Employee Theft: Why do they do it? – Atlanta Georgia

It is interesting to try and figure out all the ways employees commit internal theft at their place of work.  Internal theft is rampant in retail organizations.  In one year working as a loss prevention manager I can remember closing four internal theft cases for about $5900.00 within three weeks of accepting a job at a major retailer.

These cases involved four associates who committed internal theft for no other reason than, it was easy.  The associates were stealing in so many ways; it was hard to conduct an investigation as I would have to constantly leave the office to follow the associates.  The employee theft investigation showed that the associates were having cash shortages on their registers.  The associates were also showing up on the exception reports for having lower than average transaction totals and higher than average refund totals.  The employee theft investigation involved and in depth look at the associates registers operations over the past six months.

Once the employee theft investigation was completed, it appeared the associates had given away merchandise, taken cash from the register, switched tickets on merchandise they purchased and conducted fraudulent refunds.  After seeing the extent of the employee theft, I decided to have another loss prevention manager come in and conduct the interviews with me.

During the interview the associates were made aware that they had been the subject of an employee theft investigation and that the investigation found conclusive evidence of employee theft.  The associates were asked to explain the reasons why they committed the employee theft and they responded, because it was easy.  Given the extent of the employee theft, we concluded that the confessed amount was probably about $50000.00 less than what they actually took from the store.  These cases had involved

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