Stores Paying To Be Robbed To Expose Security Flaws
Sun Herald
Sunday December 22, 2002
RETAILERS are paying specially trained ``thieves" to shoplift from their stores to unearth security flaws.
Security company Loss Prevention Specialists says demand for the undercover service is growing, with four firms paying to be robbed in the past 12 months.
The Melbourne-based company is now offering its services to Sydney businesses.
Director Adam Chong said professional security officers, hired out at $35 an hour, played the role of thieves in the operations.
Dressed to blend in with other customers, they use the tricks of the shoplifting trade to distract staff, secrete their booty and slip out of the store.
``They will take the goods outside," Mr Chong said.
``Then they will come back into the store and place the goods on a table in a training room.
``The staff are told `This is what we have stolen in one hour'."
Mr Chong said hauls running into thousands of dollars were not uncommon.
In an operation earlier this year operatives escaped with $5,000 in stock from a department store in only an hour.
Mr Chong said employees were generally flabbergasted by the volume of stock stolen.
``They are usually dumbfounded," he said.
``They will look at what's been taken and they can't comprehend how much is there."
Staff are then lectured on how to spot shoplifters and methods they can use to reduce theft.
Seminars on shoplifting are about $500.
Mr Chong said while many people imagined shoplifters were all hard drug users and from lower socio-economic groups, the reality was different.
He said many shoplifters were well spoken, reasonably dressed and agreeable to staff.
Professionals even used techniques such as hidden compartments in prams.
Mr Chong, whose company also supplies in-store security officers, said businesses were taking up the mystery shoplifting service because they realised shop theft represented an immense cost to them.
He said while the situation had not arisen, undercover shoplifters caught by staff would simply surrender the stolen goods and walk out of the store they were in.
Staff would then be congratulated on their perceptiveness.
© 2002 Sun Herald