son accidentally stole a wallet

Swampy3k

I'd be like hell yeah free wallet!

Why take your son back to the store if it is going to cause him stress/anxieity??

You could either:

A. Post it.
B. Take it back on his behalf. (give whatever story you like)
C. Keep it, and make your son make a donation for the price of the wallet to charity.

MadelinesMum

I would take it back. I hung an item of baby clothing from Next on my pushchair once and walked out with it. I didn't realise until I got home and I took it back the next day. I suppose I was lucky it didn't have a security tag on it - I would have been well embarrassed if the alarm had gone off!

lostinrates

I have inadvertently walked out with things and popped back to pay a couple of times. No one has executed a zero tolerance thing against me.


In the past, I have taken a small child I was taking care of back in to a shop so e days later with genuinely pilfered things to return and apologise and the shop were IMO far to nice, and undermined the stern message home had given.

I would not return it anonymously or whatever because it reinforces the fear, however, I would in this circumstance be prepared to do it on his behalf.

AnnieO1234

mossstitchmama wrote: »

I am posting about a friend of mine in the hope it might make your son smile.

I worked in a large office and one of my colleagues came back in from her lunch. I asked her what she had bought in Marks and Spencer's. She was very surprised and asked how I knew she had been into that shop. I turned her around and unhooked two pairs of very skimpy, lacy ladies knickers that she had accidentally caught on the handle of her bag. She had walked the length of the high street with these undies attached to her bag in full view of the lunchtime shoppers.

She was mortified and I had to offer to return them. She didn't go back into M & S for quite a while. I don't remember any problem when I took them back, the staff just looked a little surprised.

I hope you dont encounter a problem when you return the wallet. It was an honest mistake and your son is owning up. You taught him well.

If you worked at a law firm at the time then I think we may have been colleagues! The exact same thing happened a few years ago now so it's either that or m and s have !!!! layouts! Xxx

geri1965_2

I would take it back. There will be no bother - the legal definition of theft is as follows

'A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with intention to permanently deprive the other of it’

Therefore the act of returning it negates any "theft" that has occurred.

Kayalana99

If there is no doubt whatsoever given the circumstances he stole it intentionally I would just post it back, if you are however only 99% sure to be on the safe side I would make him return it.

I stole something once when I was little (like 5ish) and my Dad marched me back in the shop and made me apologies and give it back...the thought has never crossed my mind since to steal something.

1DayAAT

Thanks everyone. There is no doubt at all in our mind about his genuine mistake - he was in quite a state about the whole thing and came straight to us once he had found it in his bag. In his mind, something like this is FBI level (huge anxiety as part of his autism), so we try to alleviate his stress as much as possible. My wife is going to take it back for him today and explain, along with making payment for it (he wants this wallet and had planned to buy it anyway before forgetting all about it when he put in his bag by mistake). It has the barcode etc on it. He will be paying out of his own money. Hopefully this will make him feel better and the situation will go away. He often has bad agoraphobia linked to his condition which can last months and has only recently felt well enough to go out to shops - yesterday without us too, he went with a friend - so we are keen also not to 'set him back' with this bad experience and are downplaying it as much as possible.
He thinks he 'gets everything wrong' so again, taking away those kind of thoughts about this and putting it down to a silly mistake has helped.

Thanks again all for the opinions here - maybe not Marktheshark though

duchy

Good for you- My son has similar problems and the "getting it wrong" backlash is hard for people who don't see it to understand.

Counting_Pennies_2

I haven't had a chance to read all replies, but I would say you don't know how the shop will react.


I would suggest popping some money in an envelope (wrapped in foil so it doesn't come up on scanners that money is inside) and write an anonymous letter to the store enclosing the money saying your child had popped the purse into your bag by accident, and you want to send them the money by way of apology.


I don't think you should risk being sent on a trip to the police.


That way you are cover any costs the store incurred, in what was a genuine mistake.


Take the money from you step son, explaining why you are doing it, and that he must be very careful next time.

clarryd

I think you will find that a lot of peeps have gone home and noticed under their pushchair a can of something, a packet of something else.

Unfortunately most do not return them to the shop due to embarrassment or just ignorance.

When this happened to me when my daughter was young I always returned it to the shop. I remember on one occasion we where in Mothercare just browsing around, I decided to buy some socks and a few bits. Thinking nothing of it I paid and left the shop, but it wasnt until I took her into the mother and baby toilet to change her bumb that I noticed a pack of 5 lovely vests. I knew they where not mine and could only think she had grabbed them on the way past. I then about turned and took them back. The cashier said that this happens all the time and thanked me for bringing it back.

What I am trying to say is why don't you just take it back for him and explain the situation even if you phone them beforehand as another peep said, they will understand and thank you for returning it and being honest.