Oh sure, this happens plenty. But I know I didn't steal anything, so I keep walking with my head held high. I don't slow down, I don't speed up, I just keep going.

If they want to chase after me and check my bags, that's fine. But if they aren't good at checking their tags, then I'm not going to pause and wait for someone to give me the go-ahead.

And I think it's like car alarms, no one really pays attention or assumes anything except that it's a false alarm! ;P

Yes I set off an alarm after purchasing something...

And yes they assumed I had stolen something (what were they supposed to think)...

And so I went back and they rescanned what I had until they found the item that they had forgotten to deactivate, whereupon they deactivated it and apologized.

It was no big deal.

I set off the alarms all the time at Student Stores here. I have no idea why. Maybe it's something about my clothes, or my bag, or the textbooks in my bag (which were purchased months ago, mind you, not stolen at all.) I don't know what's causing it, but it's very loud.

Most of the time, I just walk right through. Sometimes I'll explain what's happening to the people who work there, but by now, I think they all know that the alarms are oversensitive and that I don't steal things. Most of the other people who shop there think the same thing too.

If the alarm goes off in a store where people aren't so familiar with me, and where the alarm system works better, I will stop and explain myself. It's happened once or twice, and most of the time, people have been pretty understanding.

I guess I'm a bit of a different case - I stole when i was quite young (early teens) after I fell in with a bad crowd, had several close calls, and was eventually arrested along with 3 of my friends stealing makeup from a grocery store. It was never anything major, just candy or lip gloss from Wal-mart sort of thing.. definitely a peer pressure situation at first, which eventually got out of hand and I grew an addiction. I was actually put into a rehab program in exchange for charges, and haven't stolen since even though the urge is still there. It's hard not to think about stealing when the opportunity is there, but I haven't followed through with it since rehab.

Being that way, I still get extremely paranoid at times. I'm only 20, so I'm still near the target age group for employees keeping an eye on customers. Carrying something to the register is enough to make me get nervous. I worry about carrying things a certain way so it's very obvious I have it. It doesn't always happen, but I go through stages when I can't go in a store without almost having a panic attack. One of the worst times was carrying a tiny little 30 dollar eyeshadow to the register. All I could think of was how easy it would be and how much money I would save, and I ended up basically holding it in the palm of my hand with my sleeves rolled up, just to avoid any accusations.
When alarms go off, even though I know I haven't stolen things, I get VERY nervous. Again, I don't keep walking because I don't want to get followed or something.. I want to avoid accusations. I go straight to the nearest cash register. Then I worry as to, well, did something maybe get stuck to my clothing? Or fell into my bag? I know it's highly unlikely, but it's just a thought that goes into my head. I have a huge fear of getting caught for "stealing" something unintentionally. It's worse on the occasions they don't find anything, because then I really start to worry.. did I accidentally take something? Then I start checking things like whether the sunglasses I tried on are still on my face.
It doesn't help that I'm a developer so my laptop comes almost everywhere with me and often sets off alarms.
I always feel people assume I'm stealing, even when I'm not, just because of my paranoia.
I know, horrible idea, and it was a mistake, but it's long over now :)

Yes, this has happened to me several times, and it's so frustrating. I especially hate when they start looking through all your bags and checking your receipt. And everyone is staring at you. It makes me really mad because I've spent a good deal of money at the store, and now I'm being treated like a petty thief. I understand that they're trying to deter shoplifters, but it's still not fair to those of us who didn't steal anything, but yet we're being treated like we did because of the store's faulty equipment or untrained staff.

Yes I have had that happen to me and I just go bright red and get my recipet out straight away as the securoty rush to you straight away as if you are a crook, I think they could have a little more tack as its not very nice when this happens and the cashier has not done there job right, all i can say is get your eecipet out and say something like oh this always happens to me and giggle as you know you have paid for your goods and its the stores fault.

Some of the alarms are very sensative and on the up side it is good for those that do steal from tax ayers.

Yes. It's happened to me quite a few times. One time it was a MAC cosmetics store in a mall, and what happened is a woman walked out past me and she had stolen something. It went off, and Im the one who got searched. ugh.