There is a growing trend among many small businesses and low volume stores that is a “little” concerning. It is the theft of small cash wrap items caused by employee theft.

As an investigator, I am usually tasked with an employee theft investigation only when large or repetitive cash shortages or merchandise discrepancies appear. It is not very common to look at small dollar internal theft cases.

What we are seeing, though, is that many employees are taking small items at the register such as a pack of gum or a candy bar. Sometimes it might be a drink from the store’s coolers. Often, the employee simply forgets to have someone ring those purchases because they were distracted after taking the item.

Most of these employees are cashiers, so they are close to these items throughout the course of their normal shift. They take the items while they are on the clock, which is why they get distracted easily when a customer comes up to pay, or the manager is busy elsewhere in the store.

It might only happen once, or it might be a few times before this employee realizes that no one caught his or her mistake. No one noticed that the pack of gum or soda was never paid for. It is in that moment that the employee will continue to take those items because they know that no one is watching.

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

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.

Back in my early days of management, I had a significant cash shortage. In fact, it was most of the day’s cash sales. This was well before I knew anything about employee theft, much less conducting an employee theft investigation.

I had worked the morning shift, and my closing manager called me when she counted down the till for the night. We were several hundred dollars short and she couldn’t figure out why.

I told her to count one more time, and to go ahead and finish closing. I would look at it when I got in the next morning. Sure enough, there was a shortage. I called my district manger to let him know, but he didn’t have any other advice or input to resolve the shortage. I didn’t think much of it until a few weeks later.

It was my turn to close and when I cashed out the drawer, it was again several hundred short. There were no cameras, but I knew it was a problem and that this was probably one of my employees stealing.

I called my district manager again. This time, he started to go over some basic procedures that we were not currently using. One of them was a sign-on and off for our registers. We let one person sign on and then everyone used their log in to ring sales for the rest of the day.

After we started using the sign-on and logging off after we were done, the issues stopped. Months later, I had an employee tell me that he had seen the old assistant manager come into the store and go behind the counter when no one was around. We suspected then that he had been coming behind the counter and opening the drawer while no one was looking because we never logged off the register.

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

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.

It is almost always assumed that a person was caught stealing money or sneaking unpaid goods out of the store when people learn that a coworker is discharged for theft.  However, employee theft assumes many forms and does not only refer to an associate taking merchandise or cash from the register.

In fact, one of the most prevalent ways that a staff member causes loss to their employer is often not viewed as internal theft by most associates. Instead, they assume it is a policy violation addressed by Human Resources. This often overlooked form of shrinkage is known as discount abuse.

Although most corporations and employers outline their policies for newly hired associates, employees often fail to remember the rules they are expected to keep. They may have been advised that sharing their discount with unauthorized family members and friends is considered to be employee theft; however, chances are this won’t be a fact most employees concern themselves with unless they work in loss prevention.

On the other hand, they may just assume they won’t get caught. While employed in retail loss prevention, an associate’s brother approached her as she was talking to my boss and me. He handed her a pair of shoes he had picked out with the money to purchase them while we all standing right there!  Needless to say, I don’t think she ever forgot our company’s policy after that encounter.

This form of internal theft has the potential of costing employers serious losses of profit if left unattended. Although discount abuse cases are not as interesting to investigate as a merchandise theft situation, it can be a huge source of loss for the company and requires education, frequent reminders, and monitoring.

This can be a gray area for many employees created by lack of thought or awareness; however this policy needs to be repeatedly conveyed to employees and monitored as well. I’ve been asked frequently by family members and friends to share the benefit of working for a clothing retailer with them.

None of them have been pleased and some are surprised when I inform them that I cannot share the perks because this would actually initiate an employee theft investigation that I am expected to conclude if one of my coworkers is thought to be guilty of such acts.

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

Often the case can appear complex or even inconclusive regarding the subject’s guilt or innocence when initiating the typical employee theft investigation.  Examination of the associate’s behavior may have revealed what seemed like a minor indicator – perhaps a decrease in job performance or not parking in staff areas.

However, it is the investigator’s task to consider these small infractions and determine if these pieces when put together create a distinct picture of theft. Frequently the piece of the puzzle that instigates the search does not conclusively point to internal theft.

One case in particular comes to mind to perfectly illustrate this point. My team and I conducted perpetual inventory assessment twice daily of “hot” items easily taken by employees while employed at a big box retailer. We observed an entire line of popular anti-aging products disappearing from the shelf within a week of initiating this particular employee theft investigation.

Our perpetual inventory established time frames of loss, so the other agents and I began reviewing video to look for a possible subject.  Nothing struck us at first because the customer always headed to a cashier whenever these products were selected. We discovered upon further investigation, that although the products appeared to be taken to check out, there were no sales around these times.

We started focusing on a particular cashier once this piece of the puzzle was in place and we realized we were undertaking a probable employee theft investigation. The customers purchasing the anti-aging products were consistently approaching the same cashier when checking out.

Upon further investigation into the cashier’s ringing history, we confirmed numerous cases of this associate passing merchandise to friends and family. The customer would approach the line, purchase a couple low-dollar items, and the cashier would “sweetheart” our high-risk merchandise.

This employee was terminated for internal theft after documenting these incidents for the employer. The ability to take these seemingly unrelated pieces and put them together to create a coherent picture ended a toxic employee’s opportunity to propagate employee theft and served as a warning to everyone involved.

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

It’s hard enough to think that one of your own employees has been stealing from you. It’s even harder to think that often, employee theft involves either multiple employees or an employee working with someone outside the company like a friend, a relative, or even a vendor.

I remember an employee theft investigation where a cashier was ringing up her boyfriend. Underneath his cart was about $300 dollars in product that she did not charge him for. Because she did not want to draw attention to the items, she left them under the cart. Unfortunately for her, but lucky for us, she did not realize that the items had RF tags on them. When the boyfriend tried to leave, he set off the alarms at the door alerting everyone around to the situation.

I did some research as part of that internal theft case. The girlfriend had been passing off merchandise for several months. It was probably longer than that, but they had left a trail of paperwork that we could follow.

Some of the stolen goods were returned without a receipt so a merchandise credit was issued. Because it is an in store credit, we could track all of the purchases that card made.

Each time they used the merchandise card to pay for a transaction, we saw more merchandise being passed off at the register. They would then return that product and get a new merchandise store credit that we could track. And so the cycle was established.

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

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.

 

There is a saying that less is more. While that applies to many situations, especially when you are talking about how much money an employee stole from you; it is not always the most accurate for an employee theft cash case.

When you are conducting an employee theft investigation, we generally start with the obvious. If there is money missing from a till, then we have internal theft. So we research the discrepancies – the cash shortages.

Any cash overages that we come across, we first look to see if they offset a cash shortage. If it does, then we stop looking at that loss. It is the logical thing to do.

Why would someone logically look at a cash overage and assume there is theft. When you steal money there is a loss, not extra money- right?

Wrong. Here is one way that many employees get away with their own “perfect crime”.

If I am a trying to steal money from a register, and I want to be smart about it, I will know that I can not simply take money from a till. Someone will notice, and it will only be a matter of time before I am caught.

So what if I find a way to inflate the till and take the extra cash.  This is simple enough if I do a refund without an actual customer. So if I refund an item and the total comes to $12.84, I can easily pocket a ten and no one will be the wiser. In fact when the drawer balances, there will be an additional $2.84.

Track your overages and you may discover that you have an employee theft case, just not in the way you would imagine.

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

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.

Performing employee theft investigations is often a very tedious process, especially for small to mid-box retailers who do not retain in-store loss prevention personnel. Most small to mid-box retailers hire field loss prevention employees to cover multiple locations and these employees frequently work out of one store without spending much time in any one location.

This is challenging at best and non-productive at worst, because it then falls upon field loss prevention and operations management to utilize sales performance, inventory reports and store audits to uncover any internal theft which may be occurring.

The highest source of loss in retail is employee theft. For most small box retailers, their high-end product is not “live” on the sales-floor; pushing internal theft to an even higher ratio percentage. There are usually no more than five to eight employees on staff in these stores; however, if only one employee is stealing, roughly 20% of the store’s work force is guilty of employee theft.

This is an alarming revelation that should give every business owner a sense of urgency to acquire the best tools and people available to perform employee theft investigations.

It is tempting in smaller locations to conduct an investigation that merely focuses on one or two employees because of information indicating their guilt.  It requires extreme patience and persistence to conduct an effective employee theft investigation when dealing with employee theft in this type of setting.

The successful investigation must involve every employee in the store as well as every type of theft. One or two people may be committing product theft while another employee might be involved with refund fraud and yet another may be supervising employee discount fraud.

If the employer addresses only one of multiple issues during an employee theft investigation, one facet of theft may stop for a while and then continue unfettered. It is also imperative that performance issues be addressed at the same time as internal theft issues are confronted. Remember – poor performance often leads to theft.

It can be challenging to observe theft occurring while conducting a thorough employee theft investigation; however when finished, all performance and theft issues will be dealt with thus giving you a clean store to rebuild.

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

Unfortunately the people ripping you off behind your back are often the same people you work with every day, the people you hired and trained, the people who say good morning to you every day, and the very people whom you may have grown to know and like personally. Regrettably, employee theft strikes most employers and is oftentimes responsible for at least half of the losses in the workplace in any given year.

I have taken part in detailed conversations with employees in my twelve years as a Loss Prevention Manager and I was able to establish the facts about internal theft after conducting comprehensive employee theft investigations. Facts like how many times a week one employee stole, how much was lost in dollars due to this same employee, as well as the method used to accomplish the task.

You will also learn other facts about internal theft that may surprise you during the course of the interview with this associate – like why they committed the theft and how long they had been stealing from their employer and customers.

Over the years I have encountered cases totaling more than $100,000 with multiple employees involved in my investigation of internal theft.  I also discovered that some of the largest dollar value cases frequently involved the most trusted employees.  The fact that managers and security personnel have access to more merchandise than anyone and no one tends to question their integrity can be very tempting to some employees.

Conducting an employee theft investigation often unveils some shocking finds about one’s employees. Experts can quickly identify problem areas and target these areas to uncover employee theft; protecting your profit and at the same time setting the tone that theft will not be tolerated inside your place of business.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase CCTV Systems that will eliminate your internal theft and employee theft problems in your management of employee theft investigation.

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

I ran a store that did a thriving mail order business. It was a great way to capture sales from customers not only in the area, but also some of the tourist shoppers as well. It was a little too late when I found out that one of my employees was committing employee theft through our postal process.

The employee that was running the mail orders had quit to find a job somewhere else. He had gone out with one of my other employees and had confided in them how much product he had taken and how easy it was to get away with it.

He had been shipping orders out to his home address and to the addresses of his friends. These orders were never paid for. Because we didn’t do an audit on 100% of the packages, his internal theft was undetected.

He would hold his personal packages behind until the mailman was about to come by. Then he would slip his packages in with everything else. There was no record of the packages, and there was only a slight influx in postage.

I keep kicking myself thinking that there should have been some glaring red flag telling me that there was an issue. Unfortunately, he was smarter than I was (or my policies). It was a matter of misplaced trust. He was going to find a way to steal regardless of what I did, or what a random employee theft investigation would have shown up.

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

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.

 

Being vigilant is a great way to prevent retail theft. Some of the biggest cases I have seen from shoplifters, to employees, and even vendors are allowed to happen because the employees of a store have gotten complacent. This Employee theft investigation was no different. Complacency toward an outside vendor proved to be just as bad as complacency toward one of our own employees.

We recently had a situation with one of our soda vendors. These are commission-based positions that are paid based off of how much product we invoice from them. If they take away bad/ old product, it is deducted from their monthly totals.

This vendor had been stealing back his own product for about five years. The store was not reconciling their invoices with each shipment, like they were supposed to, and the vendor knew it.

He would drop off and invoice for ten cases of soda. After sitting and chatting for a bit, the manager would go off to attend to other things. The vendor would then put cases back in boxes and wheel them back out.

No one ever checked his boxes and the store would be charged not only for his free soda but also his full commission. It wasn’t until the first inventory that the shortages were discovered and we suspected employee theft was the cause.

After looking at the invoices though, we realized that it might not be due to typical internal theft. It was because of the employees’ complacency to check off this well liked vendor before he left the building that the theft of merchandise was allowed to happen.

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

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.