Hattons victim of staff dishonesty.

[Bufferstop]

Amongst my various feeds I found this.
Seems like the competition tipped them off.

[centenary]

Good bit of detective work by the 'competition' there. Makes you wonder what were the clues that the seller was a Hatton's employee? Was he daft enought to use the same name as his Hatton's employee profile?

[Bigmet]

Hattons clearly had a basic hole in their stock management system, that allowed goods to be shipped without valid proof of payment.

[Bufferstop]

The report seems to suggest that he set up customer accounts at his brothers and his granny's addresses and simple shipped to them. It says that when they reviewed the CCTV footage he was seen picking up items then leaving them on his desk, then putting them in random locations around the warehouse, presumably one of which was the dispatch point. Deliberately misplacing items would delay the discovery of false stock levels. As usual no one reviewed the CCTV footage until long after the event.

[Bigmet]

The report seems to suggest that he set up customer accounts at his brothers and his granny's addresses and simply shipped to them...

Which has the advantage of being less risk than stuffing items in your pockets and walking them out. But a shipment should not be possible unless the item(s) are first paid for (whether immediately or on account) and thus booked off the stock list and legit. for 'leaving the building' to payee address. Either he was sophisticated enough to spoof the system, or was able to manipulate another employee into making incorrect entries; or there was 'a hole' in the system in the way of no reconciliation of customer payment received, stock out to that customer address he could exploit. Given that he used his own relative's addresses, I rather suspect the last of these, as this aspect is a very low wattage MO...

Likely to leave a sour taste in the work team. Employees may well have been given a bad time by him or even dismissed if they were perceived as a risk, and that needs management action to to restore trust.

[Mike Parkes]

It does not end there as the Police will be seeking to reclaim the stolen goods that have been sold, Any innocent purchaser will get a visit by the police and will be asked to hand over the item and the purchaser will get there purchase cost refunded through a number of direct credits to them.

[Bigmet]

I am well rusty on the law applicable to this sort of case.

Since these are all commercial goods of no sentimental value, should have thought that it would be expected to be covered by the business' insurance? Very different to the scenario of attempted recovery of her late mother's stolen jewellery, and the like.

[centenary]

It does not end there as the Police will be seeking to reclaim the stolen goods that have been sold, Any innocent purchaser will get a visit by the police and will be asked to hand over the item and the purchaser will get there purchase cost refunded through a number of direct credits to them.

I very much doubt the Police are going to do that even if they had the details of people who unwittingly bought the stolen goods. I also doubt Hattons would even contemplate asking them.

I used to test a range of e commerce websites for numerous companies and, it isnt necessarily there's a hole' in the system for this to happen. The items could have been taken 'out of stock' for numerous valid reasons, manufacturer recall, faulty exchange, part exchange and cash sale. Even then, as a manager, he'll likely have been authorised to effectively release items from stock or change system stock status of items that ordinary customer agents couldnt.

Someone's response might be, ah yes, but those reasons should lead to other system checks. Well yes and no. Very few companies beyond the likes of Amazon will do a fully integrated off system \ system reconciliation because the cost benefit rarely warrants it.

I'll virtually guarantee now Hattons are unlikely to make any major IT system changes due to this unfortunate episode. They'll boost off system management checks and use of countersignatures to lesser the chances of it happening again.

[Bigmet]

[...Someone's response might be, ah yes, but those reasons should lead to other system checks. Well yes and no. Very few companies beyond the likes of Amazon will do a fully integrated off system \ system reconciliation because the cost benefit rarely warrants it...

That 'someone' would include me: the thing is the control software has been available for at least forty years, with the statistical testing built in to spot deviations that require investigation. And usually the investigation reveals exactly what you describe, a legitimate action in response to an 'out of course' event. I would hope by now that such software packages would be relatively low cost, certainly within the scope of medium sized businesses, but I am now over 15 years out of date in terms of operational experience in these matters.

Because here's where the rubber hits the road, it isn't just the direct cost benefit to the business, but the quality of the work life of the employees. When such systems pick up a bottom feeder manipulating a system, very likely he will have been making life miserable for those he works alongside. Those prepared to do wrong don't restrict their deviant actions to businesses, which feel no pain...

[Mike Parkes]

It does not end there as the Police will be seeking to reclaim the stolen goods that have been sold, Any innocent purchaser will get a visit by the police and will be asked to hand over the item and the purchaser will get there purchase cost refunded through a number of direct credits to them.

I very much doubt the Police are going to do that even if they had the details of people who unwittingly bought the stolen goods. I also doubt Hattons would even contemplate asking them.

Happened with an ebay purchase I had - PC on the doorstep asking for it, form signed and over a number of months I got my purchase price back.

[Peterm]

Such a shame that bottom feeders like him can potentially bring a business down. The other employees may now (warranted or not) feel as though they're under suspicion. What a good move that the competition caught on and warned Hattons.

[Byegad]

My guess is that someone from Rails saw the items for sale at prices they knew weren't right, Rails checked their stock and then said. 'If it's not us it must be Hattons.' Trigger a phone call.

[centenary]

[...Someone's response might be, ah yes, but those reasons should lead to other system checks. Well yes and no. Very few companies beyond the likes of Amazon will do a fully integrated off system \ system reconciliation because the cost benefit rarely warrants it...

That 'someone' would include me: the thing is the control software has been available for at least forty years, with the statistical testing built in to spot deviations that require investigation. And usually the investigation reveals exactly what you describe, a legitimate action in response to an 'out of course' event. I would hope by now that such software packages would be relatively low cost, certainly within the scope of medium sized businesses, but I am now over 15 years out of date in terms of operational experience in these matters.

Because here's where the rubber hits the road, it isn't just the direct cost benefit to the business, but the quality of the work life of the employees. When such systems pick up a bottom feeder manipulating a system, very likely he will have been making life miserable for those he works alongside. Those prepared to do wrong don't restrict their deviant actions to businesses, which feel no pain...

Fact of the matter is, very few companies have fully integrated IT systems and, even if they did, the systems still have 'manager' override functionality built in. Nowhere did I say IT systems cannot be fully end to end operations. Again, while all but the simplest of systems have no management \ audit checking functionality, the fact is all companies do a cost benefit analysis of what functionality they want on and off system and cost v complexity tends to win out every time.

Ive worked on numerous credit card and banking IT systems for many major players in the UK. All of them went erm no, we dont want the cost / level of that functionality and we'll have off system workarounds to handle them.

Sorry, I have to disagree with the bit about employees quality of life. All companies want from their IT systems is to reduce staffing numbers where possible and get maximum production out of their employees.