How to stop organized retail theft vol 1

a reply to: Dutchowl

Seems to have worked just this has it not?

a reply to: okazakijoe
I used to design point of purchase displays, including some for high end products. Good luck at making something securely locked. These days there's too much tech out there for anything to be "securely locked". Cordless roto tools with diamond cutting wheels, hydraulic and pneumatic bolt cutters and so forth. Then there's always the tried and true, hold a gun or knife on somebody and make the salesperson unlock the security. I've seen video of what they will do to break into something, it's nuts.

There was another post here showing a cleaned out Samsung cabinet along with an Apple cabinet that they couldn't get into. I designed both cabinets. We offered Samsung the same security in their cabinet but, they didn't want it for cost reasons.

Something a lot of people don't know, for some products the value is in the name. A long time ago I was installing a machine in a plant that made refrigerators. They used an assembly line for manufacture. There was a red housing hanging on the line. I was curious and asked one of the people on the line. He told me to watch when the red housing got to a girl on the line. (I'd have watched the girl anyway) When it got to her she pulled a cord stopping the line. She took two boxes from her worktable and put them under it. She pulled out two different boxes and restarted the line. The boxes contained the labels that went on the refrigerators. When she stopped the line she put a low end brand name's labels under the table and pulled out a high end brand's labels. There was no other difference in the refrigerators.

The reason I mention this is what is the "actual" loss because of these thefts? When a phone costs $70-$80 to manufacture, but, you sell it for $1000, is the actual loss worth the cost and liability of the security measures that would be needed?

a reply to: Granitebones

During Hurricane Andrew I got to see some of that first hand.

At the time we had a jewelry store in an indoor flea market down in Homestead. Andrew came in and demolished the front of the building. I had to go in and take stuff out before the looters took everything. As I was leaving the Florida National Guard came up to me with rifles in hand. Luckily I had picture ID's indicating that I was a store owner. The other looters weren't so luckily and were detained, on their knees, at gun point till the police showed up.

originally posted by: machineintelligence
a reply to: Bluntone22

I think auto-locking the doors or dropping down bars would add to the terror and confusion these situations cause I think.

I think a USB smart key system would be cost-effective and simple to implement market-wide.

But I like this one too, lock them in, end of story... What terror? They are on a shopping spree, and if you are worried about the workers in the store what are they going to do to them being locked in?

originally posted by: Xtrozero
I like this one, lock them in, end of story...

It's a shame that it is against the Fire Code.

Here's the problem. The Socialist Progressives in Government support the criminals. Until that's dealt with nothing can be done. Philadelphia passed a law against having barriers to protect the cashier in stores. They called it "racist". Anything that you do that is effective is going to be made illegal in the name of "racism". If anybody gets hurt because of anything that you implement for security, you are going to be sued into oblivion.

Say you hire an armed security guard. Your store gets robbed. The robber shoots your security guard and the round passes through him and injures a child. You're going to be sued. You are going to be sued by the child's family, by the security guard's family, anybody in the store, and possibly your other employees. You are going to be slandered by the media, saying that you escalated things by having the guard. I've seen it happen.

Product keys for all electronics.
If it's not legally bought and has a product key, it will never work.
If it's bought with a stolen credit card, it can be tracked and turned OFF and will never work again.

I had someone get my card number and CVV code and buy a iPhone, and it took 3 months to get my account back to normal so I could use it.
Likely, the store that sold the iPhone got a Chargeback and lost around $900, and they likely would love to shut down the phone forever.
And so would i love to see them with a junk phone for my troubles.
Or even better, the phone tracked by the cops and the thieves fitted for new jewelry.

Or if they sold the iPhone to another criminal and the new owner found they got sold junk they might get mad and hunt down the thief and fit him for a body bag.

a reply to: ANNED

That's funny!!!!!! Not you having your card compromised (been there had the headache) but, the fact that you want to enable tracking of devices and letting the manufacturer be able to disable them at will.

What site are we on? Isn't this the same site that had a huge thread about stores tracking what you bought by loyalty cards?

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: machineintelligence

Wouldn't it be easier to just put bars on all the doors that slam shut when the security alarm is pulled?

Would you allow your wife or kid to work in a place that solved retail theft by locking them into the building with the criminals?

Sounds like a terrible idea to me.

The solution to this problem lies in that $30/day mark. If our economy can produce $30/day for each person within it, you have the entire nation in a position that theft is a less favorable solution to their daily needs. That is the current benchmark for western society (1.90 is the worldwide extreme poverty benchmark, for scale). We need to continue to grow economic volume, then find a way to ensure that the fruits of that effort have some level of equity. I think we are currently needing to increase our economy by a factor of 5 to get there...which seems impossible. But we have done more than that in the last 100 years....exponential growth works like that.