Valentine’s Day in May – Employee Theft

In the world of employee theft investigation, a sweetheart deal does not refer to a Valentine’s Day sales event. It refers instead to employee theft in which an employee gives away product or unauthorized discounts at the point of sale. Sweetheart deals are also referred to as pass offs.

When we are reviewing or conducting surveillance during employee theft investigation, there are common scenarios we are looking to discover.  A straight pass off happens when a cashier gives away merchandise to a friend or relative and no sale generated.

A variation occurs when an employee pretends to ring up the transaction. They may scan the items and then later void them out. They might also print out a receipt that shows an estimate of the product, but no sale is actually conducted.

Sometimes employee theft involves only partial payment for the contents of their friend’s shopping cart. The internal theft occurs when the employee rings up a few low dollar items, but slides the expensive ones. I once conducted employee theft investigation discovering that the dishonest cashier would “forget” to ring up the large items on the bottom of her boyfriend’s cart.

While this list is not exclusive, these distinctive employee theft situations occur regardless of retail niche or product sold.  In general the techniques are unchanging although we may occasionally discover a creative twist to employee theft.

Since the inception of employee theft investigations, sweetheart deals have been a constant in the execution of internal theft by employees.

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