Shoplifting; A Social Problem With No Clear Answers

Research for many years now, have found that the  best way to prevent shoplifting is through customer service. If people are greeted by the store personnel as they enter the store, they are less likely to shoplift.  The retail industry’s billions of dollars lost every year due to shoplifting and employee theft, are a social problem that they have no answer to, and regardless of how much they invest in technology, the problem seems to be getting worse not better.

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Bamboozled: The job that could get you arrested

Mystery shopping gigs are real, but they’re also a common job title you’ll see when a scammer is looking for a victim.

And now, fraudsters are giving this job scam a new twist. One that could land you in jail.

But first, the real thing.

Retailers will hire “mystery shoppers” to visit their businesses — unbeknownst to the employees — for an objective look at the shopping experience. The mystery shopper will be instructed to look at specific things about a business, and then go back to the company to report his or her experiences.

Mystery shoppers are typically paid a fee for their time, and they’re also reimbursed for items that are purchased during a store visit. These amounts are often pre-approved by the company that hires the shopper.

The fakes work differently.

Crimes at Jacksonville’s big box stores last year cost taxpayers $75K

Most calls at Walmart deal with shoplifting.

ACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Police officers in Jacksonville spent 3,533 hours — the equivalent of 147 days – responding to petty crimes at Walmart stores in Jacksonville last year, I-TEAM research found.

Officers spent another 667 hours working shoplifting and other minor calls at Target stores in the city.

An analysis of data from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office found 5,298 police calls to the 15 Walmart stores in Jacksonville in 2015 – five times the number of calls to the eight Target stores in the city.

The Walmart on Normandy Boulevard had the most calls: 864. Shoplifting made up half of those calls, followed by thefts, then disputes.

Police Cars Parked Along Admiral Wilson Boulevard In Effort To Prevent Crime

CAMDEN, N.J. (CBS) — For weeks, marked police cars have been stationed at businesses along Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Camden.

Two police cars have been parked around the clock at gas stations along Admiral Wilson Boulevard. Generally, there are no officers in the cars. Camden County Police Chief Scott Thomson says it’s designed to deter crime from robberies to shoplifting to graffiti.

“It’s a reminder to those that may be up to no good — whatever it may be on that spectrum of illegal activity — that we’re nearby, and that we’re watching at all times,” he said.

Thomson says the cars are part of a wider bid to work withbusiness owners to address blight and dilapidated properties in neighborhoods.

“We were seeing an increase in the amount of graffiti, trash, broken-down cars, boards falling off of abandoned buildings,” the chief said. “And considering the fact that 80,000 cars a day travel along that route — I don’t want that to negatively define our city.”