Stealing $3 billion from Wal-Mart

As a retired executive of the Kroger Co. and currently a shareholder of Walmart I am disgusted with the company and the cavalier attitude toward shoplifting. This leads employees and customers to increasingly steal when they think it is justified and the threat of prosecution is non-existant.

Peter Cohens statement that says he has no interest in Wal-Mart is an under-statement. If he had any interest in Wal-Mart or the investors or employees of this company he would not write an article like this. Every retailer knows about the problem and spends millions of dollars to try to manage it. Shoplifting cannot be stopped, only managed. Pete Cohen as now told the world of thefts, you can go into Wal-Mart now and steal $25 or less and you will not be arrested. Really Peter, investors says thanks alot, as well as Wal-Mart I am sure. You should have written the article about the total dollars of shrinkage the stores have and better explain why better health care and higher salaries paid employees is so difficult. The article is typical of the articles you write about Wal-Mart. I am a customer at Wal-Mart, not an investor at this time, nor do I have any ties to this company. I just hate to see articles like this that encourages the dis-honest people in our country.

Actually, Eric and Peter are both wrong. Your defenition of shrinkage is NOT accurate. "Most" retailers have changed their loss prevention methods quite a bit over the past 5-8 years. As a former Senior Loss Prevention Manager for one of the largest retailers in the country, the less than 1% shrinkage that Wal-Mart had is NOT out of line. It's very good, in fact, as a percentage. The dollar amount looks bad, and perhaps even worse when looking at net sales. From my VAST experience, fixing INTERNAL theft, maintaining EXCELLENT ACCOUNTING practices and taking an ACCURATE inventory will clear up 85% of your shrinkage (in most cases). Couple that with the multi-million dollar law suits for bodily harm and wrongfull death cases when dealing with shoplifters, and you should clearly see why many retailers are changing their loss prevention strategy. In my stores, I had a 100% prosecution rate. Meaning ALL cases that I sent to the prosecutors office were successfully prosecuted. However, most of these cases became internal cases instead of external cases. When looking at (and criticizing) staffing, understand that "typical" loss prevention departments also take care of charge fraud cases, check fraud, background investigations, physical security, medical emergencies, fire systems, etc. None of which has much to do with shrinkage. Throw in tracking all of the gift cards and card fraud and you can see the departments are very busy. Also, I found MANY discrepencies when using outside inventory companies to conduct the annual inventory. THIS IS A HUGE problem and can account for many errors and high shrinkage dollars.....and most of their inventory workers are TEMP's that are not experts and DON'T CARE. I do, however, think that many retailers tend to cut in the loss prevention departments too much and too soon when looking at budgets. I think your articles are without merit an jump to the wrong conclusions. My hat's off to Wal-Mart for keeping it under the national average.

AS A SHAREHOLDER FOR 20 YEARS I AM THINKING ABOUT SELLING MY SHARE OF A COMPANY THAT DOES NOT MAKE THE NECESWSARY CHANGES TO BETTER SHAREHOLDER AND CUSTOMERS ALIKE. AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE LACK ON STOCK ON THE SHELVES. TOO MANY OF THEIR STAFF DOING NOTHING. AND WITH THE PEOPLE AT THE DOOR NO ONE SHOULD GET AWAY WITH STOLEN MERCHANDISE. WHERE IS THEIR SECURITY STAFF THAT SHOULD BE WATCHING AND THEN GETTING THESE CROOKS. EMPLOYEES SHOULD BE SHOWING ANY MERCHANDISE PRIOR TO LEAVING THE STORE.

WALMART SAM IS TURNING OVER IN HIS GRAVE AND BECAUSE OF THE CEO AND OTHER EXECUTIVES WE ARE LOOSING MONEY. PLUS THE REPUTATION OF FAIR SHOPPING PRACTICES. MAKE IT OR BREAK IT.

Woah, Walmart employees are not doing "nothing". At least not in this store. I know in our store there is not enough staff to cover all the places that need to be covered and Walmart is not hiring to fill the need. Yes they did cut the loss prevention staff down to one person, and the poor guy is only there part time. It is a shoplifters paradise. Walmart is more worried about hurting the poor shoplifter that gets out of the store with the plasma TV than him actually stealing it. Besides you notice that the prices are no longer falling in Walmart. They have to cover the cost of those shoplifters somehow. No, they are more worried about the poor working employee stealing than those punks that steal for a living. Low wages, non affordable healthcare, and working till you drop, and now being watched. YES!!! That is the Walmart way.

My heart goes out to poor Wal-Mart who tried their best to cheat me with my drug bill, but I noticed it and got my over-charges back after a long wait, of course.

I am the Gina Tuley referred to in the article by Mr. Cohen. I would like to ask Mr. Cohen why he would take it upon himself to make the assumption that I felt "JUSTIFIED" in my decision to, as he puts it, "look the other way" when I saw problems in the Walmart store I worked in. I don't recall ever having spoken with Mr. Cohen in my life. So, unless he speaks with me himself, I don't think he should make such a statement. In fact, the person with whom I spoke was doing a story about increasing theft at Walmart and I simply told her what I knew from my own experiences. What was "not" said was that the biggest reason I "looked the other way" if that's the way he wants to put it, is that when I DID try to use the open door policy to report problems, I was told by my store manager that If I didn't like what went on there, I was "welcomed to go elsewhere"! I reported that statement to his superior at a later date and was told to "Just give him another chance"! Bad management? Yes! My fault? NO! By the way, if it is of interest to anyone, I am not a disgruntled fired problem child. In fact, in all of my evaluations I met or exceeded expectations and in my final one I received "exceeds expectaions" and received the highest raise allowed for the year. It was problems within the company and it's treatment or rather mistreatment of it's "associates", NOT NECESSARILY MYSELF, that made me choose to leave the company!
What kind of mistreatment? Well now, that's a story in itself!