Vintage store operator says threat of social-media shaming is best way to deter shoplifting
Some might think calling police on those who shoplift would be the best way to deter other potential thieves.
But the operator of a Philadelphia vintage store says she has found a better way, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
Betsy Bassel put up signs at Scout Salvage and Vintage Rescue warning would-be shoplifters that the store would post their photos on its Instagram account. She said she got the idea because “the worst-case scenario for me at that age would have been for my friends to know what I’d done.”
That threat worked for a year, Bassel says. Then, when a young hipster recently took a T-shirt, the store made good on its promise, even though he threw the T-shirt at them and fled when caught in the act of stuffing it down his pants.
“We’re really happy that our social media worked the way it did, and we were able to alert the other businesses that this person was around,” she told the newspaper.
