EAS tags can help indicate a problem and let you know if the tags aren’t being deactivated at the register. Tags can fail to deactivate for one of two reasons: theft or malfunctioning deactivator. Too often, store owners and managers give the benefit of the doubt when EAS pedestals go off at the door and fail to realize that employee theft is a rapidly growing problem!
About two years ago, I was working in one of my stores and I began to notice something strange. Every time a certain employee left, the alarm at the door would go off. This employee had been with the company for over 20 years, had pictures of her grandchildren hanging in her locker and had been given numerous awards. No one would have ever suspected her of stealing. To be honest, if I hadn’t seen the alarms go off every time she left, even I wouldn’t have thought of her as a potential thief. She was the grandma everyone loved to chat with and laugh with.
I started to investigate her by reviewing her shift logs and watching the cameras every time she left the store after her shift. Even though there was no sound on the camera, I watched to see if the EAS pedestals were lighting up every time she left for the night and sure enough, they were. Determined to get to the bottom of this, I started by reviewing as far back as the cameras would go and watching this employee during her entire shift.
Much to my dismay, I found out that she was stealing things nearly every shift. She always carried a large purse and periodically through her shift she would hide Crest strips, Tide, frozen pizzas, batteries and other grocery items. She would carefully store them in the back stock rooms or under her cash register. As soon as she thought no one was watching, she would stuff the items into her purse. I was surprised that she would steal at a cash register, surely she knew there was a camera there! After watching her for a while, I realized that she was so used to stealing and hadn’t ever been caught that she didn’t care about the cameras. I continued to document each theft, making a list of the items I could identify on camera. My tally for the month (our CCTV only went back a month) was: nearly $1000 worth of merchandise that had been stolen, including: 2 bottles of Tide, 3 bottles of wine, 14 DVDs, an entire carton of cigarettes, 2 boxes of dish detergent, frozen pizzas (I lost count of how many), 11 packages of cosmetics and many, many other things.
To say I was stunned was an understatement. Even my manager, when I took him this information, immediately thought that there was some mistake. He was very hesitant to cast doubt on such a dedicated employee who had been with the company so long. I showed him the evidence and he reluctantly allowed me to interview her. I arrived the next day for the interview and found that the room was crammed full of HR personnel and store management. I wasn’t the only one in shock about these allegations. The store manager called the employee in and I began the interview. At first she denied everything, saying that there had to be some mistake. She kept asserting that she was a long time employee and would NEVER do such a thing. Finally, I showed her the camera footage and she admitted to the thefts. I asked her how long this had been going on and she said she started stealing approximately 2 years ago. If she had stolen $1000 in the month we had on CCTV, then over two years of stealing she had taken an average of nearly $24000 of merchandise from the store! I asked the employee why she had been stealing and she said that she was looking for a little excitement in her life and got a “high” from stealing. She also stated that her grandchildren liked the things she brought home so some of it was for them. I got a written statement from her, suspended her and turned all of the evidence over to the police.
EAS tags can help pinpoint potential criminal activity. Even if you think someone would never steal, EAS pedestals don’t discriminate and will alarm on any stolen merchandise that has an active EAS tag. Sadly, this situation taught me never to trust anyone no matter how honest they appear. Loss prevention tools don’t lie.
“For more information on EAS TAGS, contact us or call 1.770.426.0547”
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