I’ve been a retail manager for the same company for over 13 years. When I started in 2001, I was green and gullible. I never would have dreamed I could hire, train, and work with people on a daily basis that would wind up stealing from our company. I never thought they’d get past the interview with me, because in my mind, I could read people like books. As the store manager, I had no idea about the benefits of attending a loss prevention seminar.
Then it happened. I found some clues that led me to investigate one of my own, and I had to make the call to our LP guy. He came in and interviewed her, and then she implicated one of my assistant managers. He came back to interview her, and needless to say, I lost two employees. I acted as the witness in both interviews, and I was truly amazed by the flow and structure of that interview and how it was used to get them both to confess. I was so intrigued by the success I did some research and signed up for a seminar on interviewing.
I attended a two day seminar on different methods of interviewing; one of those being the non-confrontational interview that encourages suspects to confess by giving them the opportunity to save face. In that setting, you find out the hardships the person faces, such as bills piling up, and help them feel better about themselves when they confess. Simply put, good people make bad choices. We also learned how to conduct interviews based on different behaviors that indicate deception, which is particularly helpful when you have no idea who is really the guilty party. Another part of this loss prevention seminar was based solely around interviewing potential job candidates. That, for me, has been a priceless lesson.
When I interview people now for openings at my store, I feel like I have the advantage. If I ask about whether they were disciplined for attendance at their last job, and they say they weren’t, but are shaking their head yes, I know to dig deeper. I know now to watch their eye movements. Did you know most people look in one direction when they recall a memory, but look the other way when they create a story?
I interviewed a candidate a couple days ago for a cashier position. I use a situational interview, and avoid questions that have yes and no answers. In the loss prevention seminar, they stressed the importance of this type of interview. This young lady would listen to me ask the question, and in some cases, she would repeat the question out loud before she answered. (That is a sign of deception, meant to give them more time to think of an answer.) In the cases where she repeated the question before answering, she would answer with a situation or time while she looked up and to her left. Then as she continued with the story, and added details, she would look down and to the right. When she did the latter, her story went in different directions. I decided she was creating too many parts of her stories, and chose not to hire her.
Now, to be clear, I do not consider myself some sort of human lie detector. I simply take the behaviors exhibited during the interview, and decide if I can count on this person to give me an honest day’s work. I definitely credit the loss prevention seminar I attended for giving me this knowledge.
For more information contact LossPreventionSeminar.com or call 1.770.426.0547
I’ve been a retail manager for the same company for over 13 years. When I started in 2001, I was green and gullible. I never would have dreamed I could hire, train, and work with people on a daily basis that would wind up stealing from our company. I never thought they’d get past the interview with me, because in my mind, I could read people like books. As the store manager, I had no idea about the benefits of attending a loss prevention seminar.
Then it happened. I found some clues that led me to investigate one of my own, and I had to make the call to our LP guy. He came in and interviewed her, and then she implicated one of my assistant managers. He came back to interview her, and needless to say, I lost two employees. I acted as the witness in both interviews, and I was truly amazed by the flow and structure of that interview and how it was used to get them both to confess. I was so intrigued by the success I did some research and signed up for a seminar on interviewing.
I attended a two day seminar on different methods of interviewing; one of those being the non-confrontational interview that encourages suspects to confess by giving them the opportunity to save face. In that setting, you find out the hardships the person faces, such as bills piling up, and help them feel better about themselves when they confess. Simply put, good people make bad choices. We also learned how to conduct interviews based on different behaviors that indicate deception, which is particularly helpful when you have no idea who is really the guilty party. Another part of this loss prevention seminar was based solely around interviewing potential job candidates. That, for me, has been a priceless lesson.
When I interview people now for openings at my store, I feel like I have the advantage. If I ask about whether they were disciplined for attendance at their last job, and they say they weren’t, but are shaking their head yes, I know to dig deeper. I know now to watch their eye movements. Did you know most people look in one direction when they recall a memory, but look the other way when they create a story?
I interviewed a candidate a couple days ago for a cashier position. I use a situational interview, and avoid questions that have yes and no answers. In the loss prevention seminar, they stressed the importance of this type of interview. This young lady would listen to me ask the question, and in some cases, she would repeat the question out loud before she answered. (That is a sign of deception, meant to give them more time to think of an answer.) In the cases where she repeated the question before answering, she would answer with a situation or time while she looked up and to her left. Then as she continued with the story, and added details, she would look down and to the right. When she did the latter, her story went in different directions. I decided she was creating too many parts of her stories, and chose not to hire her.
Now, to be clear, I do not consider myself some sort of human lie detector. I simply take the behaviors exhibited during the interview, and decide if I can count on this person to give me an honest day’s work. I definitely credit the loss prevention seminar I attended for giving me this knowledge.
For more information contact us at Loss Prevention Seminar or call 1.770.426.0547
A couple years ago, when I was still an in store loss prevention associate, I was on my routine patrol of the store I was working in. It was a Friday afternoon and I was working the closing shift. I figured it would be a good night since this was the first Friday since school had let out. This time of year the shoplifting is always a little higher since there are more people in the store. As I made my way through the apparel section of the store, I made sure to check that the clothing security device we had were affixed properly to the high dollar purses we carried. I made my rounds and then decided to get on the cameras for a little while.
A couple hours went by and there wasn’t much activity. It was really shaping up to be a boring Friday night. About three hours before closing time I noticed a male enter the store and immediately approach the high end purse selection. I found it a little odd since he was alone. He began handling the purse, but I quickly realized that he was more interested in the clothing security device than with the purse itself. I watched as he began pulling at the device. That didn’t work. He started twisting and pulling harder. That still didn’t work. I was beginning to get a little amused at his struggle. There’s only one reason someone would attempt to defeat a security tag, so I knew I’d end the night with an apprehension.
After quite a few minutes of struggling with the device, he seemingly gave up and walked out of the store. A little disappointed, I left the LP office and went inspect the tag to ensure there was no damage to it. There wasn’t, so I continued on with my shift. About 15 minutes later, I see the same individual come back into the store, only this time he was carrying a pair of sheers. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! Did this guy actually think that no one would notice him walking through a clothing store with a large pair of cutters? At this point, I decided it was probably time to contact the police since he was most likely going to steal the purse at this point.
Just as I thought, he approached the purses and without skipping a beat, clipped off the clothing security device like it was a row of hedges. I watched in disbelief in just a minute’s time, he now had access to well over two thousand dollars’ worth of product. Without a care in the world, he grabbed almost the entire stock and headed for the door. I approached him outside, and to my surprise, he was very cooperative. Once back in the office, while waiting for police, I began to ponder about the sheers that he had. They had a sticker from the home improvement store on them, so I called my LP buddy that was working. He told me he hadn’t noticed anyone fitting my guy’s description but double checked his cameras for me. Sure enough, he had stolen the clippers too when he had left my store!
For more information, contact us: KW, or call 1.770.426.0547
A couple years ago, when I was still an in store loss prevention associate, I was on my routine patrol of the store I was working in. It was a Friday afternoon and I was working the closing shift. I figured it would be a good night since this was the first Friday since school had let out. This time of year the shoplifting is always a little higher since there are more people in the store. As I made my way through the apparel section of the store, I made sure to check that the clothing security devices we had were affixed properly to the high dollar purses we carried. I made my rounds and then decided to get on the cameras for a little while.
A couple hours went by and there wasn’t much activity. It was really shaping up to be a boring Friday night. About three hours before closing time I noticed a male enter the store and immediately approach the high end purse selection. I found it a little odd since he was alone. He began handling the purse, but I quickly realized that he was more interested in the clothing security device than with the purse itself. I watched as he began pulling at the device. That didn’t work. He started twisting and pulling harder. That still didn’t work. I was beginning to get a little amused at his struggle. There’s only one reason someone would attempt to defeat a security tag, so I knew I’d end the night with an apprehension.
After quite a few minutes of struggling with the device, he seemingly gave up and walked out of the store. A little disappointed, I left the LP office and went inspect the tag to ensure there was no damage to it. There wasn’t, so I continued on with my shift. About 15 minutes later, I see the same individual come back into the store, only this time he was carrying a pair of sheers. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing! Did this guy actually think that no one would notice him walking through a clothing store with a large pair of cutters? At this point, I decided it was probably time to contact the police since he was most likely going to steal the purse at this point.
Just as I thought, he approached the purses and without skipping a beat, clipped off the clothing security device like it was a row of hedges. I watched in disbelief in just a minute’s time, he now had access to well over two thousand dollars’ worth of product. Without a care in the world, he grabbed almost the entire stock and headed for the door. I approached him outside, and to my surprise, he was very cooperative. Once back in the office, while waiting for police, I began to ponder about the sheers that he had. They had a sticker from the home improvement store on them, so I called my LP buddy that was working. He told me he hadn’t noticed anyone fitting my guy’s description but double checked his cameras for me. Sure enough, he had stolen the clippers too when he had left my store!
For more information, contact us at Clothing Secuirty, or call 1.770.426.0547
I was headed to the grocery store one Friday evening and decided that I wanted some red wine to go with the fish dinner I planned on preparing later. Once in the store, I shopped around a bit and then headed over the liquor section. Of course, I was met with more choices than I wanted. I’m not a wine drinker, so trying to pick out one bottle of red wine from a selection of 200 was a bit overwhelming. As I was shuffling up and down the aisle, I happened on the manager of the store, whom I had met at a recent retail meeting. I noticed he was placing bottle locks on some of his product. I went over and introduced myself and we struck up a conversation that ultimately led to why he had to secure his liquor.
The way he put it, was he was tired of coming in to work every morning and seeing how much alcohol was lost. He had worked in several retail settings most of his career and he told me alcohol had to be one of the highest shrinking categories he had ever had to manage. He went off on a tangent about how he didn’t think anyone in the city paid for alcohol. Knowing exactly what he was feeling and I asked about the different ways he was securing his product. The locks seemed to work really well for him, but he stopped mid-sentence and said, “I have to tell you about this one shoplifter last month.” I’m never in too much of a hurry to ignore a good shoplifting story.
It was about a month before our talk and he came into his store and noticed he was missing about 10 bottles of a more expensive bottle of whiskey. Angry at the fact that he knew they were stolen, he went to his camera system to see if he could find the thief. Over the course of the evening, he saw not only one, but three different shoplifters take his whiskey, even though they were secured with a bottle lock. He was frustrated, rightly so. Not only with the shoplifters, but with his employees. They were not visible in the area and were not providing service in that area, leaving it wide open for theft. After cooling down a bit, he went out onto the floor and spoke with some of his supervisors and stressed how important it was the teams to be aware of their surroundings. That’s when he was called to the front of the store.
He figured there was customer upset about something, so he prepared himself and walked towards the doors to rectify whatever complaint was most likely coming his way. As he neared the service desk, he noticed a man holding two bottles of whiskey that still had bottle locks secured to them. Then he realized that this was one of the shoplifters he had seen on tape steal the whiskey! Not knowing what he was about to walk into, he asks the individual what he needed. To his complete dismay, the guy says that he bought the whiskey a few nights ago and the cashier had failed to take this locks off. The manager, took back the bottles, apologized and asked if he could wait while he took the security device off. He quickly contacted the police and his whiskey thief spent a night in the drunk tank.
For more information, contact us: Bottle Locks, or call 1.770.426.0547
I was headed to the grocery store one Friday evening and decided that I wanted some red wine to go with the fish dinner I planned on preparing later. Once in the store, I shopped around a bit and then headed over the liquor section. Of course, I was met with more choices than I wanted. I’m not a wine drinker, so trying to pick out one bottle of red wine from a selection of 200 was a bit overwhelming. As I was shuffling up and down the aisle, I happened on the manager of the store, whom I had met at a recent retail meeting. I noticed he was placing bottle locks on some of his product. I went over and introduced myself and we struck up a conversation that ultimately led to why he had to secure his liquor.
The way he put it, was he was tired of coming in to work every morning and seeing how much alcohol was lost. He had worked in several retail settings most of his career and he told me alcohol had to be one of the highest shrinking categories he had ever had to manage. He went off on a tangent about how he didn’t think anyone in the city paid for alcohol. Knowing exactly what he was feeling and I asked about the different ways he was securing his product. The locks seemed to work really well for him, but he stopped mid-sentence and said, “I have to tell you about this one shoplifter last month.” I’m never in too much of a hurry to ignore a good shoplifting story.
It was about a month before our talk and he came into his store and noticed he was missing about 10 bottles of a more expensive bottle of whiskey. Angry at the fact that he knew they were stolen, he went to his camera system to see if he could find the thief. Over the course of the evening, he saw not only one, but three different shoplifters take his whiskey, even though they were secured with a bottle lock. He was frustrated, rightly so. Not only with the shoplifters, but with his employees. They were not visible in the area and were not providing service in that area, leaving it wide open for theft. After cooling down a bit, he went out onto the floor and spoke with some of his supervisors and stressed how important it was the teams to be aware of their surroundings. That’s when he was called to the front of the store.
He figured there was customer upset about something, so he prepared himself and walked towards the doors to rectify whatever complaint was most likely coming his way. As he neared the service desk, he noticed a man holding two bottles of whiskey that still had bottle locks secured to them. Then he realized that this was one of the shoplifters he had seen on tape steal the whiskey! Not knowing what he was about to walk into, he asks the individual what he needed. To his complete dismay, the guy says that he bought the whiskey a few nights ago and the cashier had failed to take this locks off. The manager, took back the bottles, apologized and asked if he could wait while he took the security device off. He quickly contacted the police and his whiskey thief spent a night in the drunk tank.
For more information, contact us at Bottle Locks, or call 1.770.426.0547
A particular case of theft was brought to my attention over the last several days. Two girls had gone into the college bookstore and attempted to steal several textbooks, presumably for the upcoming semester. As one of the security guards attempted to stop them they ran away. One of the girls dropped her bag containing her student ID.
The information was researched and taken to the dean. Even though we were not going to prosecute for the attempted theft, we needed to handle the situation from an honor code standpoint. The girl was brought in, and the situation was discussed thoroughly.
As it turned out, the girl was having financial hardship, which is why she was in the college bookstore to steal, rather than to pay for the books. The girl that was with her was not under financial duress, she simply did not want to pay for the expensive textbooks. She wanted to spend the money on going out to bars and parties instead.
The end result was that both girls were dropped from their academic programs and not allowed back on the campus. The college bookstore took this as a learning opportunity to discuss and find ways to reduce the shoplifting and theft that was going on. Clearly having a security guard was not enough of a deterrent as both girls admitted this was not the first time they had come to the college bookstore to steal their textbooks.
Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase Bookstore Security and Library Theft Detection System devices and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system from Checkpoint Systems to stop inventory losses.
For more information on Checkpoint Systems and how they can work with your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system contact us at Retail theft prevention to stop inventory losses in your College Bookstores, School Bookstores, School Libraries, High School Library, or High School Bookstore call 1.770.426.0547
A particular case of theft was brought to my attention over the last several days. Two girls had gone into the college bookstore and attempted to steal several textbooks, presumably for the upcoming semester. As one of the security guards attempted to stop them they ran away. One of the girls dropped her bag containing her student ID.
The information was researched and taken to the dean. Even though we were not going to prosecute for the attempted theft, we needed to handle the situation from an honor code standpoint. The girl was brought in, and the situation was discussed thoroughly.
As it turned out, the girl was having financial hardship, which is why she was in the college bookstore to steal, rather than to pay for the books. The girl that was with her was not under financial duress, she simply did not want to pay for the expensive textbooks. She wanted to spend the money on going out to bars and parties instead.
The end result was that both girls were dropped from their academic programs and not allowed back on the campus. The college bookstore took this as a learning opportunity to discuss and find ways to reduce the shoplifting and theft that was going on. Clearly having a security guard was not enough of a deterrent as both girls admitted this was not the first time they had come to the college bookstore to steal their textbooks.
Visit the Loss Prevention Store to purchase Bookstore Security and Library Theft Detection System devices and your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system from Checkpoint Systems to stop inventory losses.
For more information on Checkpoint Systems and how they can work with your Electronic Article Surveillance or EAS system contact us at Retail theft prevention to stop inventory losses in your College Bookstores, School Bookstores, School Libraries, High School Library, or High School Bookstore call 1.770.426.0547
You probably don’t think much of sending a trusted employee to the back door to check in a shipment, or to take the trash out when you’re busy. Have you ever stopped to think if anyone you’ve ever employed had stolen from you? Chance are, if your back door was wide open, you were most likely the victim of a dishonest employee. Taking a step as simple as controlling access to your back door, can help you to stop employee theft.
Last back to school season I got a call from a manager from one of my stores. He stated that he was missing 25 cases of red school uniform shirts. He stated that he had personally received them into his store 3 weeks ago and when he went to set the display, he discovered that they were gone. He tore his store to pieces trying to find the product, but with no luck. He was pretty distraught over the loss, since each case had about $400 worth of shirts. I asked him to provide me some additional details and I started an investigation. After reviewing the camera footage, it didn’t take me long to see where the merchandise had gone to.
I contacted the manager a few days later and asked what the procedure was in his store for taking trash out to the dumpster. He said that normally his maintenance employee would take all of the store’s trash out. I followed up by asking a question I already knew… Who lets the maintenance employee out of the back door? The manager said he would routinely give his keys to the employee because he trusted that employee. I felt bad telling this manager that his trusted employee had taken him for $10,000. This was no sophisticated theft scheme. There were not a lot of moving parts either. The associate just found merchandise that he wanted to steal and simply walked them out the back door since he had his own key.
Think about your stores. Is this a common practice for you? How can you stop employee theft when you are giving your employee the tools and the means to steal profits from your own pockets? As managers, or store owners you should develop a store policy where only a manager, or supervisor (those already entrusted to a store key) opens your doors. There’s a reason we don’t give an hourly associate a key to the store. Most stores, no matter the size, will hurt when $10,000 dollars walks out of the store. Think of the hours you could provide to your honest employees, potential sales bonuses and not to mention the profits of that extra cash. You should be proactive, not reactive, in order to stop employee theft.
Whether you want to believe it or not, chances are you’ve had an employee steal from your store. Whether it was something as small as a 20oz drink, or cases of merchandise, these dishonest employees hurt your bottom line. Don’t let your profits walk away. Have a program in place and stick to it. Just remember that any policy is only as strong as those who enforce it.
For more information, contact us: Stop Employee Theft, or call 1.770.426.0547
You probably don’t think much of sending a trusted employee to the back door to check in a shipment, or to take the trash out when you’re busy. Have you ever stopped to think if anyone you’ve ever employed had stolen from you? Chance are, if your back door was wide open, you were most likely the victim of a dishonest employee. Taking a step as simple as controlling access to your back door, can help you to stop employee theft.
Last back to school season I got a call from a manager from one of my stores. He stated that he was missing 25 cases of red school uniform shirts. He stated that he had personally received them into his store 3 weeks ago and when he went to set the display, he discovered that they were gone. He tore his store to pieces trying to find the product, but with no luck. He was pretty distraught over the loss, since each case had about $400 worth of shirts. I asked him to provide me some additional details and I started an investigation. After reviewing the camera footage, it didn’t take me long to see where the merchandise had gone to.
I contacted the manager a few days later and asked what the procedure was in his store for taking trash out to the dumpster. He said that normally his maintenance employee would take all of the store’s trash out. I followed up by asking a question I already knew… Who lets the maintenance employee out of the back door? The manager said he would routinely give his keys to the employee because he trusted that employee. I felt bad telling this manager that his trusted employee had taken him for $10,000. This was no sophisticated theft scheme. There were not a lot of moving parts either. The associate just found merchandise that he wanted to steal and simply walked them out the back door since he had his own key.
Think about your stores. Is this a common practice for you? How can you stop employee theft when you are giving your employee the tools and the means to steal profits from your own pockets? As managers, or store owners you should develop a store policy where only a manager, or supervisor (those already entrusted to a store key) opens your doors. There’s a reason we don’t give an hourly associate a key to the store. Most stores, no matter the size, will hurt when $10,000 dollars walks out of the store. Think of the hours you could provide to your honest employees, potential sales bonuses and not to mention the profits of that extra cash. You should be proactive, not reactive, in order to stop employee theft.
Whether you want to believe it or not, chances are you’ve had an employee steal from your store. Whether it was something as small as a 20oz drink, or cases of merchandise, these dishonest employees hurt your bottom line. Don’t let your profits walk away. Have a program in place and stick to it. Just remember that any policy is only as strong as those who enforce it.
For more information, contact us at Stop Employee Theft, or call 1.770.426.0547
