Taking out the trash
Employees are taking out your trash and your merchandise. It happens all the time. Taking out the trash is an opportunity for your employees to remove your merchandise so they or an accomplice can return later to collect what they've stolen. Strong controls around trash removal are an important part of any comprehensive loss prevention plan.
- Require two employees to take out the trash. If that's not possible they need to have another employee check the trash for merchandise just prior to removing from the building.
- Have set times to take out trash.
- Collect all trash into one location prior to removal to dumpster.
- Invest in a compactor, and require all trash to be put into the compactor. Don't let employees leave trash outside the compactor.
- Regularly inspect your dumpster/trash area for merchandise.
- Use clear trash bags.
- Require all boxes to be broken down/folded flat.
The key to any program (loss prevention or otherwise) is to follow and enforce procedures.
Refund Fraud Indicators
I've compiled a list of useful refund fraud indicators...
- Multipe refunds, one receipt: Can indicate that a customer returned one item, and the cashier/manager is using the receipt to refund the remaining items for cash.
- UPC keyed, not scanned: Could mean that cashier/manager is using a found receipt to key in UPCs of items to refund (since the actual item isn't at the desk).
- Multiples of a single item: Item may be available or near the register, and cashier/manager uses that item to refund for cash.
- Percent of refund dollars to sales dollars/Percent of refund transactions/sales transactions: Deviation from the company/store average can indicate fraudlent refund transactions.
- Multiple refunds to same credit card: It's not unusual for a person committing refund fraud to refund the money to their own credit card/debit card(or an accomplice's card).
- Loose receipts at register: Receipts left behind by customers or reprinted receipts are left at register instead of being thrown away immediately.
- Reprinted receipt used for refund: A reprinted receipt (your receipts do indicate "Not original receipt" or "Duplicate" when reprinted?) is used for a refund could indicate cashier/manager reprinted the receipt to use for a refund.
Any additional methods you use?
Communication, commitments, and reference
I'm always looking to improve the organization system I use (a hybrid GTD) to manage my business and personal life. I've recently realized the massive amounts of information that I have to digest, store, or act on.
First, I realize there are three types of information that I encounter in my daily routine:
- Communication - This is all of the emails, voicemails, and memos not directly related to my short or long term goals. Items I would classify as communication require no action on my part, or contain information I would later want to refer to later.
- Commitments - Anything that requires an action on my part to complete. Items I would classify as commitments require action by myself or a subordinate. They need to be tracked in my system until completed.
- Reference - Everything I would ever want or need to refer to in the future is reference information. Reference information needs to be easy to access, available when I need it, and complete.
Total Capture
My goal is simple...total capture of commitments and reference information. I've decided to use the following tools to help with my goal.
- Windows Phone - I've a personal MS Exchange account that allows me to sync contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes between my phone, laptop, and desktop. Additionally, I've access to everything through web access if I'm away from any my phone or computers. The phone I use has a great (5 MP) camera, and I can take pictures of any notes or articles I want to refer to later. OCR lets me convert these to text.
- One Note by MS. I like the notebook interface, and it has great search facilities. Anything I put in here can be easily found for future reference. I just wish there was a full featured mobile version that I could use on my phone.
- Moleskeine note book. I love writing in these notebooks - they have a huge cult following on the internet. I try to convert anything I capture in the notebook to digital form as soon as possible.
- Data on the Run - A great application for Windows Mobile that lets me sync MS Access databases from my desktop to my phone. I use it to keep several DBs of reference information I want to be able to access.
- Scan2PDF - PDFs from my camera phone! Great quality, easy to read.
National Shoplifting Prevention Coalition Membership
I've just become a member of the NSPC (National Shoplifting Prevention Coalition).
From the NSPC website:
The National Shoplifting Prevention Coalition (NSPC) harnesses the collective efforts of retail and corporate entities, justice and law enforcement agencies and schools and community groups in a nationwide, non-partisan alliance to address shoplifting. The purpose of the Coalition is to institute a coordinated effort to improve the way our nation and local communities regard, prevent and respond to shoplifting.
I've only had a short time to look through the resources available as member, but the amount and quality of reference information and statistical information is great.
Stop Shoplifting Self Help Books
Here is useful, self help book on shoplifting. I hope this information is useful.
Also, if you need additional help on stopping shoplifting you need to contact the people at NASP (National Association of Shoplifting Prevention). They have several courses designed to help you stop shoplifting.