As you can probably guess from the title I found a gap in procedures and exploited the hell out of it. I wouldn’t call it a loop hole, just a gap and the apathy of others.
Circa 2005 I worked for a compay which sold bits and bobs of everything both in store and online. I did stints in the main distribution centre dealing with returns but mainly worked in store as a shift manager.
Part of that role was dealing with returns which included things customers bought online. Big thing of the returns was that any item £10 or under which was opened was written off as waste and binned. If it was an online purchase it didn’t require a physical receipt just confirmation from manager (me) that it was one of our products. This was also before refunds and returns could be done online. They could only be done in store. Bonus was that the refunds for online purchases could either be onto original payment card or in cash.
Guess what i started doing. I started doing dodgy returns for non existent items. I also knew that the binned returns were sent to the distribution centre and binned from there and never truly counted (minimum wage, minimum effort) so stock counts were always off
I only ever did small items and around £30 a day that i did it for. I did this successfully for 3 years and netted £17-18k ish cash and used it for my every day purchases and little bits went into saving account. Left after that and was able to put a deposit on a house and I wouldn’t have been able to do that otherwise.
Do i feel guilty? Nope. Would i do it again? No, but mainly because there wouldn’t be anyway that I could get away with it. Do I feel sorry for companies which have a problem with theft by employees? No, mainly because they create the conditions which allow it to occur and thrive. In my experience employee theft happens because they hate the company or do not earn enough to live. The companies first reaction will always be to clamp down and tighten procedures to make it harder while ignoring the root cause. Why are your employees stealing? What can you do to make your employees not want to steal in the first place? Raise wages? Improve conditions? Improve mangers interpersonal skills? How about share incentives or profit sharing giving you employees some skin in the game.
Whenever I hear of a company with a employee theft problem I automatically assume they must be terrible to work for and I have zero sympathy.
Comments
freeze fbi
You go Glen coco
“Whenever I hear of a company with a employee theft problem I automatically assume they must be terrible to work for “
Or the employee has a terrible moral compass.
Meh, goes around comes around. Theft is theft, fine but without feeling bad about it makes you a different animal. Excuses about the company don’t make a difference in my opinion. Everyone has a set of morals. You clearly don’t have any in regards to theft. Regardless or work place or not I’m guessing.
The reasoning is not so wrong.
I don’t think it can be blamed only on companies, though.
Salaries are the same as they were 20/30 years ago, but it is the price of living that has risen relentlessly.
The biggest restrictions come directly from the states, it is like that all over the world now.
But yes, you were right to do it.
This is pretty common, even today.
I know someone who works in a shop that sells everything, jewellery, PlayStations, ovens, pretty much everything that isn’t edible.
We buy empty cases for things like consoles really cheap off ebay, then “return” them to my mates shop and get a full refund for a new console.
These quotes reflect how I live my life and exactly how I have raised my children.
“Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching” – C.S. Lewis
Another version is “The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching,” attributed to John Wooden
Stephen Fry also famously stated, “You are who you are when nobody’s watching.”
I used to do something similar at an old job, netted an extra $10k at least while working for minimum wage lol
Wage equalization.