Alarm going off when walking out of a store

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This has happened to me twice in one month, in two separate stores. I paid for the items I bought and as I walked out the door an alarm sounded and I had to step to the side. It's highly embarrassing when you have social anxiety and don't like being the center of attention.

The first time it happened the guard let me go because he said that judging by my reaction he trusted that I was innocent (which I was). Then it happened again today in a different store. All I'd bought was some colouring pens and a couple of other items (nothing with security tags) and I saw the cashier scan the items and they came up on the receipt, so I can't think what triggered the alarm. A store clerk came up to me and checked my items, I think he knew I was innocent but he still had to check, it was most embarrassing. I felt my face go bright red.

Now when I go into a store I'm going to start getting anxiety whenever I come out in case the alarm sounds for no reason again. It's just embarrassing.

Those alarms are like car alarms. They are triggered by innocent folks/things 100 times for every time they are triggered by a real thief stealing something.

Folks who work in retail are aware of that fact. Other shoppers might judge you but not the store staff. I know cause I used to work in retail.

Why do they have a device that falsely "cries wolf" 99 percent of the time?

Beats the hell outta me.

It's the other shoppers I don't want to be judged by. It's like things are out to embarrass me. And people wonder why I don't really like going out in public on my own. It's less embarrassing when I'm with somebody.

Any device capable of producing a carrier wave of the right frequency can trigger an "Anti-Theft" alarm.

A car-alarm key fob, a cell phone, a pair of ear buds, a pager, a hotel key-card ... practically any device on you.

Known frequencies are:

• 10 Hz to 1 kHz (Electro-magnetic), Barkhausen Effect is detected.

• 58 kHz (Acousto-magnetic), pulsed at 50 to 90 pps, "ringing" or resonance is detected.

• 7.4 to 8.2 MHz (Radio frequency), unmodulated carrier, shifted phase is detected.

• 903 MHz plus 111.5 kHz (Microwave interference), mixing by a semiconductor junction produces sidebands.

Note: These frequencies are approximate.

Don't most people carry keys and phones on them when they enter a store? I didn't actually have my phone on me today, just my keys but I've had the same key and keychains for God knows how long and it's only just started doing it now. Also if the alarms were that sensitive to such common items everyone carries around with them then wouldn't the door alarms be going off all the time? I've been in a supermarket for about 40 minutes doing my shopping and there were hundreds of people entering and exiting during that time probably carrying keys and phones on them and I didn't hear the alarm go off once.

I got followed out of a department store and jumped by security guards -- a group of men dressed in regular clothes. They accused me of stealing a leopard print negligée in my handbag -- which is so funny and laughable in retrospect but at the time it was bloody terrifying. They hauled me back into the store into a tiny upstairs room with a dangling yellow lightbulb and frisked me. They went through my entire bag and even insinuated I might need to be strip searched. They weren't taking no for an answer. They wanted my employer's name and all my ID. It went on for about 90 minutes during which time I was proper hysterical, which only made matters worse.

It's funny but it didn't even occur to me that I had the right to call a lawyer, I was just in panic mode and totally shut down.

The backstory is that I actually was looking at leopard-print satin nighties for my mother. They only had one and I wasn't sure it would fit, so I stuffed it under some towels in a different part of the store so I could go check another shop. I didn't want anyone to buy it just in case I decided to get it. Somehow on the security cameras they saw me holding it and then it disappeared, so they thought I stole it. They refused to let me take them back to the towel display area and show them where I put it. Then I got scared that if I told them where it was, someone would move it and continue to frame me.

It was one of the scariest things that ever happened to me shopping, as you can imagine.

I should have sued their sorry arses but I was so overwhelmed and humiliated afterward, I didn't even want to tell anyone.

In terms of setting off alarms, I used to do it in airports because I have a very high iron content (it's a blood disorder).

It's bloody awful.

I feel for you Joe.

It is strange how the same keyfob (the part of the key with the buttons) will trigger an alarm on one visit, and not on another; but I have demonstrated to storeowners how the orientation of the keyfob (up, down, sideways, et cetera), and its proximity to other electronic devices (phones, earbuds, et cetera) could trigger a false alarm.  Dozens of people can walk out of the store and nothing happens, but I can walk into the store, and something in my backpack will trigger the alarm.  Let us see...

• 3 USB thumb-drives
• A TI-35 calculator
• A "Cricket"-based flip-phone
• A hand-held 2m/440 Baofeng transceiver
• 2 phone chargers
• 1 pair earbuds
• 1 pair noise-cancelling headphones
• An AM/FM receiver (Radio Shack!)
• A set of polyhedral dice
• A bag of trail mix
• A bag of cheap choco-chip cookies
• Assorted writing instruments & paper

Yeah ... it has got to be the cookies!

Have the receipt ,no big deal. This has happened to me once. It more annoying than anything.

That sounds ridiculous. It like they tried to intimidate you, because you're a woman. I would have been a lot more defiant in your position.

I'm sorry that happened to you, that's bad on their part to be that insistent like that, if you have anxiety it could leave you traumatized or agoraphobic. I mean to do that over a nightie as well - anyone would think you'd robbed a load of jewellery or something (even though you didn't rob anything at all). They should have just checked your bag.

This is the reason I get anxious opening my handbag in stores, to get my phone out or check how much money I have or whatever other reason, because I keep thinking somebody's watching me and are going to accuse me of putting an unpaid item into my handbag or something. I'm even afraid to touch my handbag.

I've been wrongly accused of stealing before, once when I bought a cushion from a small store. I waited in line, paid, and put it into the bag I was already carrying as I left the store. Then one of the store workers chased me up the street yelling "are you gonna pay for that?" I didn't know she was talking to me until she jumped in front of me with an angry expression, and she pulled the cushion out of my bag, roared "you are BANNED!! !" so that the whole street heard and looked at me like I was some criminal, and then she walked back with my cushion. It was so unexpected, that it didn't occur to me to get my receipt out to show her. I started to cry and I phoned my boyfriend. He came and sorted it out for me. He showed them the receipt, they stared at it under a bright light, then asked the girl on the till if she had served me and she said she had. They apologized and gave me back my cushion.
But I don't think their apology was enough after all the humiliation they'd caused for me. There was no alarm or nothing, the woman who accused me just saw me walking out with the cushion and got so sure that I had stolen it.

A few weeks later their store closed due to bankruptcy, so there's instant karma right there.

Last edited by Joe90 on 15 Nov 2021, 5:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I heard somewhere that security guards can't stop you after you leave the premises of the store. But regardless, they did. They swarmed me and physically detained me. I already had CPTSD and I'm autistic / mute / panic disorder, so I totally froze (apart from crying).

I don't want to derail Joe's thread any more though.

Those shop alarms are incredibly annoying. I'd be upset with any type of attention drawn to me.

When I can stand within 20 feet of a store alarm, key up a ham radio, and nobody working at the store does anything when the alarm goes off, that alone tells me that those store alarms are there more for show than for anything else.

Sort of like a "Beware of Dog" sign on a doghouse with no dog inside.

I worked retail as well & your completely rite about that. There's been some times when the alarms would go off most every time anybody would go out or in the store. The real criminals know how to get around those alarms. They take the products out of the packaging & take the tags off so those alarms never go off.

I usually just assume it wasn't me who set it off and keep walking. I never get stopped.

The one time I did set it off was walking into the store. I had just bought a pair of pliars from a hardware store, put them in my bag and went straight to the supermarket. The alarm went off when I walked in and went off again when I walked out. I don't know why? I live in a rough area, so maybe it doubles as a metal detector to protect staff. I didn't get stopped on the way in, but I did on the way out. I had only bought a pizza and could prove it.

Exactly!

And remember ringing up one customer while the alarm goes off in the distance at the store entrance...forcing my coworkers to run to the entrance to deal with it ...apologize that second customer at the entrance...usually innocent. The customer I was ringing up on the register would often comment "do you ever get false alarms with that thing?". And I would have to bite my tongue and keep silent while thinking "you stupid dumbass...THAT ...IS...most likely a false alarm! EVERYTIME they go off its a false alarm!! !!"

There's usually a guard or something standing at the entrance and they stop you, so it's hard to just walk through like nothing is happening. Ignoring the guard will obviously make you look suspicious.

I just hate it when the cashier forgets to take the security tag off. One time my mum had bought an electronic device, and had paid and everything, but didn't realise the cashier had forgotten to take the security tag off, and as she was walking out the store the alarm sounded. She stopped, but everyone in the store stared at her with accusing eyes. Then the store manager had to come and check the item she had bought and she showed the receipt.

She felt so embarrassed. It can be torture for those suffering with social anxiety.