Keeping Honest Employees Honest.

Employee theft happens in many different forms. Most of the time we think of blatant merchandise or cash theft as the most prominent issue. One method that is often overlooked yet yields the potential for serious losses are refund fraud.

I worked an employee theft investigation where the culprit was an employee who worked at the refund desk. I noticed several of the same high dollar drill was missing from the store. I ran a report and noticed three of them were refunded in the same day. Suspicious? Very much so.

I reviewed the transactions on our CCTV system and saw the associate ring a refund without any merchandise present for the same customer in three separate transactions. Well now I know where that loss went! Because there wasn’t any actual product being returned, our inventory was now short the three drills.

While continuing the employee theft investigation, I noticed that this scenario happened several times with several different items. This case of employee theft quickly had reached the thousands of dollars mark.

Once the employee theft investigation had been concluded, we spoke to the employee. She stated that it was easy for her to do because no one ever looked at her returns. This was against our company’s policy to prevent employee theft. All high dollar returns were to be verified by a manager. Due diligence would have prevented these losses from occurring.

Most companies have policies in place for a reason. If they don’t have a policy, make one. Watchful eyes are the best way to keep employees honest. Don’t give them the opportunity, and they will be less likely to try to cheat the systems you have in place.

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