Alpha High Theft

Shoplifting, Employee and Vendor Theft: Is There A Solution?

Employee theft, shoplifting, and vendor theft are problems that the retail industry faces every single day without a clear solution. The billions of dollars lost to these crimes is a constant problem for retailers, and the losses have to be accounted for someplace else, and they need to make them up somehow to minimize their losses. The amount of sales retailers need to cover any losses is significant and not easy to do. Is preventing the loss the first step to stop the crime? Read more about this topic by clicking the links below.

Wage Theft and Shoplifting: Same Cost, Different Deterrents

A massive force is deployed against one, but not the other. (Guess which.)

ach year, shoplifters steal roughly $14.7 billion worth of goods from stores. (So says the Retail Theft Barometer.) Each year, employers steal roughly $15 billion from their workers by paying them less than the minimum wage, according to data from the Economic Policy Institute.

The treatment of these two kinds of crime, however, are completely different.

Many more resources go into trying to deter, detect, and punish the guy trying to pinch a video game system off the shelf at the local big-box store than into the grand theft the store itself may be perpetrating against its own employees—even if the retailer is taking millions of dollars from workers’ paychecks. It’s one more way that the economic crimes of the powerful are treated far less seriously than the transgressions of those with less power.

Task force teaches businesses how to thwart fraud, theft

The enormous number of ways criminals can defraud shoppers and business owners requires increasing awareness about how to combat their efforts, Greenwich police detective and state financial crimes task force member Mark Solomon told attendees of a Monday panel on how to combat identity theft and retail fraud.

“It’s a constant cat-and-mouse game — there’s always a vulnerability criminals will learn to exploit,” Solomon said during his presentation. “It’s not if (criminals) do have our information, but how many times over they have it.”

Due to its wealth and slowness to adopt more secure credit card technology, the United States has become a prime target for cybercrime and fraud, according to Solomon and his co-presenter Christopher Riley, resident agent in charge of the U.S. Secret Service’s Connecticut financial crimes task force.

Employee retail theft soars says new report

When it comes to insider theft and employee dishonesty, the news is not good for the nation’s retailers. At least that is what Mark Doyle, president of Jack L. Hayes International, one of the leading loss prevention and inventory shrink control consulting firms in the world, confides as the group announced the results from their 29^th Annual Retail Theft Survey this week.

The 23 large retailers who were surveyed comprise 16,038 stores across the country with over $370 billion in sales in 2016 and they reported 438,000 incidents of shoplifting and employee theft where suspects were apprehended. A staggering $120 million was recovered by retailers from these thieves.

“The five-year trend shows a continued increase in employee theft in both apprehensions and recovery dollars. This past year is the first decline, which was very minimal, in both shoplifting apprehensions and recovery dollars. In four of the past five years both shoplifting and employee theft apprehensions and recovery dollars have increased, and in many cases, this is with a reduced loss prevention/asset protection staff. The losses are real and the theft problem is only getting worst,” says Doyle.

Alpha High Theft Solutions Blending With The Checkpoint Label

As many of you know Alpha High Theft Solutions was acquired by Checkpoint Systems many years ago. Checkpoint has encouraged Alpha’s brand growth and innovation. Alpha has produced the best high theft solutions, hands down in the industry. Innovations like Spider Wrap, Keepers, Bottle Locks, Cable Locks, Shark Tags, specialized hard tags literally protect billions of retail products worldwide.

As the largest nationwide Checkpoint Dealer we have watched and even helped with the research and development of some of these products.

It comes as no surprise to Loss Prevention Systems and many of you, that the Alpha High Theft Solutions name is being blended into Checkpoint High Theft Solutions. From the inside, the accounting and management functions have been the same for some time. But this has been accomplished slowly and carefully over time. The Alpha DNA is still there, stronger than ever.

When we at Loss Prevention Systems met recently with Checkpoint High Theft Solutions, we clearly saw the Alpha DNA. In fact to us it seems that it is even stronger than ever. We were shown new products, some we cannot discuss yet, as they are still in development with R&D and will be real game changers. The scientists and product specialists at Checkpoint overwhelmed us with the new items they are working on.

These are concepts that are becoming reality other companies have never even thought of. The application of science is, well, amazing. As soon as they give us the green light we will begin rolling them out to you. Maybe even a few lucky LPSI Retailers will get to test and evaluate some of these new game changers.

Checkpoint has evolved into inventory control solutions not just shoplifting electronic article surveillance solutions. When we couple that with Loss Prevention Systems actual loss prevention experience in both the shoplifting and employee theft arenas, you have a powerful partner to help you achieve the profitability you want and deserve. Our real world live training is included on every system we sell, as often as you need it, for the life of your Checkpoint System, FREE of charge.

Loss Prevention Systems includes even more. We are there to help protect you from the bad guys. Shoplifters, employee theft, robbery, burglary, pre-employment investigations, pre-employment interviewing, vendor fraud are threats to your very livelihood. We have personally dealt with all of these for large and small companies alike. A single store owner can have the same loss prevention programs that the big box stores have with Loss Prevention Systems and Checkpoint Systems High Theft solutions.

But rest assured the Alpha brand is alive and well and living in Checkpoint High Theft Solutions. It courses through everything we do and stand ready to help you with. There are exciting times ahead for retail loss prevention and security so stay tuned for more information.

And remember that if you hate shoplifters and theft as much as we at Loss Prevention Systems, please share this with your retail friends.