“I’ve read where the biggest losses are from employees themselves.”
I once cashiered at a store where the friends/families were so used to getting freebies, they assumed that all the cashiers were complicit. They’d say, “I’m so-and-so’s aunt, this 10 lb ham is complementary” and when I’d grin and reply, “I’ll need to ring it up and you can get your reimbursement at the service desk,” they’d curse at me.
A few of them even complained to management with fabricated BS stories that I’d been rude to them, to try to get me fired.
Of course, when I told management that so-and-so was the problem, not me, I was quickly persona non grata, since so-and-so was the manager’s best friend’s daughter. I found myself being “written up” for other imaginary infractions.
Didn’t work there long.
If the store owner wanted to gift the items, fine.. but surely they had a way of issuing store credits, not just wink-nod them past the cashiers. Sounds flakey to me, you were right to go.
When I worked as a store manager for Radio Shack I had a similar situation.
My store was so low volume that I could only afford one part time guy. He was already working at the store when I took over. Seemed nice enough. I did pick up through conversations that he was a close personal friend with the previous manager.
I would often leave at 6:00pm and the part timer would close the store at 9:00am.
One morning I come in and noticed that a receiver that was at eye level just as you walked in the back room was gone. I checked the tickets from the night before and there was no record of the sale.
I immediately called Loss Prevention and explained the situation. The Loss Prevention supervisor - a Mr. Nolan - arrived within the hour with the District Manager.
Upon sharing the story they asked if they could look in my car trunk. I was taken aback, but agreed.
They then asked if they could search my house - all the while telling me that I would have to produce receipts for any Radio Shack merchandise they found on my property. I was a pack rat and I knew that I had receipts for EVERYTHING I owned, so I agreed. That seemed to surprise them. I asked if they were going to question my part timer and was told that was none of my business.
I left the company not long after that. Later, I discovered that the previous manager of my store, the one I inherited the part timer from, is the long time girlfriend of the son of the District Manager and that my part timer was - surprise - his best friend!
It seems that the reason that the store hadn’t been profitable before I took it over was that they had been stealing from it regularly, with the District Manager turning a blind eye. When she - the previous manager - got a new store they decided to steal from both.
I found out years later that this particular District Manager was fired when his district had an overall inventory shortage of about $250K. Justice eventually prevailed.