What You Think vs. What You Can Prove – Employee Theft

It can be quite exhilarating to uncover the occasional employee theft case.  It can become so thrilling for some that tunnel vision replaces logic and common sense when pursuing a case of internal theft. Let me give an example…

I had a cash register with more than a hundred dollar shortage back in the day. It was quite uncommon to be short more than five dollars in a day. We didn’t bother keeping a tracking log for less than five dollars for that very reason.

My heart sank when I discovered the shortage; just as quickly, I took a deep breath and decided it could be an error instead of internal theft and with a little research I would find the error.

I was on my way to disprove what appeared to be internal theft. It took very little time to comprehend how flawed I was in my assumption. The first cash transaction clearly indicated employee theft, or at least that’s what I thought at the time.

What actually happened in this scenario was that my employee rang up a low dollar transaction for a customer. The customer then handed her a hundred dollar bill. She tendered the transaction, handed him his change, and the hundred dollar bill.

I was shocked that my manager didn’t want to interview right away when I approached her to conduct the employee theft investigation. I could not understand delaying because the video was crystal clear and we had suffered a huge loss.

I soon learned that I needed to step back and consider that although the transaction had resulted in a loss, this loss did not inevitably mean that the employee was deliberately stealing. If we could not prove intent, we had no employee theft case.

For months I watched her like a hawk and discovered not even a single penny short in all that time. Perhaps she intended to return the hundred dollars; or perhaps she made a bad decision.

Either way, we could never prove it was employee theft and we were left with the situation unresolved because we could not develop a case against her with one solitary situation.  

Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase CCTV Systems that can halt employee theft and internal theft problems and assist with employee theft investigation.

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