Coupons and Internal Theft

By now we have all heard of extreme couponing. It is where consumers go into a store with binders full of coupons and try to get out of the register by paying little to no money at all for items.

Overall, it’s really not a bad idea. Everyone wants to save a buck, and manufacturers are making it easier than ever before to get coupons. You can find them in newspapers, on line and off of social media sites. Who would think that it could ever lead to an employee theft investigation?

The key to proper couponing is to know your companies policies and to read the coupon’s restrictions. If a coupon says it can only be used for one item, employees shouldn’t take four coupons for that one item. If it says the customer has to buy two items, do the math, they must buy two.

In a recent employee theft investigation my employees were taking it a step further. They would take a coupon for an item with a big dollar off. They would then buy that item. Actually, what they did, was to buy a trial size of that item, which was against the coupons restrictions. Hence becoming internal theft.

They would then cash out the difference for the dollar amount, thus making money. A few ways this was costing us:

1. Coupons do not have a value. No one should make money off of it.
2. Because the coupon was used incorrectly, the vendors were not paying us back for the coupon.
3. The shelves were now empty of these items. Causing customer complaints and a lack of sales.

Long story short, coupons- good. Employee theft– bad.

Take some time to make sure your employees are aware of the correct and incorrect coupon policies. Or else you might end up with some employee theft. You might just save yourself the trouble of an employee theft investigation.

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