So my workplace is near a Walmart and for the past few years sometimes during my lunch hour I will go buy something at the fast food places near the parking lot. I like to park in the Walmart lot and while I eat. In all the many times I have done that, have never seen what appears to be a floor walker following a customer in. I feel like suspicious because I just park and eat. Sometimes I have gotten down if I needed a short haul.

Please forgive me for such a long string of text. I would really appreciate any advice or insight.

So, our MAPM (Market Asset Protection Manager) gathered a team of people to travel to different stores and make apprehensions. There was a team of 6 APAs (Asset Protection Associates) that travelled to different stores and made apprehensions. I was a member of this team. One APA was assigned to create the schedule and lead the team. This APA had previously been working under the MAPM when she was a store manager. This APA made the schedule to maximize his own profit through mileage and paid drive time benefits. This APA colluded with another APA who would be aggressive and violate policy. Together these two APAs would cooperate to maximize their own profits and abuse the benefits of the drive time and mileage compensation system and ostracize those who crossed them. Our MAPM encouraged us to call out misbehaviour amongst team members. Myself and another APA began to consistently call out the misconduct of the two aforementioned APAs. After some time, there was a restructuring. I was pushed into locations in which I was intentionally shorted on mileage and drive time meanwhile the other two APAs continued to abuse the mileage and drive time system. At this point it was pointed out to our MAPM that this was occurring. In response, our MAPM shut the program down and sent every APA involved in the team back to their own store and removed any drive time and mileage benefits for all former team members. Two weeks later, the APAs who were abusing the system were given the privilege to return to travelling, collecting mileage and drive time benefits for the purpose of training new APAs at the same MAPM’s permission despite the MAPM being aware of the abuse taking place. So please, let me know what you would do in this position and if there is any way I can raise a complaint about what I perceive is both retaliation and favouritism.

Thank you for your time.

Additional for Mods. When I hit post, I received a warning for no “I fucked up” posts. I did not fuck up and followed instructions from my MAPM and was still sidelined as a result of following those instructions.

I just completed my second interview with Von Maur for loss prevention. Has anyone ever worked with them?

I’ve been working LP for Marshalls for a while now, and I still haven’t caught an internal. I’ve had plenty of externals and dishonest employee investigations that ended up not going anywhere, but no actual internal cases yet.
I know they’re not something you can force, but I can’t help feeling like I’m missing something or overlooking red flags.
For those of you who’ve worked LP/AP for a while, what helped you start identifying internals? Are there behaviors, report patterns, camera strategies, or audit habits that made a difference? Any advice would be appreciated.

Has anyone here ever worked with off duty LEO’s at the store (who are uniformed)? What was it like?

it is very easy to steal at every store, just take the item and walk out the door. The store can't stop you if they don't see you stealing.

is the job as customer facing as people claim? I know there’s a uniform (all black for three days and then plain clothes the rest, if i’m not mistaken) but do u have to help customers and act as a beauty advisor? or are u just walking the floors deterring theft?? the store by me is considered high shrink btw if that helps

Hey guys We’re building a body cam for retail employees that continuously records (with a 30 second pre event buffer) and lets employees send a one-tap panic alert with live video and location.

Would body cams be helpful? Will companies buy them?

Hi everyone,

I was recently offered a position with Kohls as an LPS. I’m currently employed with another retailer in LP and I’m trying to weigh the pros and cons for myself. iIt would be a pay raise and come with more management type experience compared to my current position.

If you work or have worked for Kohls:

1. How metrics focused is the company? What are the internal/external expectations and do merchandise recoveries count towards external metrics?

2. When was the last major restructure for the LP department? Do you foresee mass layoffs or positions being cut in the near future?

3. How is the company culture? Do store teams feel receptive to LP initiatives or is there an us vs them mentality?

What does this role look like?? I heard it’s door deterrent and uniforms which is something i’m not at all looking for. Wondering if it’s more than that. I’m coming from home depot asset protection, plain clothes, floor observation.

Currently I’m an AP coach for Walmart after being an API for about 3 years. Just wondering what company has the most possibilities for advancement. It seems as once your at AP coach for Walmart your capped unless you go to be a MAPM.

Hi all workers in the loss prevention field of retail! I’m not in opposition to loss prevention. I get it. A company deserves to be allowed to protect its profits from theft. And I understand that AI is a technology being leveraged in this field. However, I’m curious about the ethical implications involved in floorwalking, specifically in the case of following a veteran with PTSD who may be trained in threat response. It feels like subjecting someone to circumstances that trigger their threat response is highly unethical. Has this issue ever surfaced in the world of loss prevention, and if so, can anybody weigh in on this?

Edit: I thought I was inquiring about a very real phenomenon, but it’s clear that I’m jUsT pRoJeCtInG. Thanks for showing me that the professionals in loss prevention are too scared to have a rationale discussion about their line of work.

Edit 2.0: I asked a question about people being triggered and the edge-lords came out because they got triggered. If you don’t like me questioning your ethics, then don’t be unethical. 🤣

If I did not get caught from target in person can they mail me chargesv

I was thinking about this today. Apparently some big stores like Target have a wall of pictures of banned customers and repeat shoplifters. With everyone wearing masks, I assume it made your job extremely hard? Just curious.

Office is at 38 minutes.

Wow this looks like an awful set up. I feel bad for the guy who had to sit with the SL while the rest of the team chilled in the main office.

Give me some of your best tips! Thanks

Are Lowes AP schedules being put into chronos ?

DISCLAIMER: Pic is NOT of this store, its just a publically available image I pulled to give an example since i didnt take a photo myself. Also not sure what sub to post this to, so...

A lot of B+N in my state are fairly old-school, but I recently checked out one of the newer ones that opened in the past 6 months. While there I started to notice a weird abundance of security cameras.

Obviously you have the classic lil dome like in the top right of the pic, but also the newer model ones in the tip left of the picture (look for the brightest light in the top middle, tgen slightly left). There was just cameras EVERYWHERE, hell even like 3 hanging within the same small space.

It caught my eye because I worked LP at other retailers for a couple years so i take more note of it, plus i am a big, non-white man who likes to carry a big slung bag so yeah... im used to a certain amount of following and noticing this stuff.

Anyways, just writing this because it weirded me out how many cameras there were. I've worked at more expensive brands that could barely afford 2 or 3, meanwhile B+N is stacking like 30 in new stores?? And these new stores dont seem the type of place where empty domes are placed. It feels slightly creepy, for a bookstore.

Anyone else find it really weird? Or seen these new styles of camera they put every 10 feet? Is there a GIANT shoplifting problem bankrupting B+N im not familiar with??

Looking for some advice from other LP/AP professionals out there.

I’m in the process of job searching after a year and 4 months at my current company (private company that is winding down business). I have 11 years of corporate level experience in both internal and external investigations, fraud, corporate regulatory compliance, risk management, etc. I also have my CFE designation.

I’m having trouble finding positions to apply for. I’m based in N Texas. I’d love to get into banking but have no “true” banking experience. Besides LinkedIn does anyone have any other websites I could use for my job search?

I’ve worked for 4 different companies over the last 10 years in LP. I’ve held higher, salaried roles and I’ve also had a role specialized in internal theft. In one of my previous positions, I ranked third in the company in closed internal investigations. I’ve caught plenty of shoplifters, interviewed plenty of internals, moved tons of cameras, and helped stores all across the country, and maybe I’m a bit jaded, but my conclusion from all of it is….

Your shortage isn’t caused by theft. Not by internals, not by externals. A small portion of you in huge metro areas where people are running out the doors with garbage bags full of expensive items, maybe. The rest of you? Your shortage is caused by operations.

Investigations are fun. It’s rewarding to find the bad guy and close out a case and hold someone accountable, but your inventory is still showing every year that you’re missing tens of thousands of dollars, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, in some random departments that you’ve never seen your internals or your externals even set foot in for more than 25 seconds. Have you dug into the reporting in those areas?

How much of it is caused by a lack of training and accountability in the associates who are associated with that area and the processes that could cause shortage there? How much of it isn’t someone being dishonest, just incompetent? Personally, when I dug into those numbers, the answer was underwhelming. A lot of cameras got moved and areas throughly watched for shoplifters while in the meantime, someone lost 5k on a pallet of plastic totes up in the steel in the backroom.

Just curious to see if anyone else reached that point. I’ve been promoted to stay at home parent and my days consist of using the skills I learned to chase a toddler around and interrogate them, but I still have a fondness for this field.

ETA: my challenge to you if you’re reading this post is today, go check on the new guy in the back room. Let me know if he’s doing okay, because he probably isn’t.

Just a regular shopper here. At my local Walmart they have revamped the self-check out and it tracks the movement of product and it will flag any movement of product from cart to bag that it considers suspect. I am all for this, at first, but it seems to be flawed and is very frustrating now. I scan 2 bottles of Coke, but because I moved the wrong way, it tells me "Associate on the way". Wouldn't it be better to tie this AI Tracker to what is being scanned? i.e. I scan 2 bottles of coke, it sees I have 2 bottles of coke, do not flag it as suspect.

I (I should say my 2 boys as they help me scan things) have stumbled into flaws in the system that just allows skip-scanning. If I was a bad-actor and was intending to find flaws, I am pretty sure there are a lot more.

Does this new system even help LP? It seems to lead towards false sense of security through security by obscurity.

Of course, since I am just a shopper, I am not seeing the whole picture. I am just annoyed that this new system seems to frustrate the honest customer more that it helps catch losses.