Retailers have been taking serious steps to get shoplifting under control. However, according to one Target worker, shoppers continue to steal, and she has proof.
In a viral video that has received over 18,000 views and more than 500 likes, TikToker Kaitlin Sondae (@kaitlinsondae) shows the discarded price tags of clothes she says were stolen.
@kaitlinsondae Stolen clothes🙃 #stolenclothes #stolenproducts #wildfable #targetstore #wildfabletarget ♬ original sound – Kaitlin Sondae
“Someone really said, ‘Let’s steal as much as we possibly can from Wild Fable,’” Sondae says while recording the tags.
Launched in August 2018, Wild Fable is a Target-exclusive line of clothing, shoes, and accessories aimed at young people. The discarded Wild Fable tags Sondae records are in a small pile on a shelf that seems to be in the store’s beauty section.
“Stolen clothes,” Sondae writes in the video’s caption.
It is not improbable that a shoplifter left behind these tags. Last week, Target announced that it would likely lose half a billion dollars this year as theft continues to skyrocket. And Target isn’t the only store losing profits due to shoplifting. According to the National Retail Federation’s most recent annual survey of around 60 member companies, retailers lost about 94.5 billion dollars to stolen merchandise in 2021.
This also isn’t the first time a TikToker has gotten attention for sharing stories about retail theft. Many have gone viral for sharing videos of security measures stores have taken to safeguard their goods, including locking merchandise away and building cases against repeat offenders. Other retail workers have also expressed concerns over potentially losing their job for trying to stop shoplifters.
In the comments section of Sondae’s video, viewers pointed out changes they’ve noticed at their local stores, which they attribute to attempts to boost security.
“I think this is why my target has security tags on everything now,” one user wrote.
“We red tag all our wild fable clothing and bras now,” another added.
Others noted that taking off the tags is unnecessary.
“My thing is if they just left them on, we wouldn’t have known they were stolen,” one commenter pointed out.
The Daily Dot contacted Sondae via TikTok comment and Target via email for more information.
