A Loss Prevention Agent Can Solve Your Riddle and Protect The Innocent

The following two scenarios are pretty good clues you should seriously consider talking to a professional loss prevention agent.

Scenario one: You are a retail business owner who has a suspicion that you have an employee who is stealing from you, but you can’t quite put your finger on it the specifics.

Scenario two: There have been small amounts of cash missing, the register doesn’t always balance at the end of the day, or that item of merchandise you were sure you had yesterday can’t be located today, and there is no record of its being sold.

You may be asking yourself the following questions:

How do you find confirm you have a case of employee theft and how do you determine the how serious it is?

Is now the time to confront the suspect employee or to launch a full blown internal investigation to find the source of you suspicions?

Will a confrontation cause the guilty employee to stop his actions before you are able to prove involvement and have a chance at restitution?

In order to alleviate internal theft properly, certain steps must be taken by a qualified loss prevention agent.  These trained professionals will protect any innocent employees from feeling suspect and to protect you from any liability.

This is the time to contact an experienced loss prevention consultant who has the skills and experience to quickly get to the bottom of your problem and to find out the depth of employee involvement using highly developed investigative analytics and interview skills and to bring the situation to a successful conclusion.

For further information on what a Loss Prevention Agent can do for your situation, visit here.

Suspect White Collar Crime? Call a Loss Prevention Investigator

If you suspect your business is victim of corporate fraud/ white collar crime, you should consider consulting a loss prevention investigator.

Wikipedia defines white-collar crime as “a crime committed by a person of respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation”. We have found that this kind crime is not just reserved for the Senior Management of a business or retail establishment. People frequently involved in white-collar crime include Department Heads, Assistant Managers and Managers.

Employees at this level of management have access to inventory, cash, bookkeeping records and deposits. They can make changes to inventory and records and are in fact expected to do so in a genuine business situation.  Because of this access and trust there are employees that end up committing white collar crime by voiding sales, modifying the accounting records, stealing inventory and depositing checks to their own account.
How can an employer protect it self from white collar crime? To begin with the hiring process must be designed to screen out candidates that have high-risk backgrounds. Some of these include:

  • Termination from a previous job for theft.
  • Poor credit history. If a person cannot manage their own money do you really want them managing yours? There are some exceptions such as a severe medical problem. But beyond those types of issues a poor credit record tells you how they manage their life.
  • Traffic tickets beyond the occasional speeding ticket. Drunk driving, reckless or careless driving and frequent accidents tell you yet again more about how the person conducts themselves.
  • Criminal histories also give us a window into a person’s mindset. I am not talking about the check they bounced in college for dry cleaning. Domestic violence, assaults, drunk and disorderly type incidents show that a person is not in control of themselves. And of course convictions for serious crimes such as murder, kidnapping and rape not only show us that the person is out of control but is a high-risk liability for an employer. If you hire someone like this and they commit any crime against your employees or customers and you will most likely be held liable.
  • Employment testing with one of the many employment-screening tools that sort out people that are prone to the issues above are very effective.
  • Drug testing
  • Companies should conduct multiple interviews by more than one management team member skilled in pre-employment interviewing.
  • Check references. This tends to get down played but clearly has merit. Require references with teacher’s previous supervisors, co-workers, etc beyond the ones that they list on their resume.

Protect your self by being proactive. Remember, white-collar crime is never, ever going away.

For more information what a loss prevention investigator can do for your potential issue, go here: White-Collar Crime or call 1.770.426.0547

Consider Subcontractinga A Loss Prevention Investigator

Companies’  revenues and profit margins are sinking and they are finding themselves more vulnerable to shoplifting and employee theft than ever before.  Often times the first place most companies go to cut costs is to cut payroll. Less people on staff means less coverage on the floor… which obviously means more opportunity for thieves to take advantage of the situation.

A  solution gaining popularity is to sub contract professional loss prevention investigators.  Loss prevention investigators typically start with an audit and identify areas that can be improved without adding to the staff.  Experienced loss prevention investigators can swiftly identify your opportunities for improved processes, employee training and technology enhancements. These opportunities when implemented will cut losses and improve profits immediately.

Another benefit is that the subcontractor is seen as the bad guy and in using this resource instead of the business manager/ owner conducting their own investigations, preserves good relations with valued employees.  And this keeps the manager / owner out of the emotional involvement of a very serious issue which can be very stressful.

For more info go here: Loss Prevention Investigator