"How can we steal a man's shirt while convincing him he only lost it[1] instead?"
If there's only so many shirts to go around, and they have to come from someone else, maybe we just load a bag full of rocks, lie and tell people it's full of their laundry, and then leave the laundromat before they notice. When they do notice, they will blame themselves. "Why oh why," they lament, "did I not immediately recognize it was a bag of rocks all along!"