An Honest Mistake or a Dishonest Associate – Atlanta Georgia

In any employee theft investigation there is an important question that should be answered quickly.  Is this a case of an associate making an honest mistake?  I have found that associates that make honest mistakes will not develop a pattern of errors that become harder to explain the longer the employee theft investigation continues.  The purpose of the employee theft investigation is to uncover the truth about observed suspicious behavior or suspicious transaction based on exception reporting.

The reason it is necessary to conduct a thorough investigation is due to the tremendous amount of employee theft that has been committed and was caught far too late.  In the retail industries that I have worked in, employee theft accounted for more than half of all the losses the companies incurred.  The reason for such high losses is because of the time employee theft may go unseen.  Companies can be taken for thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, if employee theft is not disposed of quickly.

While working as a loss prevention manager, I remember when an internal theft case was discovered at one of the store’s distribution centers.  The internal theft case found that there was a pattern of receiving shortages occurring in several districts, all being serviced by this specific distribution center.  The investigation found that the distribution center associates were working with store receiving associates and stealing thousands in merchandise.  The receiving associates would always say that there was just an honest mistake when they unloaded the truck and that the merchandise did arrive at the store.  Thanks to the smart efforts of several loss prevention professionals and corporate loss prevention the case was solved.  This internal theft case included multiple associates in multiple locations.  The theft that was being done could have continued for a long time, if there were not quick and concise actions by the Loss Prevention Department.

For more information on employee theft , employee theft investigation or internal contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 – Atlanta Georgia