I could never quite figure the logic of capturing cash sales at the registers and then putting the cash into the store safe that was left vulnerable to theft in so many ways.

Credit card skimming in the restaurant industry is becoming more exposed as higher dollar theft cases are being made against restaurant workers.  This time in the Minneapolis – St. Paul area, seven were charged with stealing customer credit card information from those they served in the restaurant.

A customer denied helping steal a pricey exotic bird from a Naperville, IL pet store.  She said she didn’t know anything about stolen birds.  Just so happened, police inspected her purse and found several feathers that matched the bird and some bird seed.  “Ohhhhhhh, THAT bird!”  Now that’s what we in the loss prevention biz call - your evidence.  The incident was also captured on the store's security cameras. 

In the early stages of retailers and restaurant companies selling gift cards, we, in the loss prevention side of the industry learned about a different kind of fraud – cloning. Just a few years ago, the only reference I had to cloning involved sheep somewhere in England.