Employee theft investigations require time. Internal theft is unlike the immediacy of watching your high shrink merchandise walk out the door with a shoplifter and subsequent apprehension.

When one observes a dishonest employee taking product or conducting a fraudulent refund on live surveillance, it is only the beginning of the process and one must move forward with patience and caution.

The true exposure or scope of internal theft is most often revealed through detailed exception based and statistical reporting. I have had many conversations regarding the importance and practicality of these reports.

On the one hand, reports should be the road map directing the employee theft investigation from point to point. The investigation may lead to further refunds or pass offs of merchandise. The reports may also indicate if other employees or outside parties are involved in the internal theft.

There really should be no surprises when running these reports if you truly have a pulse on your store and inventory. If employee theft has targeted a specific item, there should be no surprise that this particular item is on a high shrink list.

The employee theft investigation should reiterate the findings of statistical reports like excessive refunds or inventory losses. These reports should indicate specific areas of concern where employee theft likely is the culprit. Sudden spikes in the losses from certain product groups are good examples of this trend.

Reports will ultimately enhance and solidify every employee theft investigation, although the results could well become an example of what came first – the chicken or the egg.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase CCTV Systems that can help you stop employee theft and internal theft problems and help with your employee theft investigation.

For more information about employee theft, employee theft investigation and internal theft please contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 – Atlanta Georgia.

One of the more complicated employee theft incidents I investigated was tricky because I could find no clear-cut explanation that made sense to the associate in order to explain the fact that they were indeed stealing.

Ordinarily when I conduct the interview for employee theft, the employee being questioned is aware of their wrongdoing. They may attempt to justify, or deny, or blame someone else, but in their conscience, the employee knows what they are doing is wrong.

This particular store had a cosmetics department with testers for eye shadow, lipsticks, and of course, perfume at the different manufacturer’s counters. It wasn’t uncommon to see an employee occasionally walk by and give a little spritz as they walked to their selling department.

Sometimes an employee would try a new shade of lipstick on a break. The employees were respectful for the most part and often purchased the items they tested. We stayed out of the way because this was no different from how we would treat a customer doing the same thing.

An employee came fuming to me one day because another employee made a habit of applying their full makeup every day from the testers. This employee would then take the lipsticks and eyeliners with them.

It was a hard sell when I talked to this employee because the makeup had no actual retail value. I explained moderation, I explained respect for other associates, and I explained employee theft and company property. Nothing resonated with this employee.

While this employee is no longer employed with the store, I think she still wants to believe that it is OK to take something that doesn’t belong to her, as long as it doesn’t have a price tag.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase CCTV Systems that will help end employee theft and internal theft challenges and also help with employee theft investigation.

For more information about employee theft, employee theft investigation and internal theft please contact us or call 1.770.426.0547 – Atlanta Georgia.

Not every store had a good CCTV camera system in place when I started working in Loss Prevention many years ago. One store in particular had what I call the “Frankenstein System”. Our new service vendor would not work on it because of how patched together it was from so many different systems.

To their extreme misfortune, this store firmly believed that an eyewitness account was far superior to anything, including a good CCTV camera system. They believed that no one can contest an eyewitness account because there is no evidence to the contrary.

They were absolutely right for some situations. Unfortunately that leaves room for error in other situations as I quickly discovered upon concluding one of my earliest memories of an employee theft investigation.

My store was beginning to recognize what they had been missing – literally – $54,000 admitted dollars later. They were missing not only live instances of theft without a usable CCTV system; they also had absolutely no way to review and determine the scope of where a proper employee theft investigation would take them in the discovery and verification of internal theft.

They had been relying on eye witness accounts for employee theft apprehension. What they failed to realize was – the employer can potentially seek restitution if an employee theft investigation produces previous instances of theft.  Unfortunately in this instance, the only way to produce that information is with a comprehensive CCTV system that not only allows you to see the live action, but also a recordable set up as well.

I recommend a digital system. A digital system provides larger storage capacity, longer retention, clearer recordings, and no one has to remember to change out each day’s VHS tape.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase CCTV Systems that help eliminate employee theft and internal theft problems as well as facilitate employee theft investigation.

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