The Sex Shop Shaming Thieves on Social Media
After a spate of shoplifting, a chain of adult stores in New Zealand has turned to Facebook to identify and track down the people who owe them money.
By Jessie Schiewe
Before you pocket that dildo, ask yourself: “Would I be ashamed if my kids found out about this?” (Credit: Sam Graap)
It took about a week for Amber Keelan to find the photos of her on Facebook. They were posted on the business page of Peaches and Cream, a chain of sex shops in New Zealand that Keelan had visited a month earlier.
In the candid shots, taken from the stores security cameras, the brunette is wearing a floral peasant top and jeans with long, angry rips in the knees. A pair of sunglasses holds back her loose hair and a large leopard print handbag dangles from her right shoulder.
Keelan is smirking in one of the photos, and full-on guffawing in another. She’s not laughing because someone told a good joke. She’s laughing because she just stole $327.96 worth of vibrators and nobody in the store saw her. Or so she thought at the time.
Photo: Peaches and Cream’s “Wall of Shame”
Peaches and Cream posted the security camera photos of Keelan two weeks after her visit to the store. “If you have any information on this person, please contact us,” the store wrote in the caption, noting that Keelan was “wanted for taking items without paying.”
Keelan was livid when she saw the post.
“WTF!!! MY NAME IS Amber Keelan,” she commented. “This is bull shit.”
This happened back in May of 2019, and to date, there are now 28 other thieves who’ve joined Keelan on Peaches and Cream’s Facebook page. The photos are all posted in an album called “Wall of Shame.” Its description said it was “created especially for those who have been caught doing something stupid such as stealing.”
Suffice it to say, if you steal from Peaches and Cream, you’re likely to end up in this album, where you will be publicly shamed, made fun of, and sometimes even outed by people you know who will recognize you in the photos and then contact the store. The only way to get off the “Wall of Shame” is to pay up. If you send Peaches and Cream the monies you owe them, your photos are deleted.
It’s a tactic Peaches and Cream has been using since roughly January of 2019 to track down thieves and also, hopefully, deter future ones from trying the same thing. The crowdsourcing element is helpful in learning people’s names and contact information, while the public shaming aspect is a good motivator to entice the thieves to pay up.
In recent years, the adult business, which has 12 locations throughout New Zealand, has been the victim of numerous shoplifting crimes.
There were the two women in athletic clothing who stole the $329 remote controlled butt plug among other items in February. In April, there were the four men dressed as clowns — we’re talking full-on costumes with enlarged bowties and colorful wigs — who pilfered a 19-inch, double-ended dildo from a Peaches and Cream location. Even an Elvis lookalike has stolen from the store, pocketing a $100 sex toy last October.
And those are only the weirdest thieves who’ve targeted Peaches and Cream. Some of the most unassuming people have also stolen from the shop, nabbing as much as $700 worth of products in one go.
And it’s not just new products people steal. Mel Vogel, a manager at Peaches and Cream who’s been with the company for more than six years, said people will take anything they can get their hands on that’s not pinned down or encased behind glass. Oftentimes, this includes testers.
“I mean, do you really want to take a fake vagina home that has had everybody’s finger touching it and then stick that on the end of your dick? I mean, seriously,” Vogel said.
Another caveat to stealing testers? You won’t have the charger to charge it.
Still, that doesn’t seem to deter people with sticky fingers. Not even broken or used items that have been thrown in the trash seem to turn them off.
“We actually had to start cutting the toys that we threw away in half because people would go through the rubbish bins at least five times a day trying to retrieve stuff,” Vogel added.
As Peaches and Cream’s “Wall of Shame” photos show, anyone can be a thief. Gray-haired men in leather jackets, scholarly types wearing glasses, young women in pink and gold jewelry, surfer bros in board shorts, guys with man buns, people with tattoos, and people without tattoos have all weaseled products out of the store without paying.
In addition to suspicions of drug use, there is one thing, however, that Vogel believed all of the thieves have in common: “They just don’t give a fuck.”
“I think when people rip places off, they don’t actually think that it’s a person they’re doing it to, you know? They just look at it as a business and they don’t see that there are actually lots of people behind it who get affected.”
When the thief is a customer Vogel is familiar with and has grown to trust, or even someone she knows from her personal life (like that time someone she went to high school with shoplifted from her store), she can’t help but get upset.
“It’s like, I was fucking nice to that person and now they’ve ripped me off?” she said. “You do take it a little personally.”
Photo: Peaches and Cream’s “Wall of Shame”
The thefts themselves range in cleverness and execution.
There’s the classic grab-a-bunch-of-products-and-then-run scheme, or the even more obvious stick-it-down-your-pants tactic. Stealthier thieves will come in as pairs so that one can distract the salesperson while the other shoplifts. There are also thieves who hold items up with one hand, pretending to look at it, while at the same time pocketing something with their other hand, and thieves who like to duck low behind aisles to stick things in their bags. Some people will even purchase an item, and then steal something else before leaving.
And it’s not like the Peaches and Cream staff isn’t always oblivious to when thefts are happening. Some they’ll miss and learn of later while reviewing security footage, but others they’ll notice in-real-time — and the bummer is they can’t even do anything about them.
“You can’t chase them down the street if there’s not another staff member in the store. [Peaches and Cream] doesn’t want us to get hurt and stuff like that. They would rather us just let it go then give chase,” Vogel said.
“All of our stores have cameras and we employ a person solely to go through the footage and find people. So even if you don’t get caught when you walk out of the door, the chances are they’ll find you later.”
With their Facebook “Wall of Shame” — a sort of pseudo vigilante justice campaign, if you will — Peaches and Cream has found success. The number of shoplifting cases at their stores has dropped and they’ve managed to get some of the money for the stolen products back.
“A lot of people do own up and pay after seeing their photos online,” Vogel said. “The people we’ve shamed on social media also don’t seem to come back and do it again, so that’s good.”
Outing the thieves on Facebook as a first step attempt to handle the problem is also more preferable for Peaches and Cream than getting the authorities involved immediately.
“We would rather deal with it that way then have to go through a court system,” Vogel said. “If they pay, we’ll take it no further. But if they don’t pay, then the court deals with it. We notify the police and provide them with our information, and they take it out of our hands.”
Photo: Peaches and Cream’s “Wall of Shame”
Horniness, it’s clear, can make people do dumb things. So, too, can desperation, embarrassment, and just being broke.
Vogel is also pretty sure there’s a black market for the stolen products, and that many of Peaches and Cream’s thefts are “steal-to-order,” where people have requested specific sex toys for thieves to nab.
In the end, she’s grateful for the creation of the “Wall of Shame” and all the thieves it has helped them catch. But sometimes she worries it’s not enough.
“We’re still a bit too kind about it, I think. Because if you see somebody walking outside with a penis enlargement system, we don’t put up what they stole [on Facebook]. That would be even more shameful, to get caught stealing a dick pump,” Vogel said. “Can you imagine going to court for that?”
She has a point.
Thievery is never a wise move, but taking something you would be embarrassed for people to know about seems especially foolish. Because in the end, wouldn’t you rather pay the $252 (USD) for the “Extreme Sally Surprise Transexual Love Doll” or the $107 (USD) for the “T-Bone Rotating Tushy Stimulator” than risk having the whole world learn about it?
JESSIE SCHIEWE IS THE EDITOR OF OK WHATEVER. SHE BELIEVES IN MERMAIDS AND THRIFT SHOPS FOR EXERCISE.
SAM GRAAP IS A REAL LIVE VISUAL LADY IN BROOKLYN, NEW YORK. SHE ENJOYS DRAWING HAND STUFF.
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