Stop Employee Theft

When initiating an employee theft investigation, the case can often seem complex or even inconclusive on whether or not the subject is committing acts of dishonesty. What instigated the examination of the associate’s behavior may have seemed like a minor indicator, such as decrease in job performance or not parking in staff areas, however, it is the investigator’s task to take these small malfeasances and see if these become pieces that when put together like a puzzle, create a picture of clear acts of stealing. Sometimes the piece you begin with doesn’t always point directly to a case of internal theft.

A particular case I handled comes to mind that illustrates this perfectly. While employed at a big box retailer, my team and I would conduct perpetual inventory twice daily of “hot” items that were easily taken by employee theft. Within a week, an entire line of popular anti-aging products began disappearing off the shelf. Our perpetual inventory established time frames of loss, so the other agents and I began reviewing video to look for a possible subject. At first no one stuck out to us because whenever the items were selected, the customer always headed to a cashier. Upon further investigation, we discovered that although it appeared to be taken to check out, there weren’t sales around these times.

With this piece we realized we were undertaking a potential employee theft investigation and we started narrowing in on a particular cashier. This person was the employee that these customers were going to 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. After documenting these incidents, we pulled the associate and he was terminated for internal theft. Thanks to our ability to take these seemingly unrelated pieces and put them together to create a complete puzzle picture, my store rid itself of a toxic member due to employee theft.

For more information on employee theft, employee theft investigation, or internal theft contact us or call 1.866.914.2567 – Atlanta Georgia

Internal theft is one of the greatest challenges to any business.  When a business hires someone to join their ranks they are showing faith in that person’s skills, experience, and trustworthiness.  Unfortunately, despite lengthy interview processes and extensive background checks there are still individuals who choose to exploit their positions within your business to ‘earn a little extra’. 

Methods of employee theft investigation vary in size, scope, and style.  It can be as small as a cashier skimming a few dollars from the register every so often to a team of warehouse workers ensuring a few flat-screen TVs go ‘missing from inventory’ only to be found later in their living rooms.  As far as catching such dishonest employees is concerned it takes patience, skill, and a little bit of luck.

Conducting an employee theft investigation starts with knowing where to look to look for employee theft.  You may need to comb through register deposit records (over and short reports) or perform regular inventory counts (such as perpetual counts on important items).  Your lead into a potential internal theft case could literally fall into your lap without you even needing to go looking for it. 

Whatever the starting point of your investigation is you cannot expect immediate returns on your work like you would with a shoplifter.  Employee theft investigations require an investment of time, be it from a single Loss Prevention Detective or a whole team.  Even when an employee has been caught with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar it doesn’t mean it is case closed.  There is the follow-up, the interrogation, which may lead to the admission of a larger theft or even the implication of others within the workforce. 

One other thing to consider when it comes to employee theft investigations; don’t keep anyone in your workforce from being scrutinized.  More often than not it’s the ones whom you trust the most that are the biggest internal threats.

For more information on employee theft , employee theft investigation or internal theft contact us or call 1.866.914.2567 – Atlanta Georgia

There are many things that employees can steal, but the most sought after item is cash.  Unlike merchandise, it can be used anywhere.  Cash is often the easiest item to steal.  It does not have sensor tags applied, it is small and employees handle it all day.  So how is internal theft of cash happening at your business and what are you doing to stop it?

There are several ways that employee theft of cash can occur and there are various things to consider when conducting an employee theft investigation into these losses.  The most basic is taking money directly from the drawer.  You will notice the effects of this internal theft the next day when your accounting department shows missing money from the drawer.  When you conduct your employee theft investigation I suggest starting with reviewing “No Sale” functions.  Generally speaking, most associates do not take cash during an actual transaction as there are witnesses (i.e. the customer) present.  Instead, many will wait until no one is around, conduct a “No Sale” function and then pocket the cash.  They think the absence of witnesses helps them get away with it, but in reality it is usually easy to pinpoint.

Another way is by conducting voids.  This is much harder to catch, but possible.  In this employee theft scam the associate will void a transaction and take the cash.  Since the register thinks the sale did not happen then it will not show short since the cash “should not have been there” according to the register.  Again, routinely look for associates conducting a lot of voids followed by “No Sales”.  Since they voided the transaction the cashier has to use the “No Sale” function to open the drawer and make change for the customer.  You can also just pull random voids and review the video to see if the merchandise, in fact, stays in the store or does the customer take it.  If the customer takes it then the cashier is stealing from you.

There is no easy solution to internal theft, but a quality employee theft investigation will help eliminate a problem and prevent future loss.

For more information on employee theft , employee theft investigation or internal theft contact us or call 1.866.914.2567 – Atlanta Georgia

There are many times that it is necessary to perform an employee theft investigation in your business.  The sad reality is that employees steal … a lot!!  In fact, most studies agree that internal theft (also called employee theft) accounts for 50-70% of retail shrink.  One of the hardest parts of the job is investigating employees because we all want to trust our employees.  It is very hard to accept that one or more are going behind your back and stealing, but it is the reality.  In order to catch internal theft an employee theft investigation must be done when money and merchandise start missing.

 There are several things to do during an employee theft investigation.  The first is to review reports.  Many losses can be solved by tracking cash over and shorts, reviewing refund and void trends as well as researching ordering and inventory change histories.  When these don’t work then we turn to cameras.  Cameras are a great tool at catching employee theft. Whether it is by using standard cameras on the sales floor or covert cameras in offices, these tools can often times conclusively show you who your thief is.  Unfortunately, there are times when none of these work.  I have on several occasions found myself at wits end having a strong suspicion of an employee, but not having actual proof.  Here is where an Integrity Shop can be a benefit.

 In order test a suspected employee’s integrity you can create a circumstance for an employee to do the “right thing” and thus prove one way or the other what type of integrity they have.  You may put some extra money in the till or drop a gift card by the register and then watch cameras to see what that employee does with the extra money or gift card.  What they should do is turn it in since it does not belong to them.  If they take the money or card then they have proven they cannot be trusted and that gives you leverage when talking to them about the other shortages showing up in their work station.

For more information on employee theft investigation, employee theft or internal theft contact us or call 1.866.914.2567 – Atlanta Georgia

Exception Based Reporting can be loss prevention’s best friend. The principal behind the software is to weed out the transactions that are most indicative to internal theft to give you a platter full of possible leads. The key then is to identify which of those transactions is actually employee theft.

Many of the transactions that populate will be due to training errors or transactions where the employee was simply trying to do what is best for the customer. Obviously we do not want to punish our employees for those sorts of situations; however this tool can be used as a good way to identify possible training flaws as well. Once we have narrowed it down to the best internal theft candidates we can begin our employee theft investigation. Using the tools this software has to offer we can conduct searches of the employee’s purchase and return history, giving us a snapshot of any potential transactions were the employee may have received unauthorized discounts from another employee.

We can see if the employee is returning more merchandise than they are buying, which can be an indicator that the employee may be stealing merchandise to return it for a profit. These are just a few of the many employee theft situations that we can identify. Once we have exhausted the employee’s purchase and return history we can investigate the employee’s point of sale history. We can track credit card numbers and other tenders to identify if the employee is completing a large amount of transactions for any particular customers. This can help to identify situations where the employee is under ringing or passing off merchandise to friends. We can identify trends in discounts given to customers or instances where the employee is giving dollar off discounts in order to pocket cash from a transaction. Again, these are just a few examples of the many employee theft investigations that we can conduct to help identify internal theft. With use in conjunction with video review Exception Based Reporting can be a hugely beneficial tool with your employee theft investigations.

 For more information on employee theft, employee theft investigation or internal contact us or call 1.866.914.2567 – Atlanta Georgia

Sometimes you can’t figure it out fast enough. Any time you are working an employee theft investigation the clock is running. The longer it takes to build your case, the more shrink you will incur. The scope of your employee theft may go from just a few dollars to thousands seemingly overnight. 

I had a case where I just knew in my gut that a few employees were stealing from us. It started after I saw a few suspicious returns on an employee. She purchased some clothes and later returned them. Company policy was to have a return slip and a check in with loss prevention prior to any employee returns being done.

 I had never seen the clothes come back to the store. I asked her why she didn’t get a pass and she stated that she forgot. Well over the next few months I noticed that she was returning almost every item she purchased, never getting a return slip from my department.  It was time to start compiling some surveillance for the employee theft investigation to help my case along.

 I discovered that she always had the same associate do her returns. I then started looking at his accounts. He was having a large number of returns to his account, starting shortly after hers did. My case of employee theft had just doubled!

 Well, after I started to mirror their schedules, I noticed that items were being rung up and taken out of the store. They weren’t having someone check their purchases, and I noticed the bags were rather large for the purchase.

 As it turns out, the employees were in it together. They were making purchases and adding items to their bags. They would then bring the receipts in and credit their accounts. It was a double loss, but we were able to stop it before they got any other employees in on the scam.

 For more information on employee theft , employee theft investigation or internal theft  contact us or call 1.866.914.2567 – Atlanta Georgia

Internal theft is an all too common problem.  It happens within every business and takes on so many forms that it rarely occurs in the same manner twice in a row.  That’s because one expects that when an associate is caught committing some sort of internal theft the rest of the staff would take note of what NOT to do in order to avoid the same fate as their former coworker. 

Sometimes they aren’t paying attention to what’s happening around them though.

At one of my store’s auto centers there was an auto center technician who was terminated at the end of an employee theft investigation that found he was stealing garage equipment and supplies for use in his own ‘side jobs’.  It was such a big deal that cashiers in the main store, people who generally don’t even know anyone working in the auto center, were talking about it for weeks.  Then, just last Tuesday, I was driving past the auto center garage while going into work and noticed something immensely suspicious and all too familiar.

There was an auto center technician standing behind his car loading several items into his trunk including a few large boxes.  By the time I reached the camera room the technician had already finished loading his vehicle so I went about my shift with one monitor focused on the car in the event he returned to it.  A few hours later, as the auto center closed for the night, the technician pulled his car into the garage and parked it in front of his work station, which was located right beneath a PTZ camera.  Over the next few minutes he loaded even more items into his vehicle, including a large quantity of garage supplies.  It was a blatant, slam-dunk case of employee theft.

His only reasoning was that he didn’t think we would keep watching after we caught the last guy.

 For more information on employee theft , employee theft investigation or internal contact us or call 1.866.914.2567 – Atlanta Georgia

There are never enough words to describe the betrayal of trust from an employee who is stealing from you. I recently concluded an employee theft investigation regarding one of my store managers. This one was pretty rough considering all we had done for her.

 I am convinced that this employee’s theft did not begin until about a month ago, when her husband lost his job. She started out great as an assistant. She talked all the time about how much better she could be as a store manager. She would give examples of how she could improve a store. So we let her have her chance.

 After a few months, her new store’s performance started to slide. After many conversations, she was finally put on an action plan. I guess about three weeks later her husband lost his job. Maybe that was the last straw. She was clearly over her head.

 We started to notice a severe lack in following procedure in her store. An associate was eating a snack at the register. When asked if it was paid for, they told us that the manager said to go ahead and eat she’d ring it up whenever she had the chance. This was a common practice.

 We then started our employee theft investigation. Turns out that the associates were eating, a lot, and not much of it was being rung up. The manager was also carrying a new BIG purse. We started to run our reports, and sure enough there she was. This wasn’t just a case of employee theft; she was also doing fraudulent refunds.

 The end result was that she thought that she could take advantage of the trust we had given her. When times were tough, she just helped herself. She gave the rest of her store loose reigns, so they wouldn’t notice her own violations.

 For more information on employee theft , employee theft investigation or internal contact us or call 1.866.914.2567 – Atlanta Georgia

Many small box retailers find themselves centering their full attention on shoplifting as their main cause of inventory loss. This is a very dangerous thought process that can lead to a business crumbling. Internal theft is the largest cause of inventory loss period. I worked for, at the time, a small retailer which sold video and PC games. The business has grown exponentially since then and I have to believe that their success in part was because of their ability to change the overall thought process of how shrink occurs.

When I first started I was brought into the corporate office as a loss prevention administrator. I was dumbfounded to learn that my boss, the director of loss prevention had not one bit of loss prevention experience. In fact she told me that she was a store manager before being promoted into the Director position. My job duties were limited to reviewing daily store paperwork and pulling credit card slips for chargeback disputes (when a customer disputes a charge the retailer has to show a copy of a signed/imprinted credit card slip to win the dispute). There was no talk of employee theft investigation; in fact it wasn’t until my second week on the job until I heard anyone mention internal theft. That conversation was troubling since my boss was telling district managers on a conference call that employee theft is so minimal in the company that they should instead focus on anti shoplifting methods to control their losses.

This lead to many district managers scratching their heads but they pushed forward using ideas given by my boss. They “gutted” all their inventory, placing the games in locked drawers behind the register as well as in the stockroom. This process took the stores about two months to implement. My boss had even suggested to the district managers that once the product was secured they could cut back on their daily inventory counts since the losses would most assuredly stop. District managers who brought up the idea of conducting employee theft investigations were met with indifference. There most definitely was a slight improvement in inventory loss in some locations, however in many locations and areas of the country not only did the losses not stop, they shot through the roof.

Employees were given the access to the product in the stockroom, they had keys to the lockable cases, the product was already gutted and easily concealed, there were no bag checks conducted at the store level. Employee theft ran rampant and my boss was clueless. Fortunately I had made a few friends in the inventory control department as well as sales audit and started some employee theft investigations to nail down some of the larger internal theft cases. I was able to work closely with the district managers sharing loss trends, having them do surveillances and then surprise bag checks which ended up catching a few real time employee theft cases. I was able to successfully phone interview the suspects’ real time and obtain large dollar admissions which translated to prosecution and restitution. After about ten of these cases my boss left her position with no notice. To this day I have no idea where she went but it took at least two years for us to put together a real loss prevention team and to gain the respect of the operations sales team. Once the focus was put on employee theft as a primary cause of loss and district managers were properly trained to aid in employee theft investigations were able to cut the company’s shrink by half, which surpassed anyone’s expectations.

For more information on employee theft , employee theft investigation or internal contact us or call 1.866.914.2567 – Atlanta Georgia

When it comes to detecting theft, some of your best leads can come from your employee base. You can only do so much to detect employee theft on your own. With your employees being on the front lines, they are one of your best ways of detecting theft. You can encourage associates to provide tips by providing anonymous ways of reporting internal theft. Anonymous drop boxes, hotlines, websites and mailables are great resources you can utilize. Another great way to encourage your employees to call out suspicious behaviors in their fellow associates is to provide them with a reward if their tip should lead to the identification of employee theft. The best way to encourage an open and honest environment is to maintain an atmosphere of confidentiality. When your employees know that they can come to you and what they share is strictly between you and them, they will be much more likely to inform you of employee theft they observe.

 Recently my atmosphere of confidentiality was compromised by a member of my team. One of the store employees informed us of internal theft activity where another employee was ticket switching to purchase clothing at a cheaper price. Through our employee theft investigation we identified that the dishonest employee was switching tickets on merchandise and even stealing merchandise. After closing our employee theft investigation we rewarded the informant and promised them confidentiality. When the confidentiality agreement was broken we jeopardized the employee’s reputation with the other employees. Not only that, but we potentially compromised our ability to receive information about employee theft activity from that employee and other employees in the future. Now we will need to regain the trust of our employees and work even harder to ensure they feel that they can come to us and their information will remain classified.

 For more information on employee theft, employee theft investigation or internal contact us or call 1.866.914.2567 – Atlanta Georgia