot someone walking out the door with a cart we can ask for a receipt, but we can’t try to stop the cart, or grab their arm, or even really say anything more than “can I see your receipt”. Doing more than “customer service” can actually get you fired. Managers are allowed to be more aggressive, and Loss Prevention (or Asset Protection) employees are allowed to grab/stop/apprehend thieves. But the average cashier or sales person? Nope.

Now I have mixed thoughts on that. On the one hand, I’m glad I’m not expected to actually stop thieves, that’s dangerous and I agree that it’s not my job to put my life on the line for my employer. On the other hand: thieves KNOW this. They know they can load up a cart and not get stopped. So on more than one occasion I’ve wished I could do a BIT more.

HD, Lowes, and similar stores have been dealing with excessive theft for years.  It only increased during the Covid lockdowns, and never decreased after everyone was let loose.  

In garden: any power tool from Echo, Makita, Milwaukee, or Dewalt must be spider wrapped.  Any tool from Milwaukee and Dewalt must also be cabled or behind bars.  All other brands must be spider wrapped if they’re $150 or more.  All power tool batteries must be cabled. All generators, and all power washers over $150 must be behind gates or bars.  Anything locked up must be hand carried to the register by an associate. Oh, and BTW, with everything being forced to switch to battery power instead of gas you can guess how THATS going.

In Electrical they’re not allowed to stock out more than 2 at a time of the expensive breakers, and 90% of the smart home stuff has to be locked up. A huge selection of the speciality electrical tools are high theft risks. 

Plumbing has to lock up many of the thermostats and some of the fancier water heaters.  The smaller copper pipe fittings are also a huge theft risk. 

Many of the vacuum cleaners have to be locked up. 

Some 3/4 of the power tools in hardware have to be locked up or at least spider wrapped. Saw blades, from tiny to large, are also at high risk of theft. Power tool batteries again, anywhere in the store, require extra lockup.

Theres some variation between stores/regions in the specifics of whats locked up and how, but I’ll bet that even in higher end areas you’re going to see a larger number of spider wraps and cables than you did even 10yrs ago.

Read moreTheft


Links 9/14/2023

THE FBI GROOMED A 16-YEAR-OLD WITH “BRAIN DEVELOPMENT ISSUES” TO BECOME A TERRORIST

Was the COVID Vaccine Safe for Pregnant Women

There Was No Pandemic

Another Misleading Long Covid Study

NYC’s rising graduation rates bucked national trends. A little-known grading policy may hold clues.

Christians Arrested For Outdoor Church Service During COVID-19 Win $300,000 Lawsuit

Did you live in NYC during the illegal & immoral “stay home”/quarantine-for-healthy-people orders? Many of the ambulance sirens you heard in an otherwise-quiet city were NOT going to hospital.

Retail health company has Chase accounts suddenly terminated, owner critical of COVID vaccines, FDA

even the NY Times admits that Covid deaths were massively overcounted as a result of absurd statistical methods — i.e. classifying as a Covid death any deceased, for whatever reason, who had recently tested positive.

Dismantling The Covid Pandemic & mRNA “Vaccine” Narratives

FDA has changed the status of Pfizer’s subclinical myocarditis study of a 3rd dose of Comirnaty in 16-30 year olds from ongoing to delayed. The original projected completion date was Dec 2022. Moderna’s study of Spikevax in 18+ is still listed as ongoing, even though its due date was Jun 2023.

“Depressive symptoms at the beginning of the pandemic were the strongest predictor of incident persistent [covid] symptoms in both infected and non-infected participants”

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria: Parent Reports on 1655 Possible Cases

A school snowboarding coach sues after being fired for saying males have athletic advantages over females.

New Zealand has been using a “race-based” surgery waitlist since 2020, and people are only now finding out about it

Harvard behavior scientist who studied honesty accused of fabricating data

Tufts’ Food Compass...It’s Worse Than You Thought

Auto Technology that Stops Drunk Driving Now Required by Law

Cardiovascular Safety of Testosterone Replacement Therapy

thousands of birth control pills recalled because they may not work

London measles warning: Outbreak could hit tens of thousands

Homeowner Sues Game Wardens Who Snuck onto His Property and Swiped a Camera

Celebrity forensic scientist Henry Lee liable for fabricating evidence that sent men to prison

US cannot ban people convicted of non-violent crimes from owning guns-appeals court

you need a wiretap order if you want real-time Facebook snooping

Unsolicited Smartwatches Received by Mail

Two workers rescued from Omaha drain system; one traveled about a mile in sewer pipes

interstate credit card skimming scheme

Humans will trade pain for useless information

Many do not fully understand that, upon retirement from the military, you are not really “retired”. You just go into “ready reserve” status. They can call you back to active duty.

America’s Lead Cables

Light Bulb Ban

Supreme court justices & health services researchers cite bad science in Affirmative Action debate

Teen Stranded in Florida After American Airlines Cancels His Ticket for Planning to Leave the Airport at Layover

Are School Libraries Banning Thousands of Books? Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Trust the Left’s Narrative

NASA Data Show Volcanic Eruption, Not Man-Made Climate Change, Likely Cause of Record Heat Wave

Toxic Foaming Watermelons

Local Indian tribes are now squabbling over who should get the “stolen land” at Ben & Jerry’s headquarters

THE LEGEND OF LACHHIMAN GURUNG: STOPPED 200 JAPANESE SOLDIERS AFTER LOSING HIS ARM

Aging candlepin bowling alley held together with gum and heart

Treat Trauma with Tetris


Been busy

I’m sorry for the silence.

On 8/9/2023 my Tibetan Mastiff Apollo crossed the rainbow bridge. He was 12.5yrs old. His health had been struggling for the last year, but the vet visit was supposed to be a routine check. Instead we walked out carrying his collar and harness and leaving him behind. His ashes are home, we haven’t decided where to scatter them yet.

I took a weekend off to visit my parents for their 50th wedding anniversary.

And I’m still trying to take my chainmaille to as many craft fairs as I can.

Back in May we added two new cats to the household. Siblings, barely a year old. So basically kittens in adult sized bodies. Its been, interesting, having two kittens at the same time.

So free time has been at a premium even when I’ve had an interest in blogging.


Scam FB Ads

I’ve been seeing a new trend in Facebook Ads the last few years, and especially this calendar year.

I started noticing it in 2020.

Customers were coming into the store, having purchased this AWESOME DEAL on patio furniture online, after clicking on a Facebook ad. The ad said it from Home Depot. The page looked like Home Depot’s site, the emails said they were from Home Depot. And the final email said to pick up their purchase at the local store!

There was just one little tiny problem. Neither the ads, website, or the emails were from anyone at Home Depot. The actual website address wasn’t HD’s, the email addresses weren’t from HD.

Most of these folks didn’t have a screenshot of the ad they’d clicked on. And I have no clue if they were able to get their money back.

Beginning of this summer I had a customer come in looking for “the raised bed kit you have on sale”. After a bit of back and forth, with me insisting we don’t have a raised bed kit on sale, he pulls out his phone, opens up his FB app, and right there front and center is the advertisement. With the link out clearly showing it wasn’t an HD page, even though the big bold print said Home Depot.

Oddly enough none of these ads were coming across MY feed. I was seeing plenty of scam ads, but none of these spoofed pages. But the last few months I started noticing a new trend in the scam ads, and that was the scammers were hacking actual real business pages (small medical practices appear to be popular), and placing scam ads via those pages. Then just the last few weeks, I apparently clicked on something that told FB I wanted to buy postage stamps. Suddenly my FB page was filled with scam pages selling fake forever stamps. Yay.

Yesterday however I got my first fake Lowes ad, and then another, and another.

You’ll notice that the profile image isn’t Lowes, and the website listed isn’t Lowes. Here’s the actual page that the ad is from:

Betting thats a hacked page.

I failed to get a screenshot of the page this next one is from, but still, can you spot the problems:

Or here, the ad, and the website it went to when I clicked through:

Just a heads up, if someone is selling a Honda Inverter Gen, new, for under $900, run far and fast and don’t give them your info.


links 8/6/23

I try to pick links without paywalls, but occasionally things change after I pick the link. Other times I forget I have a subscription. For most of the Substack links, if it asks you to enter your email and subscribe, ignore the enter email box and click “just let me read” or “continue reading” (which ever it offers), and most of them will let you through to read.

California Panel Approves Reparation Payments for Black Residents Up to $1.2 Million Each

Spiraling in San Francisco’s Doom Loop

Owner of SF’s Largest Hotel, the Hilton Union Square, Is Walking Away, Surrendering It to Lender

California Electricity Bills Will Soon Be Based on Income. Here’s How It Might Work

Gas Lines Are Back Baby!

Navy doctors and dentists are told they owe 3 more years of service after military admits to another record-keeping error

The World Health Organization will take up the EU system of digital COVID-19 certification to establish a global system that will help facilitate global mobility and protect citizens across the world from on-going and future health threats.

We found half of interventional long covid studies did not even require prior COVID.

Lockdown benefits ‘a drop in the bucket compared to the costs’, landmark study finds

Kids in one school district in NJ were still being required to mask in April 2023

Did Covid-19 quarantines hide the flu?

study of 666 Rhode Island childcare centers from June 1st-July 31st 2020: Only 0.6% (4/666) of childcare centers had even possible evidence of secondary transmission & this was without child mask requirements

New Onset Multiple Sclerosis Post-COVID-19 Vaccination and Correlation With Possible Predictors in a Case-Control Study

District agrees to $400,000 settlement over COVID policies

If Your Toddler Isn’t Talking Yet, the Pandemic Might Be to Blame

Two years to late: New York lifting COVID vaccine mandate for health care workers

There Was No Pandemic in 2020

Korean nationwide study reports 8 cases of “sudden cardiac death (SCD) attributable to VRM [vaccine-related myocarditis] proved by an autopsy”

WHO Warns Of ‘Unusual’ Surge in Severe Myocarditis in Babies

Pfizer’s Maternal RSV Vaccine Clears FDA Advisory Committee

FBI misused surveillance tool on Jan. 6 suspects, BLM arrestees and others

Twitter Files Extra: The Covid Censorship Requests of Australia’s Department of Home Affairs

the prospect of reforming cancer trials

Mammography Screening Is a Failed Experiment

The Infomercial Comes to The Wall Street Journal

Chemical found in ‘widely used sweetener’ damages human DNA, new study says

US Military Is So Worried About Drug Safety It Wants to Test Widely Used Medicines

Shortage of lifesaving chemo drugs adds to cancer patients’ fears

Women who started the pill as teens have 130% higher rate of depression: study

Norway advises against child sex changes, joins Finland, Sweden, and UK in rejecting gender ideology

A reduction in long-term spatial memory persists after discontinuation of peripubertal GnRH agonist treatment in sheep

EPA v. The Grid

Electric cars losing their value twice as fast as petrol alternatives

Texas to charge EV owners $400 to register vehicles, $200 every year

Germany faces electricity shortages and can expect to see industries leave the country due to green energy policy ‘disaster’ that saw nuclear power plants ditched for renewables, business chiefs warn

The surface of the Greenland ice sheet has gained almost 600 billion tons of new snow since September 1, 2022… above the 1981-2010 average

Democrats accuse GOP of stoking culture wars with bills limiting gas stove rules

shows an armed security guard flanking surveyors as they enter private land without permission for a pipeline they don’t even have the permit to build yet.

Telomere Length Correlates with Life Span of Dog Breeds

Egyptian lawyer sues Netflix over Queen Cleopatra

At New Chicago Walgreens, You Can Only Browse 2 Aisles — The Rest Of The Store Is Locked Away

Lawyer apologizes for fake court citations from ChatGPT

A judge has denied the motion for preliminary injunction in our lawsuit challenging Washington’s “assault weapon ban,” saying that the banned firearms “allow a shooter to fire as fast as they can pull the trigger, unlike previous guns.”

2020: DEFUND THE POLICE! 2022: ITS ALL GREAT* crime rate 111% higher than nat’l ave* 2023: FUND THE POLICE!

Edmond parent files lawsuit after daughter ‘severely beaten’ in bathroom by trans student

Biden Admin’s $40m ‘Anti-Terrorism’ Program Targets Breitbart News, Conservatives

To Address The Loneliness Epidemic, The Feds Want To Control Your Town And Friends

I think of this often when I hear trust the science and trust public health officials. Oh like the ones who ran an actual Eugenics Board and sterilized women on the application of social workers? Like that?

Nope, I’m still going to hell. This whole situation still makes me laugh: Eric Adams asks judge to suspend New York’s “right to shelter” policy because this open border thing is just becoming too much to handle

NYC Mayor Eric Adams wants to install “resource kiosks” to stop thieves from looting retail stores

NYC Comptroller joined NYC Mayor and Department of Finance in limiting City of New York deposits at the two banks. The Comptroller also voted against designating three others that failed to submit required anti-discrimination plans

The phone-free are finding themselves unwelcome in more places

The Parents Saying No to Smartphones

BREAKING: Senator Chuck Grassley asks USDA-HHS to stop writing Dietary Guidelines until conflicts of interest are fully released 95% of last committee had at least 1 tie to food/pharma Guidelines need transparency to serve the people, not corporations

Lawmakers in the Empire State are following California, where the Assembly just approved a bill to ban key ingredients in certain candies.

THOUSANDS of fraudulent registrations found requesting absentee ballots on NY voter rolls: study

China Hacks Critical U.S. Infrastructure, Microsoft Says

Breathe less oxygen to live longer, study suggests

Twitter thread: Since the WaPo decided not to include this info in their article, here is a review of the books that were removed by the Forsyth County schools

Uber suspends diversity chief over ‘Don’t Call Me Karen’ events

Cavewomen may not have adhered to strict gender roles formed centuries after their deaths, now now these poor prehistoric women are non-binary

400 Grail blood test users were incorrectly told they may have cancer: report

Killer whales are sinking boats off the coast of Europe in orchestrated attacks

Homework Machine Hand Writes AI-Generated Assignments

Amazon Ring, Alexa accused of every nightmare IoT security fail you can imagine

Maybe there is *something* in the water….

Virtual fencing for beef cattle

The Great Electrician Shortage

This Skinny Toronto House Is Listed For Almost $2M & Has A Toilet In The Bedroom

Sheep to Shawl competition

Reserve Marine Foils DC-area Human Trafficking Ring Just Hours Before Fitness Test

The Sound of Freedom: History vs Hollywood

Women who fish are happier and healthier, study shows

Chronic wound healing using glass

Former Philly Starbucks manager wins $25.6 million after being fired for being white

A catatonic woman awakened after 20 years. Her story may change psychiatry.

Want to own a lighthouse?

Parrots learn to make video calls to chat with other parrots, then develop friendships, Northeastern University researchers say

The fastest family on earth

The improbable story of the bra-maker who won the right to make astronaut spacesuits

Brain scans of coffee drinkers suggest there’s more to feeling alert than just the caffeine

‘It’s been crazy’: Meet the I-75 cowboy who roped a steer in now-viral video