Prevent Shoplifting

Best Not To Overcomplicate Things- Retail Anti Theft Devices

November 10, 2014 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Sometimes we get so caught up in a situation that it is easy for things to get overly complicated and messy. It is better to stop, take a step back and reevaluate what is really happening and start over with the solution.

I see so many small shops that have either heard of complex shoplifting scams and schemes or have seen one particularly complex incident and are now devising unnecessarily complicated plans to stop shoplifting.

I always recommend taking a step back and evaluating what the real scenario is, and what the best solution is. While those complex thefts are out there, most of the shoplifters use relatively low- tech and simple forms of shoplifting.

One of the most common shoplifting methods is to conceal merchandise in a bag. That includes handbags, totes, sports duffels and backpacks. A shoplifter thinks they can stuff product in their bag and walk out the door without being noticed.

The best way to deter and combat this kind of theft is to use security tags, commonly called EAS tags. The tag is a visual warning that the merchandise is being protected. Even if the shoplifter tries to steal the product by concealing it in a bag, the EAS alarms will still register.

Visit the Loss Prevention Store for Alpha 2Alarm, Alpha 3Alarm, Alpha Fashion2, Alpha Jewel Lok, Alpha Nano Gate, Alpha Shark Tag, Alpha Spider Wrap and other retail anti-theft devices from Alpha Security to use in conjunction with your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system that can help you prevent shoplifting in your business.

For more information on how you can use Alpha Security retail anti-theft devices and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system to prevent shoplifting contact us or call 1.770.426.0547

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Alpha Fashion2, Alpha Jewel Lok, Alpha Nano Gate, Alpha Shark Tag, Alpha Spider Wrap, Fashion2, Jewel Lok, Nano Gate, Prevent Shoplifting, Retail Anti Theft Devices, Shark Tag, Spider Wrap

What Is Your Return Policy This Holiday Season?

November 7, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

Many stores around the country accept returns without a receipt. Some have date restrictions, or a credit transaction look up if you do not have the receipt, but others let you exchange or return merchandise with only an id. Wal-marts’ policy time restriction is 90 days with some exceptions with electronics, otherwise you can get a cash refund for purchases under $25 dollars or store credit for purchases of over $25. Target, office Depot, Lowes, Kohl’s and other stores do not require a receipt, although they can look up the transaction with your membership or credit card transaction. Making your policy clear on purchases this holiday season can save your business money and avoid the confusion with your employees about the return policy of the store. For more information about shoplifting, follow the links below.

Shoplifting suspect arrested after running out of gas during chase

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Snellville police nabbed a suspected serial shoplifter earlier this week after a harrowing chase through five jurisdictions that ended when the suspect ran out of gas.

Carl Ashley Thompson, 30, of Ball Ground, was taken into custody Tuesday. He faces a slew of traffic violation charges, along with three counts of felony theft by shoplifting, fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, criminal trespass and for possessing drug-related objects.

No one was injured during the chase, which began when an officer tried to stop Thompson around 3:40 a.m. for speeding – going 51 mph in a 35 mph zone. The officer also noticed that the car had no license plate.

Shoplifting leads to drug discovery

COOKEVILLE — A reported shoplifting led to more trouble for one Cookeville woman.

According to a police report filed by Cookeville Police Officer Kenneth Frye, it began with a reported shoplifting around 3 p.m. Friday at Kohl’s department store on Jackson. A female was reported to have left the location without paying for some items.

Dispatch gave him a description of the vehicle and the tag, which he located traveling south on South Willow Avenue. He stopped the vehicle in the area of 851 S. Willow Ave. and came into contact with the driver, identified as Fawn Price of Top Road, Cookeville.

“During a consent search of her person, I located a black “straw” with white residue,” Frye’s report states. “Price told me that she used it to ‘snort’ Hydrocodone.”

Addicts target Wal-Mart in shoplifting scheme

INDIANAPOLIS – Feeding a heroin addiction often means addicts resort to stealing – from friends, family and businesses.

For former heroin addict Ashley Milburn, it meant a shoplifting scheme involving a group of women earning hundreds of dollars a day illicitly by scamming Wal-Mart.

Milburn, now serving time behind bars, spoke to Call 6 Investigator Rafael Sanchez about how she used to steal from the big box retailer – and how she’s sure her fellow heroin users are still going about it.

The key to the scam: Wal-Mart’s no-receipt policy for returns.

Filed Under: Shoplifting Prevention Tagged With: Alpha High Theft Solutions, Anti-shoplifting training, anti-theft devices, anti-theft tags, anti-thefts devices, Employee Theft, Loss Prevention Training, mobile POS loss prevention, Prevent Shoplifting, prevent shrinkage, retail security, retail security and monitoring, Shoplifting Prevention

High Profile Cases

November 6, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

A high profile, professional athlete was arrested recently for shoplifting. Allegedly, he paid for a bottle of cologne and then proceeded to the menswear department. He placed a few packages of underwear in his shopping bag. At the point of his apprehension, he was also found to have a “tester” bottle of cologne in his bag (unpaid for) as well. He is not the first athlete/ celebrity to be caught shoplifting, and most certainly will not be the last.

A similar situation would include a shoplifter who is related to (or claims to be related to) a high profile personality. It is a frequently used tactic that a shoplifter will try to intimidate their accusers by name-dropping congressmen, chief or police, celebrity, etc. More often than not, these claims are unfounded, or play no significant role in an investigation. For the few times that the claims are true, your store will have more to contend with than the loss of merchandise.

These high profile shoplifters do not steal out of need. They clearly have the money to pay for such items. They are stealing out of boredom, entitlement, or simply because they are looking for a challenge- to see if they can get away with it. Their crimes are not necessarily expensive items; sometimes it can be simple items like underwear, health and beauty items, even food items. This means that it is not improbable that a celebrity can shoplift from a small, local store.

That being said, it is not a common occurrence for a store to experience a shoplifting incident by a high profile person. It is merely a fact to keep in mind while you are making shoplifting apprehensions. You never know whom you might be picking up, so it is best to make sure your policies, practices and actions are completely by the book for each incident.

After making an apprehension, the suspect might try to bully their way out of the situation by telling you who they are, or who their relations are. This is the time to be professional, avoid making sarcastic or snarky comments and stick to the facts. If they truly are a high profile personality, every little step may be dissected and criticized later on. The media outlets will inevitably catch wind of the apprehension and will try to make it a bigger story that what it needs to be.

You can be faced with news reporters, bloggers, fans, etc coming into your store. Some will just look around to see the now infamous store. Others will come in and try to make trouble- asking questions, making comments, even potentially making threats.

I worked loss prevention for a retailer, who many years ago made an apprehension of a very famous actress. Even though the case was air tight, national news sources hovered throughout the entire process. Statements had to be made to ensure the integrity of our company’s reputation remained in tact. At the same time, it was very important that our own legal team was involved to make sure we did not overstep the legal boundaries of an open court case. If for some reason the apprehending officer made statements to the media, and the case was lost in court, we could have had potentially disastrous civil liability cases brought against us by the actress. On the day the verdict from her criminal trial was to be released, every one of our stores across the country received numerous threatening phone calls. Some merely threatened to never shop with us again if “we” found the actress guilty of shoplifting. Others had more severe threats of violence.

With the increased chance of media scrutiny during a high profile shoplifting incident, retailers can often find themselves faced with more variables and consequences than what was anticipated for a seemingly routine shoplifting apprehension. Without black and white policies in place, the added liability from a case gone wrong can have devastating and lasting consequences both to a retailer’s image, and their financial bottom line.

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Prevent Shoplifting, prevent shrinkage, Retail Anti Theft Devices, retail security, retail security and monitoring, security, security devices, shoplifting, Shoplifting Prevention, shoplifting statistics, surveillance

Court Room Drama

November 6, 2014 by admin Leave a Comment

If you have never been in court before, it can be a very eye opening experience. There are similarities between TV courtroom proceedings and real life, but the overall experience is very different. If you are planning on prosecuting shoplifters or employees for theft, it is important to understand this step in the process.

Working within the court system is essential to ensure the employee or shoplifter has an official record of their wrongdoing. This criminal prosecution provides concrete evidence against an employee or shoplifter of their alleged acts. This record makes it easier for potential employers to understand an applicants past history, an indicator of their future reliability.

Here is how the process generally works. At the time of a shoplifter’s apprehension, or the completion of an employee theft interview, local law enforcement will be called in. This could be the city police, county police, or even the local sheriff’s department based on your individual store’s location and jurisdiction. If you have multiple locations, understand the jurisdiction might be different for each one. Specifically knowing which department to call ahead of time will simplify the process during an actual incident.

The responding law enforcement will ask a few questions from you. They will take a statement from both sides, and usually ask to see any video available. This is the initial opportunity to present your evidence against the suspect. This is not a time to hold back actual evidence you may have, or give unsubstantiated opinions as evidence.

Law enforcement will take the suspect into custody (if applicable) and file a police report. You may need to go down to their station to fill out additional paperwork depending upon the local protocol. From there papers will be filed with the court system. You should receive a subpoena stating the time, date and place of the court case for your suspect. Understand that it might take a few weeks to several months for this to happen. It is all based upon your local court’s current caseload.

During this downtime, you should ensure that you have created a case report with statements explaining each step of the shoplifting incident, any statements made by the suspect, any paper evidence, a detailed listing of merchandise stolen (size, style, UPC or SKU, color, quantity) photos taken of the suspect, their ID or the merchandise, employee ID, and any video evidence. This case report needs to be kept in a private, locked file cabinet or other place that eliminates contact or access by other employees. Any deviation may allow the defendant’s attorney to question the integrity of the chain of evidence and speculate that it has been tampered with.

When you are set to go to court on the specific time and date given, make sure you show up early and bring your case report with you. Law enforcement may have requested copies at the time of the arrest, but it is better for you to not rely on law enforcement to bring it with them. They have so many cases on a daily basis; they may not remember months later what they were given. It is your responsibility to prove the suspect guilty based upon your evidence. If you show up with nothing, the suspect may be found innocent. Bring the report and file with you.

When you show up, find the prosecuting attorney. They are the ones presenting the case on your behalf. Show them your file, your video, and answer their questions. They are not trying to pick your case apart; they just need to have a full understanding of what they can present to the defense attorney and the judge. Arriving early allows you enough time to best prepare your case with the attorney and have better end results.

While you cannot dictate that a suspect is charged with a specific crime (felony theft vs. misdemeanor theft) you are allowed to let the attorney know that the suspect is not to return to any of your store locations. If so, they will be charged with trespassing.

At this point the attorney will confer with the defense attorney. They will try to work out a plea bargain, which the suspect hopefully will take. They may not stick with the original charges, but a plea bargain will save you countless hours and trips back and forth to the courthouse for an actual trial.

Filed Under: Featured Tagged With: Anti-shoplifting training, anti-theft devices, anti-theft tags, anti-thefts devices, EAS Devices, Employee Theft, internal Audit, loss prevention, Loss Prevention Seminar, Loss Prevention Workshop, mobile POS loss prevention, Prevent Shoplifting, prevent shrinkage

What To Do? – Prevent Shoplifting

November 6, 2014 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

One of my employees was talking to me about a shoplifting incident they saw, but they didn’t know what to do about it. She was watching a customer trying on different pairs of earrings and went over to offer her assistance.

The woman quickly said she didn’t need anything, turned around and left. My employee started to clean up the mess this customer left behind. We don’t have a real good inventory control system or EAS devices designed specifically for jewelry and accessories.

The woman had taken several pairs of earrings off the cards, and everything was in a jumble on the counter. As my employee sorted through everything, she noticed that there were two pairs of earrings missing, and the customer looked like she was wearing one of them.

It was a difficult position for my employee to be in. She was probably right in her suspicions that the customer had walked off with at least one if not two pairs of our earrings.

Because we didn’t actually see what happened from the beginning it was too hard to actually tell if this was just a repeat customer who had purchased the earrings previously, or if she did steal them.

For more information on how you can use Alpha Security retail anti-theft devices and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system to prevent shoplifting contact us or call 1.770.426.0547

It was a difficult position for my employee to be in. She was probably right in her suspicions that the customer had walked off with at least one if not two pairs of our earrings.

For more information on how you can use Alpha Security retail anti-theft devices and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system to prevent shoplifting contact us or call 1.770.426.0547

Double Up- Prevent Shoplifting

November 2, 2014 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

My store apprehended a shoplifter recently using a rather unusual method to conceal his merchandise. If it wasn’t for our retail anti theft devices to prevent shoplifting, we might not have discovered what was going on.

This was a situation where we didn’t catch on to this particular shoplifter right away. We actually had several interactions with him before we realized what was going on.

He came into our store and used a wheelchair with one of our handheld shopping basket in his lap. He would go about his business and come to the register to pay for the items. No matter how diligent my cashiers were when they rang him up; the EAS alarm was set off when he left.

We always double-checked for retail anti theft devices accidentally left on his paid for items, but could not find any. After about a month of this happening every time he came to shop, we started to get suspicious that something else was going on.

We watched as he came in one day and realized that he had picked up two shopping baskets, not one. At first we thought they had just stuck together, until we saw inside the baskets. As it turned out, he was hiding merchandise in one of the baskets, stacking the second one on top and adding more merchandise that he would pay for. When he left, he would leave with all of the extra merchandise sandwiched between our shopping baskets- unpaid for.

For more information on how you can use Alpha Security retail anti-theft devices and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system to prevent shoplifting contact us or call 1.770.426.0547

This was a situation where we didn’t catch on to this particular shoplifter right away. We actually had several interactions with him before we realized what was going on.

He came into our store and used a wheelchair with one of our handheld shopping baskets in his lap. He would go about his business and come to the register to pay for the items. No matter how diligent my cashiers were when they rang him up; the EAS alarm was set off when he left.

For more information on how you can use Alpha Security retail anti-theft devices and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system to prevent shoplifting contact us or call 1.770.426.0547

Plug And Play- Alpha Security

October 30, 2014 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

The Alpha Nano Gate is a smaller version of the cumbersome EAS towers most retailers are using to manage their retail anti theft devices. It is also infinitely easier and more cost effective for a small retailer or specialty shop to use.

Conventional EAS towers are maintained under service contracts, require complicated hard wiring to install, and need to be tuned and service regularly to ensure that they are functioning properly.

The Alpha Nano Gate literally is plugged in and ready to go. Without a need for a service contract, bulky wiring, or tuning, it is easy to see why the Alpha Security Alpha Nano Gate won an award in the economic efficiency category.

The small design is easily installed with six screws and a battery to back up the system in case of power failure or intentional tampering. This design makes it easy to be installed into the smaller entryways often found in specialty boutiques and locally owned retail establishments.

When you are a small retailer, you are constantly on the look out for ways to reduce your overhead. Finding a cost effective way to prevent shoplifting is beneficial in not only reducing your operating costs, but to also increase your revenue through maximizing inventory availability.

For more information on how you can use Alpha Security retail anti-theft devices and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system to prevent shoplifting contact us or call 1.770.426.0547

Conventional EAS towers are maintained under service contracts, require complicated hard wiring to install, and need to be tuned and service regularly to ensure that they are functioning properly.

For more information on how you can use Alpha Security retail anti-theft devices and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system to prevent shoplifting contact us or call 1.770.426.0547

Providing Valuable In Stock Positions- Retail Anti Theft Devices

October 23, 2014 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

When customers can walk into a retail location, find the merchandise items they want, and the quantities they need, sales will increase increase. Taking it one step further, you also get the advantage of repeat business. The customer knows they can rely on your retail location to be in stock for their consumer needs. When you prevent shoplifting, you assure your customers that you will consistently have the right in stock availability to satisfy your customer’s needs.

Industry leader Alpha Security products are tried and true retail anti theft devices specifically created to decrease shoplifting, while maintaining better inventory accuracy.

As shoplifting decreases, our inventories become more accurate and more plentiful (due to a lack of missing merchandise). We, as retailers, spend significantly less time worrying about whether or not we have a particular item in stock, and more time getting the customers to actually buy them.

By providing our customer base with valuable in stock positions, sales are maximized and profits are increased. As a customer, it is very frustrating to shop for a specific item and have it be out of stock. It is even more frustrating if the entire shopping trip had been centered on an advertisement or a specifically needed item and the store was all out.

For more information on how you can use Alpha Security retail anti-theft devices and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system to prevent shoplifting contact us or call 1.770.426.0547

When customers can walk into a retail location, find the merchandise items they want, and the quantities they need, sales will increase. Taking it one step further, you also get the advantage of repeat business. The customer knows they can rely on your retail location to be in stock for their consumer needs. When you prevent shoplifting, you assure your customers that you will consistently have the right in stock availability to satisfy your customer’s needs.

Industry leader Alpha Security products are tried and true retail anti theft devices specifically created to decrease shoplifting, while maintaining better inventory accuracy.

For more information on how you can use Alpha Security retail anti-theft devices and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system to prevent shoplifting contact us or call 1.770.426.0547

Don’t Discount Organized Retail Crime- Prevent Shoplifting

October 16, 2014 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

An old colleague recently sent me a news article about his city’s crackdown on repeat shoplifting offenders. In the article, the shoplifters had been stealing so much merchandise that they had enough to sell to local restaurants and corner stores.

As I read further into the article, I realized that I recognized one of the names. It was a habitual shoplifter that we had been trying to apprehend almost ten years ago. This particular shoplifter was stealing from several locations and would sometime return the items without receipt- using multiple aliases to get around our refund system.

Eventually we did apprehend her and ban her from our stores in addition to having her prosecuted. I guess that didn’t mean much to her, since she has continued with her life of crime all of these years.

What we didn’t understand at the time was that this shoplifter we had assumed was just a small time problem, was actually a major part of a local crime ring. Her entire life was dedicated to stealing product from retailers to later resell to other local businesses. She set herself up as a local distributor with lower than average pricing- making it an attractive low cost solution for these local businesses.

For more information on how you can use Alpha Security retail anti-theft devices and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system to prevent shoplifting contact us or call 1.770.426.0547

A Better Sell Through- Retail Anti Theft Devices

October 13, 2014 by Staff Editor Leave a Comment

Every time an item of inventory is broken, damaged or stolen, a new item has to be purchased to replace the unusable one. As a result, the products that are actually sold need to pull more clout to be able to compensate for the missing item.

Of those three losses, theft is the most common, and the most financially devastating to businesses. It is more likely that a thief would steal multiple of an item, than it is to have multiple of the same items damaged. Even if they are, those can typically be traced back to a shipping problem and either the carrier or the manufacturer can be charged back, mitigating some of the potential financial losses.

Shoplifters, on the other hand, are harder to get a financial recourse from. Even when a shoplifter is apprehended, it can be very hard to charge them with prior incidents. Unless you have evidence that cannot be contested, you will only be able to claim the loss that was incurred during current incident that the shoplifter was apprehended during. That means you may have stopped the cause of the losses, but are still out the inventory from those prior incidents.

For more information on how you can use Alpha Security retail anti-theft devices and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system to prevent shoplifting contact us or call 1.770.426.0547