Okay, I keep seeing questions about RFID tags, so I figured I’d answer some of the more commonly asked ones here.
What does an RFID do?
Basically, this little circuitboardy thing sends a radio frequency (RF) signal to the gates as you leave the store with one that hasn’t been deactivated at the register (ie. purchased). The gates then beep, and it can look suss.
Can other things cause gates to beep?
Short answer: yep. Pacemakers, magnets (in some models of gates), RFID tags sewn into clothes or handbags or books which haven’t been deactivated or removed from other shopping trips can all cause the gates to go off. A beeping gate might be cause for “Can we please check your bag, sir/ma’am?” but in and of itself, it’s not a guilty verdict. (A gate PLUS suss behaviour or getting caught concealing, and you’re a tad screwed, though.)
How do you deactivate RFIDs?
When scanned at the register, a series of lights/magnetic pulses will kill the tag. Obviously not having a register scanner is going to mean you can’t DIY this like you can with tag removal. So removal or destruction is your best option.
Removal
These are sticky motherfuckers. They’re designed to be difficult (or at least fiddly and arduous) to remove, and they’re sometimes hidden inside things: packaging, on the sides of boxes, on products in boxes… even INSIDE products. If you’re doing a dressing room conceal, go through EVERYTHING in order to find any. (On dressing room concealing, too? A tip from your truly: always take in an extra item or two that you don’t even intend to try on, because it’ll buy you more time in the dressing room. It obviously takes longer to try on four tops and a dress as opposed to one top.)
Then what?
Then use something to stick the tag elsewhere, or hide or destroy said tag.
Hiding
This is the easiest way to deal with them: peel em off surreptitiously (don’t look at your hands while you’re peeling!) and then either a) scrunch them up in tissues and dispose of said tissues after in a bin in-store (after trying on sopme makeup samples and then wiping them off your hand with the tissue), or b) stick then to something else in store where they won’t be found for a long time (underneath a shelf in a slow-moving item section at the back) or c) scrunched up into a little ball of nothing and left on the floor/in a bargain bin for someone to sweep up as random rubbish, or d) stuffed into an open-style box of another product.
Destroying
If you slice through the square bit, (like, cut the square in half), which reacts to the RF, you’ll kill it. Damaging around this will affect the circuitboard, giving it a shorter range, though it still might go off at the gates. If you’re going to sabotage the thing, best do it properly and kill it entirely rather than take chances.
Where are they?
On just about everything valuable, and sometimes, in cheap shit, just because retaillers like seeing lifters dance. High end and expensive cosmetics are a typical find, but perfumes, makeup brushes, eyelashes, small accessories? Can be found there. Lately, a trend seems to be putting them inside stickers which, have, say, a barcode, price, or a warning on them. Occasionally they’re on items as “protection” from customers opening them.
Sometimes you can see through them and see the circuitboard underneath, sometimes the paper they’re contained in is VERY thick and you can’t.
My personal motto is “If it’s thick, don’t let it stick,” and generally that’s served me well.
But the item already has a hard tag on it…
And there might be an RFID one lurking inside, too. Particularly with handbags and wallets, check the zippered sections inside them. One visible hard tag can be a deterrent to most lifters, but the ones who can remove that tag might get confident… and the RFID inside will catch them out. It’s probably called “a two-pronged approach to loss prevention” or something. Always check inside things, people.
