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Do You BOLO?
A lot of retailers send out, via email or other media, what we call BOLO (Be On the Look Out) reports to other stores within their market. Some even share these with other retailers within the same market. This is a great resource for retailers to get ahead of professional thieves who travel to multiple locations within a market, or even from market to market, stealing or defrauding retailers as they go.
On October 24th, a jury in Greenville, SC awarded Rita Cantrell of Greer, SC $3 Million for defamation resulting from a BOLO sent out by a Target asset protection agent to area retailers. According to the news story reported by Fox, Cantrell, who works in loss prevention for Belk, went into a Target and did some shopping. When she checked out, she attempted to pay with a $100 bill. Target personnel suspected that the bill may be counterfeit, so they refused to accept it.
That’s when the BOLO was sent. Later, Cantrell was visited at her work by Secret Service investigators, who inspected the bill and declared it to be a real $100 bill. They also showed her the BOLO. I would assume that she was pretty upset. She was accused of counterfeiting, visited by law enforcement while on the job as a loss prevention agent, and her picture was spread throughout the area, to various retailers, with a report attached to it that claimed that she had attempted to pass counterfeit money.
Cantrell sued Target and won. The jury decided that she should get $100,000.00 for actual damages, and $3,000,000.00 in punative damages. Target has stated that they will appeal.
Here are my questions to you, my readers:
- If you are in LP, does your company use this type of system to communicate with other stores/retailers?
- If so, is it effective in deterring theft? How do you measure the effectiveness?
- What guidelines do you think should be used? (ie. What constitutes a BOLO versus a simple report?)
- Do you think the jury’s ruling was right? Too much? Too little?
Please comment on this post to let me know your thoughts.
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[...] Does an individual’s asset protection planning also mean that his or her business is protected? The answer is no. Sorry, there simply is no silver bullet for everything. If a business or professional practice owned by an individual is sued, it puts the assets of the business or professional … Do You BOLO? [...]
1. The company I work for uses this system to communicate with different stores of the same company. Usually upper level management (district level usually). We also alert other stores through phones calls (called a chain call).
2. I wouldn’t really call it a deterrent. The shoplifter doesn’t usually know that a BOLO has sent out for him/her unless they have been apprehended before. Its more effective as a means of communication with with other stores.
3. For a BOLO to be sent out it depends on what a subject has done. For example, if the subject shoplifted a high dollar amount of merchandise and has stolen high risk merchandise (razors, whitestrips, Dyson vacuums, etc), then a BOLO should be sent out. A example of a bad BOLO would be a group of kids on stealing video games. In conclusion, it is up to the judgement of the LP professional to send out a BOLO report.
4. I believe the jury’s ruling is correct but the award is way too high.
Rob,
Thanks for the comment. You make great points. The only reason I would say “deterrent” in a BOLO case would be because, if the information is received distributed in time, it gives the store’s personnel a chance to prepare for and deter an attempt by the same individual or group in their own store. In that sense, I see it as a deterrent.
I also agree with you about the conditions of a BOLO. There should be clear evidence that a theft/fraud or an attempted theft/fraud has occurred, and that there is a reasonable chance that those involved will attempt similar activity in multiple locations.
In that sense, counterfeiting would apply. I wonder if this was just a case of good intentions gone bad.
Good to hear from you.
Joe