A Store Manager Is Accusing Me Of Shoplifting

So the title is pretty self explanatory. I wasn’t shoplifting though. I wasn’t even trying to leave the store at that point.

I overestimated how much my groceries would be so as I checked out, I placed the items I didn’t need to the side in their own pile, and paid for and bagged the items I wanted to keep. As I was in this process, I was quickly surrounded by female employees telling me I was stealing. I tried to explain to them what I was doing but they were having none of it, so I told them I wanted my money refunded and I would go elsewhere. I helped them empty the bags of merchandise I had paid for while I waited on my refund and placed the bags neatly to the side.

Another manager gets in my face and says “we’ve already found items in your bags that didn’t belong to you.” I said “no, you didn’t. All the bags were empty.” And she snapped at me and said “well we have it all on camera!” I told her that was fine and that she should probably review it before accusing me. Then I left.

Later, someone who apparently witnessed this ordeal posted about the incident on a county community page. They were searching for me as they saw what happened and felt bad because I was carrying my screaming baby while these people grilled me over nothing. The person who posted it wanted to send me some money for groceries since I left without any and they saw the entire thing happen.

On that post, the employees from the store created burner Facebook accounts and posed as other customers there that night. They accused the OP of being me and they took a photo of OP’s daughter from her profile and tried to claim I was the one who wrote the post looking for sympathy and attention from the community because the daughter has the same hair color as me. They claimed that the daughter and I were identical. They then proceeded to accuse me on that post of stealing things that were never even in my cart to begin with. Saying things like to the OP like “you’re lucky we didn’t call the police” and “the employees checked the cameras before they approached you” and “they felt sorry for you because you had a child so we let you go.” Mind you, if they were a customer standing nearby, how would they know any of that?

This whole thing has been exhausting and I’m worried my reputation is at risk due to these false accusations. I am not sure what my options are from here. They did not ask me for a receipt, they didn’t ask me if a planned to purchase the items off to the side. They simply approached, cornered me, and accused me of stealing right off the bat. Not one single item of merchandise had left the store yet, nor had I attempted to leave with any items. I was in the middle of bagging. This is a large global franchise.

Thanks!

Location: NC