I have a friend who works for Nordstorm doing this kind of work. She claimed the bigger problem financially is employees in retail, i.e. stealing clothes in large scale to be sold on eBay.
But even then, it was common knowledge that most "shrinkage" (generic term for stolen/damaged/expired/destroyed merchandise) was from employee theft (except in grocery stores... there it is second to expired goods).
And of course, while working at Kohl's, you had people occasionally put items away in the back, tucked behind shelves, so that when they went on ultra-clearance they could pull them out and buy them.
About a week later, loss prevention called me in and asked me a ton of questions about the luggage and how it came to be behind the shelves. It was before I worked there so I had no idea. The whole thing seemed weird to me at the time. Now it makes sense. Wild.
If you find something wedged behind a shelf it's sometimes a customer just putting something back where it doesn't belong, other times it's the long-con.
Some stores won't clearance below a certain point because of this; they'd rather ship pallets off at 20% "loss" to an outlet broker than enable clearance shrinkage.
The next day, security called him in to the office, which freaked him out a little, of course. They asked him why he had bought that vacuum cleaner. He said I'd asked for it. They then all laughed, and told him that it was a commonly stolen model and they were using it as a honey pot. When he walked over and took it off the shelf, they were concerned. When he then went up to the front and bought it, they were confused. They said now they understood. It was always the dad causing problems. And they sent him back to work.
What could possibly be confusing about a person doing what most normal people do in a store?
Often employees with talk about the other crimes they committed while being interrogated. He just plays along, ".. yes we had that too ... and that too". Give them enough evidence and they will hang themselves.
The hardest to catch are the slight of hand employees that can take money from the safe while it looking like they put all the money in. This is even with cameras watching the safe.
“Take a seat, the door is unlocked and you can leave at any time.”
Why wouldn't everyone just leave at that point? That's what I'd do, since if I'm being investigated, then my job there is over anyway regardless of my guilt or innocence. I'd have nothing to gain by volunteering to be interrogated.
most people will comply esp. if slightly distracted or thrown off a little; the serious hoodrats would be picking a fight or pushing back and the pros would already be walking out the back door ASAP
Loss prevention isn't like the cops, they actually want to catch the thief because if they don't, the thief continues to operate. Cops just need someone to pin it on. Crime continues regardless of whether or not someone was wrongly convicted so what does it matter that one guy got away as long as the public thinks you're doing a good job? LP looks bad if theft continues, no one is applauding them for doing their job.
I can see that. I think they're misguided, but I can understand the impulse.
> Loss prevention isn't like the cops, they actually want to catch the thief because if they don't, the thief continues to operate.
I'm deeply skeptical. Probably because of my own experience with this. When I was a teen, I was wrongly accused of stealing in the workplace, was subjected to interrogation, declared guilty and fired. I wanted to clear my name so badly that I went to the trouble of taking a lie detector test and sending them the result.
I learned to never cooperate if I'm ever in that situation again. There's no point. Just quit and move on with your life.
I've read about this in Vegas, where there are people who can palm the the chips so quickly that they weren't able to discern it on 30fps cameras (they had upgraded to 120fps, I think). Didn't know if it was the sort of bullshit people like that like to tell stories about without any evidence or not.
People will get mad because they visually saw someone steal a tube of toothpaste, but not care about other forms of mass-theft because it's not on YouTube.
You can either go to costco which is always mobbed, or if you make the mistake of going to Target, you will have to repeatedly get someone to unlock cabinets which hold laundry detergent, deodorant, toothpaste, etc.
I don't know why you're continuing to absolve the well-capitalized corporation of responsibility for their choice of dumping externalities on legitimate customers, except as part of some gish gallop of reactionary talking points that lash out with blame for everyone but those directly responsible for the frustrating conditions.
Yes, indeed. I don't understand why you're not blaming the criminals and the incompetent government enabling them, rather than merchants with thin margins. Or us, for not being enthused about paying for the thieves.
Meanwhile, a large store full of goods manned by a skeleton crew, which doesn't even hire a single person to chase down thieves, seems like quite the attractive nuisance. Why is it governments job to subsidize the security of this store's stuff through the threat of expensive post-facto enforcement against a bunch of judgement-proof perpetrators? Why do you keep absolving the well-capitalized corporation of responsibility and even agency ?
Because it’s literally the excuse for taxation?
Would you personally support cities levying higher sales taxes on in-store purchases at large stores that forgo traditional security guards (let's imagine matching the state rate, so effectively a doubling) to pay for the resulting costs of those stores not preemptively securing their merchandise?
https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/police-sfpd-san-fr...
We're now at the point where Geico doesn't even ask you to cosplay working government by filing a police report. Because everyone knows that nothing will happen.
One of Kanye's early songs he mentions stealing kakis from his job before he quit to become an artist. Not surprised, if you're an employee you have access to all sorts of things a customer does not. I imagine you also have access to areas where there are no cameras.
Criminally minded employees are good for the bottom line in finance.
The firms in question will filter accordingly.
Having owned a liquor store for a while, it's not paranoia. The majority of the people you can get to work low end retail jobs will try to rip you off in any way they can.
or so the saying goes
What was done all the time was a simple, templated, paper-based process that managers went through each month. I believe the gist of it was that it recorded sales for each shift in the month (7am-3pm, 3-11, 11-7), and who worked them. Some simple stats highlighted low sales correlated with employees, to point out who was likely entering smaller prices in the till and pocketing the difference. Now it's all bar-code scans of course, but it was a common problem at the time.
back when bookstores were a thing most places I used to work in one, and had a manager watch us, the entire time, as we took romance novels we couldn't sell out back and ripped off the covers before tossing them in a ship-back bin. Ditto for a few others like best sellers and some mags
she took two us out back to do it, leaving only one person on the floor to run the checkout -- field day for any serious thief. but they were more worried about us...