25 Dumb Crimes Pulled Off By People Practically Begging To Be Arrested

While few expect mastermind-level planning in ordinary criminals, we expect some basic thought to preface the activity. Still, not everyone meets even the bare minimum needed to get away with petty crimes successfully. So when a Redditor online asked, “Have you ever witnessed a real ‘world’s dumbest criminals’ moment?”, people who caught clumsy burglars in the act described the astounding stupidity of some of these would-be offenders. 

#1

Image source: thelovepirate, arvind grover/flickr

Back when I worked at Walmart, one of the best laughs I ever got while working there was watching two middle aged women run into the store, grab about fifty of those visa gift cards from the rack, then run out of the store, laughing while they did it.

You have to activate them. They are completely worthless without being activated. I bet they were pretty upset when they realized they had just stolen a load of nothing.

#2

Image source: cff0055, Takashi Sakamoto/unsplash

A few weeks ago I’m getting home from late night classes when this guy jumps out and says “gimmie all your money” or something like that. Problem is, he has no weapon. He wasn’t even a threatening looking dude. I just sorta walked past him back to my dorm. Guy keeps at it til we get near my dorm. He gets in front of the door and demands money. I pick up a rusted pipe that was always near the door and he backs off. Laziest criminal ever.

#3

Image source: CplDevilDog, Amr Taha™/unsplash

In college I worked as a Loss Prevention guy for one of the Big Boxes, you know, sit in a little room and watch cameras to catch shoplifters.

We were having a problem with customer’s wallets being stolen out of the Men’s fitting rooms. The victim would go in, try on a new pair of pants, come out to show his wife and when he went back into the fitting room his wallet would be gone.

So one afternoon I get a call from the sales staff about a fight in the Men’s fitting room. I run down there to find a 6’2″ black guy with a 5’2″ white guy in a headlock. The black guy caught the white guy coming out of his room with his wallet. Turns out the black guy’s “wallet” was his Secret Service badge and credentials.

Ooops.

#4

Image source: ergotoxic, Getty Images/unsplash

Not really a “stupid criminal” more of a “gentleman robber” actually…
I went out at like 2 in the morning to buy cigarettes, tried a few shops but they were all closed. While walking home in sorrow I was accosted by a young man with a knife, who asked quite politely for for all my money… I was a very poor backpacker at the time and the $50 in my pocket was pretty much the last of my money for the month. I showed the guy my empty wallet hoping he would leave it at that but he noticed my bus-pass and decided to take that instead. He then handed me 2 cigarettes and apologised for the “inconvenience” and walked away.

In a state of semi-shock i realised that without my bus-pass i had no way of getting the 5am bus to work and expressed my frustration out loud. The guy came back and asked me what was wrong, after I explained he handed me back my bus-pass and said “we’ve all got to make a living somehow”.

#5

Image source: BigPaul1e, Steven Cordes/unsplash

I worked at a bowling alley in high school. We had a guy climb up into the ceiling in the restroom and wait until we closed, so he could climb down and rob it. Not only did he not get any money (everything was locked up in a gigantic safe from the 1930’s that probably weighed over a thousand pounds), but he couldn’t even get out of the building – all the steel fire doors were padlocked on the outside, and I guess he didn’t want to risk being seen smashing the glass on the front doors, since it was right by a busy road. He did the only logical thing, which was go back to the bar and drink all night – the manager found him passed out on the floor when he opened up in the morning.

#6

Image source: jenniferjp, Chris Henry/unsplash

There were two guys from my high school that robbed a little convenience store. They had ski masks and the robbery went pretty smoothly for them. But they also decided to wear their letterman coats with their names on the back. They were later arrested.

#7

Not my own story, but an acquaintance from years ago…

He was working nights at a gas station/convenience store, and had a group of usual customers who he got to know the comings and goings of. One man in particular was known to pretty much always wear the same clothes and stood out because he only had one eye and, being poor, wore a patch over the non-functioning eye. He came there every night to buy cigarettes, and also rented movies a couple of times per week. So: the store had his name and address.

One night, old acquaintance was working at the station when eye patch man came in, but was wearing a large paper bag on his head.

Employee: Hey man. Here for your usual smokes?
Patch: No, this is a robbery!
Employee: Haha! Good one. (and proceeds to put this guy’s cigarettes on the counter)
Patch: I’m serious! Give me all the money in the drawer!

Eventually, the guy figured out the robbery attempt was real, handed over the money, and then called the police when eye patch man left.

Now, it’s pretty stupid to rob a place where you regularly shop and where they have your name on computer as a video renter, but even more dumb than that:

He only cut one eye hole in the paper bag.

Image source: 1plus1equalsfun

#8

Image source: daffyflyer, Ravi Sharma/unsplash

An Aussie guy I know was out drinking in Canada with another Aussie mate, his mate left early to go back to the flat they were sharing in Vancouver and was accosted in a dark alley by two men with knives.

Being absolutely drunk he failed to pick up on the men’s intent, or their knives and simply pushed them aside saying “Nah sorry mate, I’m Australian” and continued to go home.

The poor fellow later realized that he’d just brushed off two armed muggers by tell them he was Australian and ignoring them..

#9

Image source: remarkable53, Getty Images/unsplash

I work in a car audio store. Guy shows up wanting us to install his amplifier right now. All my installers are busy and tell him ain’t going to happen today. But tomorrow we can. He gets all upset and tells me his “boy” will install it himself all he needs is the wires. I show him our amp kits and he picks one out and pays with a credit card and shows me his ID which is good.

So the next thing i see is this fool grabbing a box with some entry level 12″ woofers and running out the door and throwing the box into his ride and peeling out of our parking lot. The store was pretty crowded and more than a few customers saw what just went down and asked should they chase this guy down?

I couldn’t believe that this idiot just paid with a credit card and I checked his name and ID and it matched so I had all the information I needed to have him arrested. But I said “OH hell no” I just wrote up a ticket and manually punched in the credit card for 3x the amount something like $585.99 instead of $169.96. The charge got approved and was never contested either. I hope he enjoys his speakers.

#10

Image source: jessimore, Getty Images/unsplash

Working as a cashier for a grocery store, a customer came and placed a random assortment of things up at my register. Candy, soda, a couple kids toys and a pre cooked chicken from the deli. She mentioned to me that she was from Oregon and would like the tax removed (we can do that in WA for customers from specific states). To do this, she had to give mer her ID so I could record the info on it before removing the tax from the transaction. After giving her her total she said she would like to pay with a check. She as filling it out as I noticed it was pre signed. I asked her who’s they were and if they were available to come sign the check in front of me. She said they belonged to her mom who was in the car. When she left I saw her get in the passenger seat of a van and leave, so I took down the license plate as they drove off. After this all happened I called my floor manager over and told him what happened. We both shrug and basically say “Weird” leaving it at that. Later that day the loss prevention guy calls me up stairs, which is never normally a good thing. He tells me that I had made a good catch, because two women had been going around town with a stolen book of checks and I was the reason the cops had an ID and a license plate to go after.

TL;DR A lady gave me her ID to prove she deserved a $0.78 discount on goods she intended to pay for with stolen checks. I was summoned to court to tell this story to a judge ಠ_ಠ.

#11

Image source: calus121, JimmyJohnsCS

Over the last 2 years i worked at a jimmy johns, and one day we got robbed. He waited for all the customers stop pouring in, and goes go to the bathroom for about 15 minutes. Was he about to pee himself from excitement? I don’t know but a coworker walked by during this time and heard him loudly talking to himself, which i guess was to get pumped up.

The he finally walks out to a completely empty jj’s, and orders a sandwich… he was clearly nervous and something was up. As soon as the register was open he goes, “I have a knife, give me all your money”.

The girl on the register was a super nice girl so she totally blanked. However, our gm at the time, a fat Mexican guy in his mid 20’s who grew up in a bad neighborhood, just nonchalantly goes “I don’t believe you, show me you’re knife.” The robber starts bickering with our GM, but the GM stays calm and tells him to show it, so he finally takes his knife out and waves it at us.

Now here’s the best part, we all work with knifes and their really sharp but our Mexican, (its an affectionate term) takes this as a challenge and grabs our knife and starts chasing him out the store and down the street. The best part is he’s so short and fat, he’s waddling in an apron as his running yelling “Fight me like a man joto!”.

When the police came the guy was gone but to this day our GM tells that story to every new person we hire.

Ohh and to those of you who don’t believe me, here’s the proof.
Store was in Carol stream, gm’s name was Sebastian.

#12

Image source: corvidcandy, 𝙂𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙤𝙧𝙮 𝙂𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙜𝙤𝙨/unsplash

Dude comes into my store, purchases an item with a hundred dollar bill. I give him his change. He says “that’s not enough change” and reaches across the counter, into the register drawer, to try to grab back the hundred he gave me. So I slam the drawer on his fingers. The end!

#13

I one time (while sitting in my cruiser), witnessed a man walking around a used car lot at night in the middle of winter. It had snowed for a while and was still snowing at the time. Before going to talk to him, I radioed one of my buddies to come meet with me an watch him for a minute. The guy opens one of the car’s doors (which is unlocked) and proceeds to start hotwiring the car. As we start to drive over, he gets the car started, puts it in drive, and floors it. He forgot to wipe the snow off the windshield and drove straight into a light pole about 4 feet in front of the car he stole.

Image source: anon

#14

This actually just happened to me this morning in my cab: Had a really young snobby guy in the taxi, 1st year University at a guess. He was pretty wasted and fairly aggressive. Got to his parents house in a decent area of town and he had no money on him so nipped inside to get some. Back and forward various times still no money, all the time being aggressive. Finally he coughed up just over half the fare. “That’ll have to do for you” he said, “You can call the police if you want but I doubt they would waste their time on chasing up a few extra pounds in a well to do middle class area such as this”. “Go on, toddle off then”, he added, motioning for me to leave. I did. As I drove away he stood triumphantly in his doorway, a broad smile on his face and his middle finger extended proudly in my direction, completely oblivious to the fact that minutes earlier he had handed his iPhone over as collateral.

Image source: EdinburghCabbie

#15

Image source: The_Alaskan, Eduardo Soares/unsplash

This just happened in my town. A man took a car — allegedly, since he hasn’t been convicted — from an auto repair place after bashing apart the after-hours key box.

When police later found the car, they didn’t have far to look. Inside the car was a McDonald’s receipt and a receipt for the liquor store. Police simply went to both stores and got the video footage of the man going through the drive-thru and stopping at the liquor store in the stolen car.

They needn’t have bothered.

Also inside the car was paperwork from the town’s jail with the man’s name on it.

#16

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Well I used to work at a local pizza place. It was a very small operation usually one or two guys working depending on the day and was in a bad area.

so one night me and my manager were closing up and the last customer came in the store, I decided I would ring him up so I walk up to the counter and ask what can I get for ya? the man then proceeds to pull a small black box out of his pocket. he then threatens me to give him all the money and that he is not playing. I stepped back and told my manager what was happening so he calls 911 and the robber grabs the drawer and slams it down on the floor he then grabs $100 in 20’s(leaving the $100 dollar bill) and bolts out of the door so my manager and I go after him and the idiot had parked right out front so we were able to get his license plate with plenty of time and the icing on the cake was he also dropped his black box which happened to be a set of hair clippers.

tl;dr Man attempts robbery with hair clippers , gets caught cause he parked out front.

#17

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A couple of people broke into my storage facility once.
They cut through the fence and was going through units when they realized there was a camera mounted near them pointed right where they were standing.

They panic, cover their faces up, and then decide to get rid of the camera. They climb up on something and start trying to tear the camera down. While doing this, there is nothing covering their faces anymore and they are literally staring into the lens of the camera no more then 3 feet away.

#18

I was with a friend on a bus when a homeless guy tried to mug us with a hammer. During the attempted mugging the head of the hammer fell off, effectively leaving him with a stick. The bus driver then yelled at him to get off the bus which he did, going red from the shame of using the worlds worst hammer.

Image source: Mechasaurusrex2

#19

This isn’t really funny, but this guy was so dumb.

I used to work at a PETCO in Alabama. We had a guy who would compulsively steal things. It was never anything expensive, just toys for his dog, or something like that. One night, about 30 minutes before closing, he comes in with a friend. We know his routine by now: get his friend to distract us while he steals. Anyway, his friend comes up to me to ask something about dog food, when I noticed that the thief went to the bird aisle. So I agree to help him, but I make a discreet page to our manager to let him know what’s going on. Manager goes to find him, and sees him stuffing a bird perch down his pants. I don’t just mean a little one either; this thing was almost 2 feet long and NEON pink. So naturally, my manager calls the cops and he eventually has to pull this ridiculous thing out of his pants.

Image source: fowlkris87

#20

Image source: RuchW, Joseph R. Miners/unsplash

I once foiled a clever plan by an elderly man at the department store I used to work at. He had a blazer with countless hidden pockets and he was filling them with bottles of Oil of Olay moisturizer. The loss prevention guy called me to help corner him. As he was leaving the door, he saw that I was looking at him and started to run. We ran after him and he looked back at us. That’s where he messed up, he tripped over his own feet and fell like a sack of potatoes. Most of the moisturizer bottles exploded and he was lubed neck to knee. He smelled fantastic though.

#21

I used to be a bagger at Kroger when I was 17. As much as I hated the job, I worked there for 6 months. Twice during that time two women had robbed us. They stole carts full of lobster and crab, covering it up with empty carseats with blankets over the top to conceal their stolen stuff. When they were approached by loss prevention the last time, they said they had forgotten their Michigan Bridge Cards. The last idiot actually let them go without checking.

My last week of work, the same two ladies cam in again. Both with carseats and blankets in shopping carts. I was going on my break, so I decided to follow them a bit. We weren’t required to wear company shirts, just to dress all in black. I followed them to the seafood counter, where they were stuffing carts full of lobster. The one lady decides to get bold, and strolls with her cart into our loading area. She spies cartons full of lobster, and helps herself to about three. She comes back out from behind the doors with the cart loaded and the undercarraige packed with boxes. I overhear them saying when they get to the door, “jus RUN girl, I’ll hold em off.” So I hurry back and tell my manager what I had seen and heard.

Five minutes later these women are casually strolling to the front of the store, the chick without the cartons has her “baby” seat in her arms, ditching the cart. I can see the one is getting ready to make a break for it. We have L.P. officers outside and have already alerted the cops. They stroll into the flower section, right by the front doors. I walk up and say, “Oh, I just LOOOOVE babies, can I peek?” and without waiting for a reply, I grab for the blanket. She spins away from me, knocking the carseat into a display by accident, and drops the seat. Everyone sees the lobster packs roll out. People come on the run, thinking I just hurt a kid…until they realize she was stealing.

Meanwhile, the woman with the cart and cartons is running to the doors. I SCREAM at the L.P.O’s that it’s the thief. They shove her cart over before she hits the second set of doors. She hightails it out of there with a carton of lobster in her hands and gets picked up by some dude in a black SUV. We pressed charges on her friend, and the friend goes to jail.

Best part? Those cases of lobster were marked for return in our loading bay because of a recall due to food poisoning. I hope she and all of her other stolen goods buyers got a severe case of it. I like to think they did. The friend later gave up her name during trial, and we got both of them.

Image source: berthejew

#22

So I worked at a restaurant a few years back. I use to work behind the bar every once in awhile.This guy there is buying drink after drink… probably got his tab up to about $65. I remember the guy getting up, figured he was going to the bathroom or something, but he just never came back. About an hour or so after that a busboy found a wallet on the ground right under the seat he was sitting at. I take out the license to see if it was the guy and it was. Saw a credit card in there and charged it… He still hasn’t returned for the wallet.

Image source: champ1258

#23

Pretty late to the party, but maybe one of you Knights of New will see this.

So, I was walking home from a night-shift at work. My workplace is in a ‘seedier’ side of the city. So I was walking down the street, I had my headphones on but they weren’t playing anything at that moment as I had gone to the end of a playlist and couldn’t be arsed to pick something new.

I see a guy standing in a street corner ahead of me, he looks at me and locks his eyes, we were the only ones at the scene. So, as soon as I come up to him, he steps forward and says to me: “Empty your pockets”.

I was pretty scared but as a rash decision I just pointed at my headphones, shrugged a bit and kept walking.

He didn’t follow me.

Image source: anon

#24

We have a pharmacy technician from Vietnam that does not speak English perfectly and has a very thick accent.

One night a guy came in and tried to rob the pharmacy. The man had his hand in his jacket. He told the technician he wanted ‘All the Oxycontin!’ The techician said he had to have a prescription. The robber got irritated and cussed and yelled he wanted the oxycontin pills right now and that this was no joke- he was robbing the store.

The tech somehow not aware continued to explain that oxycontin is scheduled II medication and the tech said he could fax the robbers doctor for a refill request if had a script for it on file.

The would-be robber got so annoyed he walked away.

Image source: anon

#25

This one actually happens a lot, but it happened to me one night several years ago during a graveyard shift.

I was working alone on a Sunday night at a gas station, now this wasn’t a “bad” area but it wasn’t great either so the GM figured that they didn’t need two people watching the store. I disagreed with him, but I digress. I was in the back of the store mopping, doing my best to keep an eye out for people approaching the store so I could run back to the registers before they got inside. Anyway, I’m mopping when a van suddenly pulls up in reverse to the store. Just as I started to put the mop aside, literally no more than two seconds after this, the doors to the back open up and two dudes with sweaters tied around their heads jump out the back. They rush inside the store, yelling, run up to the counter and grab both of the teller machines. They rip out the power cords, run out of the store with their loot and jump into the back of the van. It speeds off and they hit the road. All of this happened in about twenty seconds, and I just stood there and watched it.

What these idiots didn’t realize is that the machines are separate from the cash drawer for this very reason. They effectively made off with zero dollars, but did me a favor because I didn’t have to work for the next two days since the store couldn’t operate until they got the new machines in.

**tl;dr Idiot thieves stole inconsequential registers thinking that they were getting the money in the drawer under the counters with them.**.

Image source: anon