Theft Rising at U.S. Wal-Mart Stores

[devilgrrl]

Had to share.... :evilgrin:

Theft Rising at U.S. Wal-Mart Stores
By ANNE D'INNOCENZIO and MARCUS KABEL (AP Business Writers)
From Associated Press
June 13, 2007 5:20 PM EDT

NEW YORK - Shoppers at Wal-Mart stores across America are loading carts with merchandise - maybe a flat-screen TV, a few DVDs and a six-pack of beer - and strolling out without paying. Employees also are helping themselves to goods they haven't paid for.

The world's largest retailer is saying little about these kinds of thefts, but its recent public disclosures that it is experiencing an increase in so-called shrinkage at its U.S. stores suggests that inventory losses due to shoplifting, employee theft, paperwork errors and supplier fraud could be worsening.

The hit is likely to rise to more than $3 billion this year for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which generated sales of $348.6 billion last year, according to retail consultant Burt Flickinger III.

Flickinger and other analysts say the increase in theft may be tied to Wal-Mart's highly publicized decision last year to no longer prosecute minor cases of shoplifting in order to focus on organized shoplifting rings. Former employees also say staffing levels, including security personnel, have been reduced, making it easier for theft to occur. And a union-backed group critical of the retailer's personnel policies contends general worker discontent is playing a role.

Wal-Mart declined to offer any explanations for the rise in losses, but denied it has cut security staff and said employee morale is rising rather than falling.

More: http://enews.earthlink.net/article/top?guid=20070613/466f6bc0_3ca6_15526200706131832734795

[Stinky The Clown]

1. Cry me a fucking river .....

... when you squeeze everyone with whom you have contact to increase your profits, this is what you get.

Employees who HATE you.

Customers who loathe you.

Security staff who feel like slaves and HATE their masters.

Cleaning crews who feel like prisoners and who would steal your eye teeth just because of how eveil you are to them.

Cry me a river ...... indeed.

[durrrty libby]

11. I don't think there is any excuse for stealing

Geez..Isn't personal integrity important these days?

[Stinky The Clown]

14. I'm not condoning it ..... just explaining it as I see it.

Yeah, stealing is wrong. But it happens. Sometimes it happens because someone's got a drug habit. Sometimes because someone's hungry. Sometimes it is pure greed. Sociopathy.

And sometimes victims are their own worst enemies.

[Donnachaidh]

16. And what's the average salary for a Walmart emloyee these days?

No - it's NOT right to steal. But Walmart bitching over it? My heart bleeds for them. it really does. :sarcasm:

[durrrty libby]

19. Since when did 2 wrongs make a right?

[blondeatlast]

25. Small town city councils so desperate for operating funds and local jobs

that they surrender their towns to Wal-Mart, then live to regret it.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Firsrt thing that crossed my mind was that retail theft

can maybe be read as an index of economic desperation.

[KansDem]

3. I doubt very much if Wal-Mart would make public its security arrangements...

Wal-Mart declined to offer any explanations for the rise in losses, but denied it has cut security staff and said employee morale is rising rather than falling.

I worked for a large, well-known retailer about 18 years ago during the Christmas rush to earn extra money. We were quickly trained and told just before we hit the floors that the store had no security. "Wha...???" I thought to myself.

Sure enough, I could see teams of shoplifters come into the store and just pick up stuff and walk out. The first few times, I called the office... "Just call the office if you suspect shoplifting," we were told. The first couple of times someone from the office would come up to see what was going on, but since it took so long the shoplifters were already gone (they didn't stay much longer than a few minutes). Finally, no one from the office would bother to show up. I thought "**** this, if they don't care, neither do I!"

[GoddessOfGuinness]

7. If employee morale is rising,

it's probably due to the fact that WalMart is finally on the receiving end of the screw.

[Solon]

9. I worked at Wal-Mart, and those glass balls on the ceiling were empty...

Except for the ones over the Registers, Electronics, Layaway, Jewelry, and the Sporting Goods register. They were the ONLY ones with cameras, and we had ONE loss prevention guy at our store, that's it. Even then, in the security room at our store, NONE of those cameras would be on anyways, except for the parking lot ones, and they had five of those near the entrance, that's it. They were also of such bad quality you could barely make out cars, much less people.

[EstimatedProphet]

15. Of course

All the cameras are in the parking lots and break areas, in case someone talks about unionizing!

[blondeatlast]

30. One loss prevention guy? As I say below, if the idea for WM is to concentrate

on organized theft, they are going about it entirely wrongly.

What's needed to prevent this kind of theft is well-educated and enabled staff who aren't afraid to challenge a suspicious activity.

Wal Mart once again is seeking public sympathy. Assholes.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. But the prices are so LOW, why would ANYONE have to steal when

everything is SO affordable?

:sarcasm:

[Canuckistanian]

5. It's called "shrinkage" in the trade

They use that euphemism because they're always embarrassed by it.

[blitzen]

6. Probably because there are so few open checkout stands, and so many people...

waiting in line, that people just get fed up and take off without paying

[DKRC]

8. Witnessed this myself in TX back in '02

Standing in line, woman in her 20's in line ahead of me had a huge vase in her hands. There was a couple ahead of her being checked out and I guess she decided she's waited long enough because she simply stepped out of line and walked right out the doors with the vase. I alerted the clerk at the counter, she shrugged and told me she wasn't paid to chase shoplifters.
I asked if she wasn't paid to call security so they could chase the shoplifters, she merely shrugged again and finished checking the people out ahead of me.

Weird to watch it happen.

[Systematic Chaos]

10. I have heard many, MANY times about people doing this.

Loading carts with whatever and just strolling out. I can't bring myself to do it because I'm just not like that, but part of me figures it's just karma spinning like a wheel against that company.

I worked for Wherehouse Entertainment, at their flagship Vegas store, way back in 1989. That store had the district manager AND the district head of security in it fairly often but the store still lost a good deal of money from people coming in, unwrapping a ton of cds and then walking out with them in their clothes. Most of the time there was almost no staff during the day anyway so the huge store was easy to maneuver in.

In 2001, shortly before the chain went belly up, this happened at that store:

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2001/Dec-19-Wed-2001/opinion/17700570.html

On edit: Whoops, make that 1995.

[ikojo]

20. One of the mall's cleaning people told me that Abercrombie

and Fitch were ripped off all the time. They had huge tables of shirts just sitting near the outside aisle of the mall. Shoplifters would speed past and collect as many shirts as they could and run out to their cars. A&F didn't care, heck their stuff was so overpriced they probably recouped the cost on the next shirt they sold.

Eventually that A&F store closed. I think there may be one at West County Mall in St Louis but I'm not sure.

People rip off clothes and then sell them at garage sales or flea markets. There was one lady in St Charles County who was running quite the scam and making money. It involved making copies of coupons for free stuff. She'd get the free stuff and then sell it at garage sales.

[IndyOp]

22. Whoa! Store clerk paralyzed by robbers...

The case was that of Lorraine Mosca, now 29, the former music store clerk who spent weeks in a coma, who had to relearn such skills as walking and talking, and who still remains partially paralyzed after a 1995 robbery in which a gang of 25 local youths swarmed the Decatur Boulevard Wherehouse music store where she was employed.

Three men are now serving prison sentences in the crime, including Andre Colon, the man who threw the punch that nearly killed her.

:puke:

[GoddessOfGuinness]

12. Many of the WalMarts I've seen

are in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods, where shoplifting is a frequent occurrence.

[Cleita]

13. Seems like the working poor, whom they made a business

catering to, can't even afford their cheap goods anymore and have to steal them.

[TahitiNut]

17. "employee morale is rising rather than falling."

Well, d'oh?!?! I guess we know one reason why that is, now. :dunce:

[madmom]

18. I'm not by any means defending any body here but I used to work at

Meijer's dept. store but now I work at walmart(I know, but gotta make a car payment some how) any way when I worked at meijer (union shop) I made $2.00 less an hour for doing the same job I'm now doing at walmart, also left meijer because I felt I was cheated out of a promised raise at the first of the year.:shrug:

[durrrty libby]

21. What.?......Hey........What did you say????

How dare you defend the Evil Empire here



Better use this thing like everyone else:sarcasm:

[Solon]

29. Let's just hope you don't have to sue them to get just compensation. n/t

[Omaha Steve]

23. ROTFLMAO!!!!! :-)

This should have benn posted in LBN. Anything Sprawl-Mart related deserves it.

[Nikia]

24. Probably goes with being a big store

There are so many people that employees cannot watch all of them. Also, some desperate people feel less bad about stealing from big stores than small stores.

[Ron Green]

26. It's an understandable consequence of bigness -

I mean, who in the hell can identify with Wal*Mart? If there's any commercial entity that's become such an institution that it's almost like a government, it's that wretched outfit. People steal from faceless entities more readily than from human beings.

[Xenotime]

27. Who cares? They can afford it..

They steal from their workers everyday.

[blondeatlast]

28. Idiots--cutting staffing to focus on organized rings? That's like letting

the fox guard the henhouse.

You need more--and better educated and ENABLED--staff to deal with grab and runs and check/credit card/return fraud.

Try to convince me this isn't one of WM's periodic "feel sorry for us, we're victims too" arguments.