ND1024113

Title: Retailers Heighten Awareness of ?Flash Robs?

Description: With the holiday season approaching, retailers are preparing to protect their stores and staff against mob-mentality robberies.

Page Content: NEW YORK ? Dubbed ?flash robs? by law enforcement, retailers from clothing stores to convenience stores are preparing to protect their operations and staff against these swarms of ?teenagers and young adults who plot via Twitter, phone texts and Facebook to descend on stores and steal merchandise,? writes the Wall Street Journal.

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The newspaper reported on recent flash rob incidents:

• In Philadelphia, about 40 boys swarmed into a suburban Sears in June and stole thousands of dollars in merchandise ? ?pretty much anything else they could snatch, police said.?
• Retail chains including Filene's Basement, Armani Exchange and The North Face on Chicago?s Michigan Avenue were victims of flash robs this spring.
• In August in Washington, D.C., surveillance cameras caught a group of 10 young women going into a convenience store and stealing merchandise. �
• NACS Daily communicated similar incidents in convenience stores in Maryland, Las Vegas, Ontario and St. Paul, Minn.

According to the National Retail Federation, flash robs were reported by 10% of the 106 retailers it surveyed in July, including department stores, big-box chains, grocery and drug stores. Security personnel or police nabbed suspects in about half the cases, according to the survey. NRF suggests that retailers and police should monitor social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook for indications that a group is planning to descend on their stores. Also, NRF suggests that workers should alert managers when they see unusually large gatherings of people inside or directly outside the store.

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Read Hayes, a University of Florida research scientist who serves as director of the Loss Prevention Research Council, told the Journal that figuring out and subsequently preventing a flash rob is difficult. ?It is mob behavior but it has some pre-meditation which is a new thing,? he said, adding, ?It's still a sporadic thing when you consider the thousands of retail locations some of these chains have. But it's pretty scary for employees, or any customers who happen to be in stores when this happens.?

Content Subject: Operations

Formatted Article Date: October 24, 2011

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