Something we did at my store that i highly recommend looking into doing in others if possible:

Velcro down your tip jar.

It sounds silly, but hear me out--

- if your tip jars are like ours and they are just those little clear plastic cubes, people can see if they are secured down or not. It doesn't necessarily stop them from reaching in and grabbing the money, but it does make it harder. For some people, that's all they need to be discouraged from doing so.

- if you DO have someone brazen or desperate enough to take your jar, you'll hear it be ripped off the counter. And sometimes, you may have a customer hear it too and they may step in to help retrieve it. We've had that happen at my store before. Those customers are some of my favorite regulars too!

- also, for some people it's more about the time needed to dip in and dip out. If it takes even a second more than it would if it were free standing, that extra second may give you an opportunity to get it back.

On top of that, i usually stay on top of whether or not we get any paper money. That immediately goes into a tip bag behind the counter.
Good luck to you!!!

Sorry that happened. I worked at a high-incident location so I know how it feels. The best way to prevent it is to occasionally empty the tip jar into a tip drop bag and keep it behind the counter or on the shelf below the registers.

I drop tips once the container is about 50% full. I work at a mall and other businesses here have had their tips stolen. Remember that your SSV will not get in trouble for making multiple drops per day. If you see it getting kinda full suggest making a drop or swap the container out for another one and put that full container behind the POS in plain view of other employees. Your coworkers will thank you.

This happens at least once a week in my store, sadly. We’re a corporate location in the middle of a wealthy neighborhood and we’re high incident. It makes me so mad to see people literally taking our money.

If we had more hours it wouldn’t be so bad ***

I couldn’t help but cry with laughter because I swear what makes people that tempted to take something ? They use to put the tip jars outside of the windows like commons sense , someone will still it

Maybe get a jar and cut a slit in the lid, then secure the jar to the counter somehow? 🥺

Sadly we’ve had this happen several times.