Dirty. Stinking. Thieves. > <

[Dave1982]

I have had it up to HERE with dishonest people, saboteurs, and thieves. Here's a rundown of what's happened just in the past few weeks at my store:

• The Nero 7 Incident I posted about the other day

• Two security boxed copies of Adobe Premier Elements 3.0, gone

• Multiple attempted thefts of Texas Instuments graphing calculators. In one single day I had to throw out SIX damaged security boxes because of that, including two very expensive ones with built-in alarms that I had to break open myself because the would-be thieves jammed them so badly they wouldn't unlock.

•Two display boxes for the Adobe Photoshop Elements & Premiere Elements combo package were mistakenly put in security boxes, both of which were promptly broken open, only for the thieves to find no actual software inside (that one was slightly amusing for the karma factor).

•Two attempted thefts of display laptops (one of which was foiled by Al proactively installing a cable lock on it after noticing the guys who were acting suspiciously. They still damaged the security pad in the process, though).

•At least six other other security boxed items are currently unaccounted for.

Then today.......hooo my......

The moment I stepped in the door (I was opening this morning) I got dragged over to see the handiwork of some very clever thieves that had struck the day before.

It seems that nobody noticed when they brought over a plastic storage bin to the computer aisle, stowed it on the bottom shelf, filled it with a mix of water and some other substance, then SUBMERGED AN ELECTRONIC ALARM BOX in it to short out the box. In doing so, they disabled the alarms on a portable printer ($250), three desktop computers, and EVERY single computer monitor. They then apparently stole a monitor (why they *only* stole a monitor is beyond me). I noted everything in the alarm log, and the department lead and I were able to restore the desktop computer alarms by routing them to other boxes, but that was it. The box was completely toast.

And still we are not given surveillance or sufficient payroll so we can get enough staff in to prevent this sort of thing.

Oh, and somewhere along the line today some scumbag tried to buy a laptop and three cameras with a stolen credit card. When it declined he cut and ran.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

And still we are not given surveillance or sufficient payroll so we can get enough staff in to prevent this sort of thing.

Of course not, because IF IT MAKES SENSE, IT'S NOT ALLOWED

And surveillance cameras and the employees necessary to watch them cost money. It is much cheaper and easier to come down on the employees and tell them to be more vigilant.

[Gravekeeper]

Wow, you don't have a surveillance camera in a store that sells computer hardware? o.O

Even the smallest rat hole hardware stores here have a camera.

Hell, I have a surveillance camera right here to my right. We only use it to see who's at the door in the evening and on Sunday. Since only graveyard shows up for evening shifts that means it gets used an average of 3 times a day for 5 seconds. But we still have one.

[Becks]

And still we are not given surveillance or sufficient payroll so we can get enough staff in to prevent this sort of thing.

Of course not. The idiots in charge don't seem to realize that it's cheaper (in the long run, sure, but it just has to be now, too...) to get some damn security cameras and a damn rent-a-cop than to have to damage or shrink out hundreds of dollars worth of stolen/damaged merchandise.

Oh..wait...IPF summed it up already.






But he forgot the ™®©

[XCashier]

Of course not, because IF IT MAKES SENSE, IT'S NOT ALLOWED

And surveillance cameras and the employees necessary to watch them cost money. It is much cheaper and easier to come down on the employees and tell them to be more vigilant.

The Retail comic strip recently did a story line about this thing. Start here for the story arc.

Seriously though, that is totally FUBARed. How much money would they spend to install a few cameras throughout the store vs how much money they would lose to all these thefts of high-end merchandise?! But as IPF said, if it makes sense...

[Der Cute]

Dave, you could have the management install "fake" cameras into the store. Ones where they aren't connected to anything, but look real.

This would help a bit.

[Dave1982]

Dave, you could have the management install "fake" cameras into the store. Ones where they aren't connected to anything, but look real.

This would help a bit.

We already have fake cameras! Hasn't done jack shit!

[CaptainJaneway]

i was thinking about your problem today. Does your store have a lock up or a place you can put expenesive items so when a customer pays you have to go an get it once they show a receipt?

Because if you do what you can try is making photo copies or taking a empty box of the software they are stealing and putting it in one of those plastic locked boxes. So if the customer wants the item they then have to pay for it first, show a receipt and then the item would be retrieved once proof has been obtain.

A lot of places i shop do that to keep down theft.

[Dave1982]

i was thinking about your problem today. Does your store have a lock up or a place you can put expenesive items so when a customer pays you have to go an get it once they show a receipt?

Because if you do what you can try is making photo copies or taking a empty box of the software they are stealing and putting it in one of those plastic locked boxes. So if the customer wants the item they then have to pay for it first, show a receipt and then the item would be retrieved once proof has been obtain.

A lot of places i shop do that to keep down theft.

We DO have a lock up, though we retrieve the items before they pay (but they don't get their grubby paws on them until they've paid). But we can't keep the whole store in there. We have a whole laundry list of guidelines from corporate about what can just be put on the shelf, what needs an EAS tag (the tag that makes you beep in the way out the door if you steal something), what needs to be wrapped (with a spider wrap) or boxed (in an acrylic security box), and what must be inaccessible (in Lock up, with a demo or empty box on the shelf). Generally, it breaks down like this:

$49.99 or less - EAS tag it

$50-99.99 - box/wrap it

$100+ - Lock up.

There's lots of exceptions though. For example, most printers are well over $100, but it's not possible to keep those in lock-up or in high overhead storage. At the same time, it's not exactly easy to waltz off with a printer. Here and there you'll find expensive merchandise on the sales floor (phones, toner cartridges, and during Back to School, TI calculators).

Most of the stuff being stolen is under the $100 lock up cutoff, but it's really getting to the point where we need to start moving all software in there, and start boxing and wrapping everything else.

I have discussed this issue with my GM in the past. He told me that the Home Office feels that the store wouldn't be "customer friendly" if we had everything locked up like Fort Knox. Which I feel is a load of crap. You gotta do what you gotta do. The honest custoemrs will understand, and we stymy the thieves. Right now, it isn't "customer" friendly; it's "criminal friendly."

And I know our manages have asked the higher ups about getting surveillance in the past, but to no avail.

[Rapscallion]

We already have fake cameras! Hasn't done jack shit!

Well, I guess it goes to show that fake cameras dissuade fake thieves?

Rapscallion

[sld72382]

When I was living in NY I worked at a Staples in a huge shopping mall (think of a mall with the same name as a NY parkway). Well many times we had the same issues with theft, and for some reason the deterants (spider wrap, plastic boxes) weren't enough.