Employees “Taking” Credit:

A few years ago, while going to make some last minute holiday purchases, my mom was rather surprised to find out that her credit card had hit its max.  While she remembered doing a bit more shopping than she had planned, she knew there was no way that there were that many extra gifts waiting for us under the tree.  After several phones calls, she was able to find out that her credit card number had been taken from one of the business she had shopped at and that several new electronics had been purchased and were set to be delivered to our home.  These thieves had not only stole her credit card information but knew our address and the police were able to determine that the thieves  were tracking the package delivery so that they would swoop in and pick it up when it arrived before my mom knew a thing.  It is situations like this that make retailers aware that employees are finding new ways each day to steal, not only from you their employers, but from the customers that you try so hard to please.

There are many ways that credit card fraud can cause loss..  One of the most popular reports with Aspect EliteLP users is the “Credit/ Debit Refunds Over Purchases” report.  With this report you will want to watch for repeat account numbers  to identify those customers who have received more credit to their credit cards than they have actually spent.  These customers may have purchased one item and received a receipt that they have duplicated and then stole more merchandise to continue to return fraudulently.  You can use a sub-report with the completion codes and transaction codes for employee transactions as well and this will identify employee activity on an account with more refunds than purchases. I will post some tips on creating these sub-reports on our LinkedIn page.

Another popular report with our users is the “Multiple Refunds, Same Account, Same Associate” report.  Many times associates still do not want to risk stealing cash but instead easily credit their own accounts with what they believe is little risk of being caught.  The associate could be processing their own refunds for merchandise that was not purchased as a way of stealing money or lowering their own account balances.Look at these credit transactions to see if they have ever been associated with an employee purchase and you may be able to tie in some fraudulent employee purchases.  On the other hand,  they could be using a friend or family members’ card to credit.  In today’s tough economic times, your associates may be trying to help out their friends or family members.

With the increased popularity of purchasing gift cards and re-selling them online, you can also run reports looking at SVC purchased with credit cards.  If you are able to determine a credit card is fraudulent you may be able to cancel the gift card before it has been used to reduce your loss.

An employee may also try to ring fraudulent transactions by manually entering credit card numbers.  The “Credit Debit Account: Manual and Swiped” report will identify these transactions.  Pay close attention to transactions where the card is swiped and then later in the day is used in a transaction by manually being entered.  While this could indicate a mag-swipe that isn’t working correctly, it also could be an associate that retained an account number to ring up a fraudulent transaction.

Staying on top of your credit card transactions will not only help your bottom line, it will keep your customers happy in knowing that purchases they make in your store are safe.  Do not let your employees think that they can take “credit” when credit is not due.  Let Aspect EliteLP help to give the credit to you!