Dedication to the cause

• CCTV
• Retail security

Internal theft is an ever-present problem for retailers. Less-than-scrupulous members of staff will keep till drawers open for long periods of time without ringing up, or may ring goods through incorrectly at the till, charge the customer the correct amount and then place only a fraction of the cash take into the till drawer. When cashing up, they can make the till takings balance by not ringing through all of the goods purchased and then pocket the difference.

One particular High Street retailer – which, for security reasons, must remain nameless – recently suffered from such fraudulent behaviour at its Croydon store in the busy Whitgift Shopping Centre (one of a chain of 12 outlets). InTime Security was brought in to solve the problem, and specified the ‘Retail Solutions’ CCTV system from Dedicated Micros.

The ‘Retail Solutions’ system is based on Dedicated Micros’ already-established digital video recorder products. It works by associating till transaction data with CCTV footage. By positioning one camera over a given till, as well as others to view general activity in a store, all recorded video is irrefutably associated with the till transaction data entered by the shop assistant at the point of purchase. Images may be viewed live or easily located for playback, without affecting recording, by way of an easy-to-use, menu-driven search facility.

For the Croydon installation, a semi-covert operation with off-site monitoring was required. Although shop employees are fully aware the CCTV system is in place, all monitoring is carried out remotely in a password-protected administration mode. The store manager can review exactly what goes through every till – and who is operating the till – without needing to leave his office.