Retail giant Wal-Mart is a target for crime. Find out what goes on behind the scenes to prevent shoplifting in the aisles of a Wal-Mart Supercenter.
Yeah, that was me, over a decade ago: a bona-fide Wal-Mart employee. I'd don my khakis, a nice polo shirt, and Wal-Mart's trademark blue vest - nametag clipped in place over my left breast pocket - and I was ready to do some serious customer service. I worked at two different Wal-Marts over a period of two years in central Pennsylvania. And although I was ready to help customers find the DVD player of thier dreams, my smiling face didn't tell the whole story...
A few months into my Wal-Mart career, I had met a gentleman employed by Wal-Mart - he was wearing plain clothes, no blue vest - whose full-time duty was to track down thieves in our Wal-Mart supercenter. I worked in the electronics department, and CD's, DVD's, and video games were favorite targets of shoplifers, so I saw a lot of our undercover watchdog. Some of the more expensive items were kept behind locked cabinet doors, but many of the electronics items were still left out on normal, unsecured shelves.
Day after day, he would stalk suspicious customers and wait for them to stuff the store's merchandise in their pants or purse. He had to wait for them to attempt leaving the store with the items still unpaid, but then he'd nab them, grab them by the arm, and tell them to come with him. It seemed like twice a day he'd catch someone. He had seen everything from new mothers lifting their infants out of their strollers to place unpaid items under them, to groups of thugs grabbing handfuls of goods and making a run for the exit. We'd watch him escort the criminals to the back of the store, where he'd hold them for a time until the police arrived to make the prosecution official.
If one of us spotted a shady character in a particular department, we could page the undercover Wal-Mart agent by his real name, and tell him to report to that department -- only we'd say that a customer needed assistance instead of announcing over the P.A. that someone suspicious was in the store.
Once, I was interviewed by a detective about a transaction I had rung-up in the Wal-Mart electronics department. It seems a criminal had purchased a television and some other accessories with a stolen credit card. The store I was employed by was a favorite target for credit card fraud, and the detective needed to make sure it wasn't an inside job; that I hadn't deliberately helped this criminal make his purchase in exchange for a cut of the goods.The Wal-Mart corporation focused largely on "shrinkage," or "loss prevention." If you heard a Wal-Mart employee ask another if they had seen "BOB" lately...that was a code to remind that employee to check the "Bottom Of the Basket."
In other words, the employee asking the question thought that a customer was trying to steal some Wal-Mart merchandise by leaving it in the bottom of his or her shopping cart on purpose so the cashier couldn't ring it up. If the employee began talking about "LISA," she was really saying "Look InSide Always" -- telling other employees to check inside any bags or containers among the items the customer was purchasing to see if he or she was stowing away extra merchandise there.
What appeared to be the everyday world of retail was actually a web of crime, espionage, and justice. Every shopping day was an adventure...at Wal-Mart Undercover.
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