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Retail Fraud on the Rise
prostoalex writes "They buy the merchandise, print their own receipts, and return it. They buy two watches - an expensive one and inexpensive one, and then swap them and return the one with the highest price. Business Week talks about retail scams, and how merchants are trying to avoid them without losing the customer service battle. They are fighting against surprisingly sophisticated techniques, too." From the article: "Q: What role do auction Web sites play in all this? A: Retailers have stopped giving cash back in many different cases. Instead, they do refunds in the form of gift cards or store credits or store value cards. If a crook can get enough of those, he might sell $2,500 worth of gift cards for $2,000 online. It's a benefit for the buyer, who gets a discount and will use those gift cards. And the person who has manipulated the return-scam system has a way to [make money]. But the retailers lose out. "
The CEO of Costco happens ot agree with you and employees are paid very well, given a good benefits package and so on. As a side effect Costco has a much lower turnover rate and employee theft rate than your average retail chain. They don't compensate with higher prices either.
And for all that, they still make a lot of money.
You'll never eliminate it, of course, some people are just greedy. Every person could live in luxury and there'd still be those who stole just to have more, but you are absolutly correct that when employees are paid for shit and treated like shit, they are much more prone to theft.