'Twas The Night Before Wednesday

'Twas the night before Wednesday, and all through the stores

Not a register was ringing, no popping of drawers;

The carts were all lined by the door with great care,

In hopes that bargain shoppers soon would be there;

The cameras were pointed; all focused on doors,

While visions of emptiness danced on the floors;

And money all locked in the drop safe with care,

the tills were all balanced for tomorrow’s affair,

When out in the parking lot there arose such a clatter,

The cameras zoom in to see what was the matter.

A line started forming; a mob like a flash,

With unwanted presents and gift receipts stashed.

Those wanting to be first to get money back 

Lined up outside, prepared to attack,

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a known refunder with all of his gear,

He had fake gift receipts and bad ids totaling six,

I knew in a moment, it was something I’d fix.

More rapid than ever, I hit PTZ

And he produced from his bag stolen goods; received free!

"Now, Cameras! Now, Aspect! Now, all our Cashiers!

Now is the time to kick into gear!


To the start of the transaction! Zoom into the man!

Now let’s catch him and his cohorts, and foil their plan!"

End this crime spree by checking data twice,

This is a guy who’s surely not nice

Help other retailers and build up the case,

Prevent other thieves from getting a taste,

Of relaxed refund standards and merchandise stolen.

By employees and thieves, hoping it’s golden.

So I use my reporting, and many cases I find,

Refunds and discounts, cashiers stealing us blind.

Aspect EliteLP helps save the day,

Employees think twice and thieves stay away;

The refund is fake, the SVC later voided,

No success for the refunder.

Perhaps future thefts avoided!

We all celebrate our success with cheer.

                              And are very happy to have Aspect EliteLP here.

I Saw Johnny Stealing Cash and Cards…

While we all love the excitement of giving gifts during the holiday season, there are some employees that feel they will pick out their own gift and take from you.  This present isn’t in the form of a beautifully wrapped gift with a large red bow; instead it is the present that leaves your register or bottom line lighter. There are several ways to use the Aspect EliteLP application to help you identify those employees that might be taking advantage of you. 

Employees may find it easier to ring a fraudulent or heavily discounted purchase on their own rather than trying to recruit a friend to do their dirty work. You can run a basic report that will show you any time the employee ringing the purchase was also the employee making the purchase. Even if they are not fraudulent, these transactions are usually against company policy and should be reviewed to ensure they are valid transactions.

As I mentioned in this blog previously when talking about SVC’s or Gift Cards, it is often easier for employees to steal the cards than actual cash from the register.  We have already discussed employees taking advantage of left behind gift cards in our Walking in a Gift Card Wonderland blog, but employees have figured out even more ways to use SVC’s to their discount abusing advantage.  It is important to run reports that are looking at SVC’s Issued and Redeemed by the Same Person.  This will identify instances where the associate ringing the purchase or return later uses the SVC in an employee purchase.  If you see transaction where this is the case, it will be helpful to review both the issuing and redeeming transactions. Employees may be making fraudulent returns without receipts and then will use the SVC on their purchases later.  Employees also may be using SVC’s that were used in customer transactions but then were left behind.  Looking at Employee Purchases with SVC Redeemed queries and then checking SVC’s in which previous purchases were not employee purchases will help you to locate instances where this may be occurring. You can also find these transactions by looking at Multiple SVC Redemptions Same Account, Date.



By running the Employee Merchandise Credit Transactions Report you can use this report to track employees using merchandise credits on employee discount purchases/refunds, especially if this is against corporate policy. Other problems revealed by this report might be use of the same merchandise credit account number against the same employee number, or merchandise credit refunds not involving employee discounts (employees ringing refunds without returning their discount).

Employee Purchase with Repetitive Amounts is a great report to keep an eye on.  Use this report to investigate associates with frequent employee transactions rung for the same amounts. The report lists associates who have rung multiple employee purchases (or refunds) for the same amount. The report shows the associate, the amount of the repetitive transaction, and the count. Keep in mind that this report is by the associate who rang the sale, not the purchaser. You can track the purchasing employee with any of the Top Employee Purchases report. The Employee may be purchasing a hot item for friend or reselling on eBay or Craig’s List for a profit.

Another useful report to run is Top Employee Purchases.  Sort this report by Discount Amount to see those employees which stand out above the norm.  Also, it may be helpful to identify employees that have not ever used their employee discount.  The holiday season is the perfect opportunity to take advantage of this employee benefit and employees that are not making any purchases may be taking advantage of you in some other dishonest way. It is also something to watch when you see employees with low employee purchases but witness them wearing or using a lot of new company product.  These employees may be taking this merchandise if it does not seem to match up with the employee purchases you can track in Aspect.

Employees may also try to take advantage of store promotions and additional savings.  It is important to make sure that you are watching for stacked discounts in employee transactions.  These could be training issues if employees are unaware of store policies regarding employee discounts but many times these are ways they are trying to take advantage of what they perceive as loopholes.  This is also important when discussing the purchase of SVC cards.  You will want to ensure that employees know the policies regarding the use of their employee discounts to purchase and/or redeem SVC’s because this is the busiest time of the year for these transactions.

Walking in a Gift Card Wonderland

As many of us know, we no longer have to dread figuring exactly the right gift or just what size Aunt Mabel may be wearing.  We have the very popular option of getting that special someone a gift card.  Giving someone a gift card is a bit more personalized than just handing over that crisp $50 bill.  However, to some employees the theft of gift cards can seem to be much easier than dipping their hand in the register to take some of your hard earned cash and a just another way to try to take advantage of the system.

When analyzing your SVC data you may want to look at a few of our favorite reports from the SVC Incident Category:

ü   Merchandise Credit Issued and Redeemed Summary

ü  Multiple SVC Same Transaction

ü  SVC Issued and Redeemed by Same Person

ü   SVC Issued and Redeemed Same Day

The “SVC Issued and Redeemed on the Same Day” report is excellent for highlighting several high risk situations.  For example, we all know that the average shopper will not purchase a SVC card and then turn around and use it the same day.  If you see this happening it could be a situation where the associate selling the gift card keeps the live one and gives the customer a blank.  The “good” card is then used for another sale and the associate keeps the cash.  Also look for situations where the card is purchased on a regular sale and redeemed as an Employee Sale.  This is a great indicator of employee discount fraud. Finally, watch for SVCs that are issued in a regular refund and redeemed on an Employee Sale – especially if the same person uses it.  While it would seem somewhat surprising that an employee would need to get their discount on an item purchased with a stolen gift card, as we all know, dishonest employees are greedy.  Using the “SVC Issued and Redeemed By the Same Person” report will identify situations where the selling associate is the same as the person who redeems the card on an Employee Sale.  There are few situations where this is a legitimate transaction, so hits on this report are a great indicator of theft.



Before I had a 7 yr old daughter that enjoyed taking my old gift cards to use in the many “stores” she creates for us to play with each night, I would often be asked “There is nothing remaining on this card, would you like me to throw it away for you?”  My thought would be, why would I want that card back and have to wonder each time I found it on the bottom of my purse “is there anything on this card?”  However, dishonest employees are hoping for this. The associate will keep SVCs with small balances, telling the customer that they have been used up.  These cards accumulate and then are used on their own transactions later (remember the greedy factor??).  Look at the “Multiple SVC in Same Transaction” report with a sub report for Employee Purchases.  When you see a lot of small value cards being used, there may be a problem!  

The trend of getting a little something special for yourself with the purchase of gift cards has also been on the rise.  However, like most promotions in the retail world, this may be giving your employees a way to reward them self.  Watch for these cards showing up on employee purchases or for an associate who is either issuing or redeeming a card on every transaction.  It could be an integrity issue or a training issue – it is probably something that should be checked out.

External theft and gift card fraud is also a huge area of vulnerability.  Review the “SVC Issued by Tender” report and really focus on large gift card sales that were purchased with a check or a fraudulent credit card.  Many of these fraudsters are putting these cards out to auction so by checking the validity of the purchasing account, you can decommission cards that were purchased with bad credit cards or checks.  Aspect retailers have reported six figure savings by using this process!  Another external fraud issue is the cloning of cards in the stores.  Be sure that stores know to contact Loss Prevention if there is a sudden disappearance of blank gift cards in the store.  That way you can be alert to possible upcoming fraudulent activity.

I Hear Those Post Voids Ringing

The holidays are a time of giving.  Presents are wrapped in beautiful paper and the excitement is seen both in the person receiving the gift and the person giving.  During this busy holiday season, your store’s merchandise is often the present that is given in this situation.  However, sometimes this present is in the form of merchandise being passed across the register for an employee’s friend or family member.  Sweethearting and passing items can be a way that employees are causing you a loss at the register.  Never fear, Aspect can help!!!!

Just Passing Thru:

Catching someone in the act of sweet-hearting or passing items is often tough and with so many companies using video at the registers, the bad associates try to make everything look right to the eye in the sky.  Line voids are a great way for them to do this since it looks like things are being rung up and a manager doesn’t have to be called over. You may find cases where people with an entire cart full of merchandise decides after making their way through the turnstiles decide that they only want the $1.99 item in the cart.  The funny thing is, all the items in their cart still make their way into your store bags and out the front door.  You are left with a transaction showing line voids of 20 items.  So, catch these people “hooking up” their friends by looking for transactions where the number and dollar amounts of the voided items are really high and the transaction total is really small.  Look for associates with more of these high risk transactions or just link to the video of the transaction to find out what really happened. 

Time after Time (here is my weekly placement of a song that is sure to get stuck in your head the rest of the day):

Also, if you have duration as a data element, you might want to look at transactions with long durations but small item counts or transaction amounts.  The Generic Transaction Summary can help highlight these cases where the associate is pretending to ring up the items for the sake of the camera or other people around. I would definitely be wondering what kind of extreme couponing was going on to get a whole cart load of items for $4.99!

Null and Void:

When looking at post voids, it is often helpful to look at reports that will show Post Voids that occurred more than “X” transactions after the sale or Post Voids more than “X” minutes after the sale. Look for associates that have a high percentage of post voids of cash sales.  A lot of customers will be asking for gift receipts and dishonest associates will often use this as an opportunity to use these for post voids.  One way to track this is by looking for associates with more applied voids where cash was tendered and be suspicious if they do not have a corresponding number of applied voids with other tenders.  You can also track which associate is issuing more reprint or gift receipts than their peers.

Transaction voids are another area of concern to watch for.  These are typically transactions in which the associate will void the entire transaction prior to its completion.  In some cases this can be done when the associate sees that the customer is paying with cash.  For example, if they know the total will be $100.50, they can void the transaction, take the money and their register will actually be over fifty cents after they are able to take the $100 in cash for themselves.

Suspended transactions are also of interest if associates can suspend a sale.  This is often done after their friend has already left with the merchandise.  You will want to look for a large number of suspends, especially if there is not a corresponding number of resumed transactions. Transaction cancels can also be done to give the appearance that merchandise has been rung and passed off to someone or to allow the associate to pocket the incoming payment for the purchase.  

While we are taught to help our friends when they are in need, this does not mean to help them steal. With the official kick off of the Holiday season underway, the pressure we all feel during the next month intensifies and the pressure associates will feel from their friends will also increase.  Again, we are hoping that these tips can ease some of that pressure by helping you prevent some of your associates from using their position to increase their popularity among friends in need of holiday shopping discounts.  Maybe these friends will give them the hook up when they are in need of a new job!

The Return of the Blog!

Greetings!  After a long break, I am pleased to find myself back in front of my computer writing another Aspect holiday blog entry.  As many of you know, much has changed in the Aspect world since the 2012 InterACT conference.  Our family has grown!  Aspect Loss Prevention is now a member of the Verisk Crime Analytics family which makes the APIS product our sister. Feel free to be humming the Sister Sledge “We are Family” song right now.

As in many blended families there are some adjustments being made, but the opportunity to grow together is something we are very excited about. CargoNet is another one of our sister products so here is the link to some of their holiday tips as well:

 http://s891.t.en25.com/e/es?s=891&e=58334&elq=a0de48326b3047419b666229a463cdc4. 

So with all of that being said, welcome to the APIS and other Verisk Crime Analytics users that may be new to our blog this year. Once again, I will be updating each week with some helpful reminders and tips for the Holiday season. 

Why Not Have Black Friday in July?

The opening of stores earlier and earlier appears to be the trend again this year. A recent story posted on Nov. 16^th even mentioned a woman and her daughter lining up for some great deals (only 168 hours before the sales open).  While opening the stores early and later closing hours can be very beneficial to your store’s bottom line, it will take some adjustments in your Aspect EliteLP system to make sure all of your indicators are correct. This is an Administration function, so check in with your corporate team to make sure you holiday store hours are correct.

Now Hiring

To handle all the extended hours, many of you will be hiring extra help.  However remember, these seasonal and temporary associates can hurt more than they help. This particular group of employees is a higher risk than the associates who know they will still have a job after the holidays. Make sure you get started by creating an Associate Group to monitor this group of employees separately from other associates. Often your HRIS system will assist you in creating this group based on hire date or status (Seasonal/Temporary).  If you have questions on this, have your system administrator call into the Aspect office and we can assist in the creation of these groups.  This group is now available to run specific queries.

Must Have, Must Steal

What are your stores’ must have items or promotions this upcoming Black Friday?  Use Aspect to flag the important or high risk SKUs!  With the exponential increase in sales, the item table can become huge.  If there are items that you are looking at on a regular basis, consider adding them to the Special SKU table.  Your generic or “junk” SKUs should always be there but you may want to add the season’s hot items special promotional items or things you just know that people are going to steal. Watch for those employees who have employee purchases including these SKUs.  They may be moving themselves to the front of the long line outside the door by stashing the items in the warmth of the store beforehand and purchasing them later.

Pop Up Stores

With lots of available real estate, pop up stores continue to be popular during the holidays. There are different risks for these sites and different metrics should be used. Make this analysis easier by building them into a store group. This way you can easily track those specific locations during the holiday rush.

Relax and Go To Your Happy Place

 

Don’t get overwhelmed!!  Remember AutoMIND alerts might be triggered simply due to the higher volume of the holidays.  Adjust your thresholds as business picks up so that you aren’t flooded with alerts just because of the increase in transactions. This is one of those times where the “new associate” and “temp store” groups will come in handy!

So again, by following a few simple tips, we are hoping that any stuffing that is occurring during the Thanksgiving weekend is of turkeys and empty stomachs, not employees or thieves pockets!

 

InterACT 2012

I hope that all of you that attended InterACT 2012 made it home safely and arrived home with as much excitement and feeling of renewed energy that I have. (I think the last of the Red Bulls has left my system and I find I am able to walk a little slower).

 As many of you know, this was my first InterACT user group conference.  I admit, I went into it not knowing what to expect.  I had heard from all of my co-workers that the many days of hard work  and effort would be worth it based on the valuable information and relationships that everyone builds on throughout the week.  However, call it the fear of the unknown--the combination of anticipation and the to-do list that grew by the second was enough to have me a little restless.

Then, registration opened.  I saw Aspect Users that I previously only knew by name and voice coming up the escalators to register with an excitement to "interact" and get all that they could out of the week.  People happily greeted their fellow users. They excitedly flipped through the conference book, mapping out which sessions were on their “not to miss” list. The energy only went up from there!

  So for those of you that were not able to attend InterACT 2012, here is some of what you missed:  

•  46 Retail Companies were represented by the over 85 retail attendees.
•  There was a wonderful mix of expertise – there were 47 first time attendees as well as 17 “InterACT Alumni” who had each attended at least five conferences.  

•  For the first time, users had an opportunity to book time at the “Ask the Expert” booth.  The response to this chance to have dedicated time with Katy and/or Kathleen was overwhelming! One user commented that the 45 minute session for him and his co-worker “paid for the entire conference”.

• More than 50 people participated in Special Interest Group sessions for the Sporting Goods, Fashion Retail and Off-Price retail segments.
• There were over 30 educational sessions to choose from (over half were led by you -our users). Agenda: http://www.aspectlp.com/interact/100067_agenda+

   

•      A record number of Senior LP Executives met and attended the VP/Directors Workshops
•        Aspect Loss Prevention business partners helped to sponsor the event and also took part in sessions and led moderated workshops and general sessions.

·         The 7^th charity event for Katie’s Helping Hand raised an incredible $9,000 to help provide meals to families whose children seriously ill in the hospital. 

  

      One of the things that struck me as so amazing from this conference took place on Friday - the day after the conference ended. Throughout the day, I was able to see that one of the main goals of InterACT was being achieved.  On LinkedIn, I watched as many of the attendees were added to each other as connections.  These connections were going beyond those of like companies connecting.  They were connecting with Aspect being the common factor.  We hope that throughout the year that you keep in contact with the connections you made at InterACT 2012.  Use the information that you were able to gather from the sessions you attended or from the dinner conversations that you had with fellow professionals.  Carry that excitement that we witnessed all throughout the conference into a productive year.

      Also, by making connections with the Aspect Team, feel free to contact us when you have a question, comment or suggestion.  We pride ourselves on the support we give to you, our users.   I hope that by putting faces to names, better relationships are able to be built (and that even more of you participate on LinkedIn and on the Aspect User Blog). I think the last song of the night at Dueling Pianos summed up the philosophy of InterACT, everyone got up on that stage and belted our an enthusiastic rendition of "Lean on Me".  The words could not be a better fit for what we hope you will always remember- you should always feel free to sing out (or just email) “I just might have a problem that you’d understand.” So... reach out, keep in touch and InterACT throughout the entire year!

What’s new around Aspect?

I figured it was a good time to just do a blog to update some of the exciting things that either have recently taken place or are coming up quickly on our calendar.  We are beating the winter blues by keep ourselves very busy around the office and around the world.

Building Partnerships

Up first, Aspect Loss Prevention, in partnership with Enabl-u Technologies Canada recently sponsored the first ever BC Retail Loss Prevention Training and Networking Event.  This conference was for retail loss prevention professionals from British Columbia, Vancouver and Alberta.  Held at the company headquarters of London Drug in Richmond, British Columbia, the event had over 30 people in attendance.

The focus of the event was to leverage the role of technology in order to improve production and profitability while at the same time, enhancing loss prevention strategies.  The agenda was created by retailers, for retailers with input from industry leaders including Best Buy and London Drugs. Cheryl Blake, Aspect’s VP of Corporate Development, led a spirited discussion of the different types of data available to retailers including how to find it, how to use it and how to present it for best results.  Attendees shared how they have used exception based reporting in their organizations as well as new initiatives that they are starting.  It provided a great opportunity for BC, Vancouver and west coast based Canadian retailers to join together to network in a learning environment, specific to Loss Prevention.

Next up, the new Aspect Loss Prevention Website-

Have you visited our newly updated web page?  There are many new features that you can find at www.aspectlp.com to make your experience with our product even better.  Take some time to visit our new page and you are bound to learn something new about us!  Under resources you will also find an easy link to our blog and LinkedIn pages.

And while you are there…

The time is coming near for InterACT 2012.  On the webpage you are able to link to the official InterACT 2012 page. http://www.aspectlp.com/site/interact.php  

There are less than 20 days remaining for early bird pricing so make sure you sign up now.

 One of the many things new this year is an added special interest group aimed at I.T.  This is another way to bridge those gaps and incorporate even more parts of the company.  We are also at a new venue this year and everyone is looking forward to another amazing event. 

From our readers:

As I have mentioned before, we are always looking for feedback from our customers and readers.  We recently received an email from our friends at The Container Store.  As we know, one way to help deter some potential employee theft is to help instill a high level of employee morale.  With National We Love Our Employees day, The Container Store tried to do this along with saying thanks to those that are committed to helping the company day to day.  They produced a video that you can view at the following link. http://standfor.containerstore.com/rappin-rob-gs-valentine-rhyme/.

 I have told Rob that I may have to see some of his rapping ability at InterACT this year.  Rob has asked that if you enjoy the video, please visit “What We Stand For” on The Container Store website and place your comments there. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.