Store Security @comet

Merlin the Magician

Merlin the Magician

At the Start
Joined
May 2, 2003
Messages
3,556
Location
SOUTH WALES
Yesterday I had a need to go to Maplins to purchase some parts (electronic) I required, a really good store I have used for years and (they are a brilliant company also I use it often and know a few of the staff to have a chat with) but now resited to a new area in Cardiff so I bought my parts I wanted.

I then decided to have a look next door which is a Comet store I was looking at the cleaners (hoovers you call them) etc with a view to buying.

So I looked and then decided to go to the entrance/exit to try and find some of their offers etc on these current pamphlets they have offers etc.

I now see in these electrical stores(P-CWORLD have them) that they have a security guy elevated to watch over most things, but I was not aware of what happened next.

I had chosen a pamphlet on their current offers and a guy came to the security guy and the security guy did a full body scan of this guy with a hand held machine, like you would get at an airport, I thought I have been caught in one of these so called candid camera scams, and my face must have been a picture to see! I did not believe what I was seeing

The guy then left the shop so another thought entered my mind! Maybe they do this to all customers as they leave but then thought oh no that’s not possible and people would not use the shop surely.

So being inquisitive I ask this security guy what was that all about? so he told me that any employee(the guy was obviously a employee) that leaves the premises has got to have this full body scan, I then said that’s a bit severe and doubt I would work under such rules.

He then said its company policy to do this as they supposedly lost so much stuff last year in house! that its part of the conditions of employment in COMET I was shocked to here this, where are the workers rights gone I always thought that honesty was a thing that most people would be to his/her employer but evidently not having seen this yesterday. :rolleyes:
 
That doesn't surprise me at all. In any store with small electrical goods it is only common sense to scan employees.
 
It surprises me that its done in front of customers. Obviously if there's no staff entrance it may not be possible to do it any other way, but you've got to feel sorry for anyone who has to put up with that kind of treatment in their job and presumably can't afford to quit in protest.
 
:lol:

Isn't there a way for the scan-man to switch it off (say a button you press in the hand part of the scanner), so that if he and a dodgy empoyee are nicking stuff, it won't beep, while the employee nicks the goods? Or is there no way for the security chap to switch it off?
 
I should imagine it goes to a nationwide data base with COMET having so many stores nationwide.. otherwise the guy could be part of any scam with any employee..... :rolleyes:
 
JON that reminds me about 6 yrs ago there was a unmarried mother??? another I hear you say!! living a few doors away! she had this guy and he worked nights in a garden center as a security guard, he robbed them blind, every night coming home with car load of goodies when he was supposed to be in work looking after the place....... :o
 
Probably a bit of a give-away when they installed their 15th water feature and 400th gnome, eh, Merlin?
 
While I agree that scanning the employee publicly is not acceptable, you must surely realise, Merlin, the part of the price you would be paying for your cleaner will include a small percentage to cover employee thefts?

Is that acceptable to you because we're dealing with a large 'faceless' company?

I bet nearly everyone on here who uses their company purchased computer at work or at home is stealing from their employer ! We all do it to varying degrees and some of it is viewed as 'acceptable' by employers but some of most assuredly isn't! And why should it be?

And you can bet in a company such as Comet, a few employees will be helping themselves left, right and centre - and I bet other employees are turning a blind eye because they either have a grudge against the company or because they are intimidated. Either way, it's a Catch 22 situation for the company and I don't blame them for trying to do something about it.

Honestly, I been both an employee and an enployer in my commercial career and being an employer is a darn sight harder. We have a great staff turnover record - very, very low because we pay decent wages and have a good working environment but we know full well that software goes 'missing', so do blank cds, they use the internet etc etc - and technically that's theft! Even decent employers get shafted, you know!!
 
Even the top brass run away with the odd item now and then: when I worked for the Saudi Oil Company, one of the Saudi Vice Presidents was given a mild reprimand when it was found he'd ordered up and had delivered to his house an entire swimming pool, complete with changing cabanas, showers, lavatories, etc. because he was 'under the impression' that someone of his status was expected to look after any visiting guests. It was pointed out that that was why the Company had guest facilities, had he forgotten that? :brows:
 
Julie yes I acknowledge where your coming from regards small time employer theft, I.E .pens pencils phone calls etc but your cant get a cleaner or washing machine in your pocket or handbag as yet?sorry they stock digi cameras too.

So one gets to thinking now is the scan just a bit of a visible deterrent and could possibly identify a security tab on a small item, but if the in house (employee) thief was going to steal! They would have surely checked the item he/she was going to steal, that it had already had the tab removed?

They also have to take into consideration if caught they loose their job too so I am now thinking as stated that this hand held scanner picks up security tabs and nothing else.

It’s a rather precarious way of working me thinks! To do this body scan in view of customers or will it be that in the future that familiarity will breed contempt on the part of the customer and we will accept this type of action where ever we shop, and no one would then comment on seeing it done to employees, or is it only a matter of time before its done to the customer too?

I can go back 20 yrs and I used to buy my trousers/slacks from British Home Stores and on some of their dearer items they used to put a tag into the material the tag being 3” long I would say at a guess, then you would walk past a beam supposedly which would activate the alarm system.

Well on two occasions I bought ex number of pairs of slacks and walked through this supposed beam and returned to my house I would hang them up in my wardrobe, only when trying to put them on I would find one of these tags stuck in the leg or arse, you could remove them I would have imagined with a chance you could have damaged the material I wasn’t prepared to take this chance as I had paid big bucks for them.

I on the first occasion phoned them up and they ask me to return to the stores to have them removed, so I did and made sure I got compensation off them for both petrol and car park fees.

The second time it happened I then complained and two assistants from the store came to my house with the machine, to remove these tabs as I insisted they did, so not all security works to what we think it does.

I made sure that the tabs where removed before I left the shop after that.
 
I used to be a manager with a well known high street computer games company. We were required to search all staff in and out of the building and also had a portable metal detector to scan them with. It is a sorry state of affairs but many many people will steal anything that is not nailed down so as employers you just have to ensure that all staff know that they must sign in and out. I actually dismissed someone for constantly walking out without being scanned. It might sound harsh but it had to be done
 
By the time I left Saudi in 1992, we'd already had a conveyor belt scanner for a couple of years, for all of our personal effects such as wallets, handbags, even shopping, going IN and OUT of office area, every time we did. It was an anti-terrorism device rather than an anti-thieving one, but any employee leaving with a piece of equipment had to show a countersigned docket to prove he had permission to take it out. We all had to have company IDs with photographs, from way back in the 1970s, though latterly they included a swipe facility for coded entrances.
 
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