The Asset Protection team is very excited to welcome our newly acquired stores in Fredericksburg, Hampton, Newport News, and Nags Head. These new stores and a few of our existing stores operate on the e*restaurant system. The AP team have met with most of the new RGMs, worked shifts, and conducted a practice audit in an effort to learn and update our cash handling and Admin audit processes where needed. We look forward to learning and teaching the new e*restaurant systems to all of our RGMs as we continue the company’s transition to e*restaurant. Welcome to the future!
Certain crimes typically increase during the summer months for retail establishments. Passing counterfeit bills is one of those crimes. The news stations that cover Charlottesville, Richmond, Hampton, and Portsmouth have all reported on an increase in counterfeits in the last two months. Secret Service is working on a counterfeit ring that operates in Virginia, North Carolina, New York, and New Jersey. This ring is putting out “very good” counterfeits. Fake $100 bills with the words “Motion Picture Use Only” were circulating in May in all of the areas that we operate and unfortunately, we had cashiers that accepted some of these bills.
BurgerBusters Inc. has procedures in place to help protect us from these fake bills. Cashiers must use the fraud fighter machines on all bills $20 and higher. The $20 bill is the most frequently counterfeited US bill inside the USA. The $100 is the most frequently counterfeited US bill in foreign countries. The cashier must get a manager to approve all $50 and $100 denominations. Take the time to look at the money you are accepting and always call a manager if the situation makes you suspicious. Often just having a second person come and help you will scare off a scammer.
Another type of crime on the rise are call in scams. In this type of crime the restaurant receives a call. The caller will try to get the employee to pay some bill or wire money and the caller will make it sound urgent. They may tell you that the water or power will be cut off or the police will be arriving at your store shortly if you do not follow their instructions. DO NOT FALL FOR THIS. This is not how a business pays a bill. Be on the lookout for this type of scam in your own home or cell phone. Technology has improved to where the caller ID can be made to look like the call is coming from your hometown. This is to trick people who would not normally answer an unknown number.
Remember never give anyone financial information over the phone (personal or business) unless you placed the call and are sure to whom you are speaking. DO NOT open email attachments from people you do not know. We had a case in one of our stores recently where the customer insisted on emailing an order into the store in an email attachment. The call-er would not allow the manager to take the order verbally or type the order onto the email directly rather than in an attach-ment. The manager refused to open the attachment, which is the right thing to do. A hacker can potentially download a program that would give them access to our system. This could expose our employee’s personal data along with business information and financial records. Shortly after this call we received information that this was a new type of scam that was circulating through restaurants.
The company works very hard to ensure all funds processed are properly accounted for, deposited correctly, and then uti-lized to grow the organization. When funds are miss-used or stolen all of us are impacted, the potential less development funds and time spent tied up chasing the cash compared to growing the business slows us down from being a more produc-tive company.
When you make the wrong decision, the following actions will take place. You will be investigated and if found to be taking cash or product that does not belong to you, your employment will be terminated and the theft reported to the po-lice. Frequently the police are called to Taco Bell and the person is arrested right away.
If you know of someone taking things in the store that do not belong to that person, please report it on the Network line. You can report this anonymously or leave your name and number and someone from Asset Protection will contact you. If you are thinking about stealing understand stealing will only complicate and increase your financial problems.
By: Deborah Baylor
Director of Asset Protection
