Shoplifting Grows as Economy Doesn't

Lower-risk way to steal from the boss

(NEWSER) - Employee fraud, which accounts for a large and growing chunk of the total $36 billion a year the retail industry loses to theft, is increasingly taking the form of gift cards: easy to walk out of a store with, and easy to redeem without showing ID. With overall employee theft on the rise, "gift card fraud is spiking," the New York Times reports. More»

Recession isn't over as far as consumers are concerned

(NEWSER) - If the recession is indeed waning, nobody told consumers. Retailers of every kind reported lousy sales for the quarter ended Aug. 1, the Wall Street Journal reports. Target’s same-store sales fell 6.2%, Home Depot’s dropped 9.1% and Saks’ plummeted a whopping 15.5%. And with unemployment, stagnant wages, and tight credit squeezing shoppers, executives don’t expect to see improvement until next spring. More»

(NEWSER) - Retailers are fighting to survive in 2009, some more successfully than others. Some 73,000 stores could close their doors by year’s end. Forbes breaks down which chains are shrinking the fastest:

• Ann Taylor: Catering to working women isn’t so great when unemployment’s at 8.1%. Expected sales drop: 17.3%
• Saks: November’s 70%-off sale didn’t help, and it’s already been forced to lay off 1100. Expected sales drop: 26.2%

Alleged shoplifters resold high-end beauty products

(NEWSER) - Police say they caught a pair of women shoplifting at a JC Penney this week in the suburbs of Washington, DC. No big deal, except the women had allegedly stuffed $20,000 in stolen beauty products into their shopping bags and car trunks, the Washington Post reports. Police accuse Darquesha Wilkinson, 19, and Latasha Mungo, 24, of stealing high-end lotions, makeup, and perfume in an ongoing scheme to resell the products at cheaper prices. More»

Their triple-A-rated securities are now junk, they claim

(NEWSER) - Investors are suing Bank of America’s Countrywide mortgage unit, claiming they were fraudulently led into purchasing supposedly triple-A-rated mortgage-backed securities that turned out to be junk. Between 2005 and 2007, the investors bought hundreds of millions of dollars of securities that were supposed to be “conservative” and “low-risk.” But Countrywide misrepresented just how safe those securities were, and also ignored its own underwriting guidelines, the lawsuit claims. More»