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Stolen Goods Sold on Amazon, eBay and Facebook Are Causing Havoc for Major Retailers (cnbc.com) 106

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Over the past year, large-scale robberies have swept through stores like Louis Vuitton in San Francisco's Union Square and a nearby Nordstrom, which was robbed by 80 people. Law enforcement and retailers have warned the public that this isn't traditional shoplifting. Rather, what they're seeing is theft organized by criminal networks. And there's a reason it's on the rise. From a report: "What fuels this as an enterprise is the ease of reselling stolen merchandise on online marketplaces," said Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, who convened a national task force of state attorneys to make it easier to investigate across state lines. "It's no longer the age where it's done at flea markets or in the alley or in parking lots." Retailers say a total of $68.9 billion of products were stolen in 2019. In 2020, three-quarters said they saw an increase in organized crime and more than half reported cargo theft. Some big chains blame organized theft for recent store closures or for their decisions to limit hours.

For the U.S. Government's Homeland Security Investigations unit, organized retail crime probes are on the rise. Arrests and indictments increased last year from 2020, along with the value of stolen goods that was seized. While data is imprecise about the perpetrators, there's growing consensus that an entirely different group should be held accountable: e-commerce sites. Amazon, eBay and Facebook are the places where these stolen goods are being sold, and critics say they're not doing enough to put an end to the racket. The companies disagree.
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Stolen Goods Sold on Amazon, eBay and Facebook Are Causing Havoc for Major Retailers More

Stolen Goods Sold on Amazon, eBay and Facebook Are Causing Havoc for Major Retailers

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  • Remember (Score:3)

    by devslash0 ( 4203435 ) on Friday June 17, 2022 @03:46PM (#62629430)

    If your product arrives with an attached security tag, it's not the extra security feature the seller is claiming it to be. ;-D

  • companies are notoriously fast an loose with "shrinkage" statistics. Walgreens has been going around telling the media that they're closing stores due to all the thefts when in fact the store closures are because there's too many of them, the closures were planned and when local news outlets pulled public records on police calls to Walgreens they found a _decrease_ in calls over time that matched the overall decrease in crime in the US.

    This is just excuses for falling sales. Sorta like how video game pub

    • Re:They're exaggerating for effect (Score:5, Insightful)

      by q4Fry ( 1322209 ) on Friday June 17, 2022 @04:13PM (#62629536)

      Walgreens has been going around telling the media that they're closing stores due to all the thefts when in fact the store closures are because there's too many of them, the closures were planned

      This may be true (citation needed), but I don't think the store that closed the main entrances and left open the side-street entrances are saving lots of money on their real-estate.

      police calls to Walgreens they found a _decrease_ in calls over time

      Why call the police when they have publicly stated a policy of ignoring shoplifters?

      Of course the article focuses on the handful of luxury bags showing up online

      Of course it did, because it's linked to a high-value heist.

      And no discussion about why people are buying hot diapers and baby formula.

      Because anyone with half a brain can figure out why. Diapers are an expensive burden on a low-income household. I don't know about the cost of baby formula, but we've been hearing stories all month about the formula shortage, and the Abbott plant has apparently shut down again due to flooding.

      Almost like a narrative is being formed with a purpose in mind. Learn to read news stories critically folks.

      No less a narrative than the one you're pushing, comrade. Learn to read /. comments critically, folks.

      • Re:They're exaggerating for effect (Score:5, Informative)

        by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Friday June 17, 2022 @05:03PM (#62629710)

        Note that the law that changed to treat a shoplifting udner $950 as a misdemeanor did not raise this from $0. But reviously anything under $400 was counted as a misdemeanor. This was change was statewide, yet only San Francisco has seen this problem. Most states have similar rules, you don't get a felony for stealing a candy bar, not even in Texas.

        The real issue here seems to be a dispute, using alternate facts, between the police and the DA in San Fransciso. It's not because S.F. is "liberal" and all those "conservative" cities are smarter. Police say they DA won't prosecute so why bother, the DA says he will prosecute but the police aren't bringing cases. The DA was recalled in an election just last week. What the actual truth was going on in that dispute is difficult to tell, although the fallout is going to be that police reform stops becasue the police union won their political battle. My gut feeling is that police assisted in getting rid of the DA they disliked, and the focus on the dispute in the media muddled the waters about what the true reason for the rise in shoplifting was.

        In any case, the Louis Vuitton thefts were felonies, not something overlooked by either police or DA;. It was not shoplifting, the store was closed and windows were broken to get inside. Vandalism, breaking and entering, grand theft. Police arrived and arrested individuals on the scene. Utterly unrelated to the prop 47 or the $950 line.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by spitzak ( 4019 )

          Actually the previous amount was $450, the raise was somewhat slower than inflation, and Texas sets the cutoff at $3500.

          So basically anybody moaning about this limit is just finding some convenient talking point and is not actually examining facts, and is an immediate indication that their arguments can be ignored.

          There may be problems in California about how crimes are prosecuted but this cutoff has nothing to do with it.

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by labnet ( 457441 )

          The reason they increased the amount was to deliberately reduce the prison population. Legislation to wind back the $950 was just defeated because of that reason.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PCM2 ( 4486 )

        This may be true (citation needed), but I don't think the store that closed the main entrances and left open the side-street entrances are saving lots of money on their real-estate.

        I can't quite figure out what you're trying to say with this sentence, but while there's no concrete proof, it's not hard to agree with the idea that Walgreens is closing stores in San Francisco for reasons other than shoplifting. For a while, there were streets in San Francisco, including the main Market Street, where you could find a Walgreens literally every couple of blocks. If you saw one across the street, you didn't need to cross; there would be one on your side of the street in a block or so.

      • and tracking. And if you're publicly claiming that there are "gangs" of "organized crime". Also Walgreens had the local Chief Of Police make comments on their behalf, he was called out for lying too.

        My point isn't the value of one theft (a silly value, as those bags don't cost $6k to make, they cost a few hundred dollars, they're a veblen good). The expensive handbags make up a very, _very_ small percentage of that $68 billion. But what they do is tell a story. Pointing out that most of the shoplifting

        • Re:You call the police for insurance (Score:5, Interesting)

          by sarren1901 ( 5415506 ) on Friday June 17, 2022 @05:54PM (#62629870)

          I work in a grocery store. My one single store in San Diego loses about $500,000 every 6 months. That's just one single store and in my district alone we have 19 stores. That's only basically from the I-52 to the Mexican border. Everything north of that is another district with about as many stores there as well.

          The amount of theft for none food items like alcohol, razors, makeup and hair products is a huge portion of that $500k. People also still food such as expensive meat or a lot of the convenience items that cost a small fortune. Think single serve OJ or chocolate milk. I'm to the point where I just refuse to order in certain items because any time I put the case out, I lose at least half the case to theft. I see all the numbers in our handhelds.

          Things got much worse after we changed the law from $450 to $950. It wasn't that the dollar amount but rather the new attitude of the police. They will not bother to show up for it, so it send a clear single to the thieves (many of them homeless) that it's open season on the grocery stores and there is no punishment for robbing us.

          At least in the surrounding states, you'll still hear stories where these assholes get roughed up a bit before the cops are called. It's amazing how much less theft we have in our Arizona stores then our California stores. You would think Arizona being overall poorer would result in more theft, but it just is not the case.

          It seems only in California is it okay to steal. Refusing to enforce the law means the law may as well not even exist.

          • Re:You call the police for insurance (Score:5, Insightful)

            by HiThere ( 15173 ) <charleshixsn.earthlink@net> on Friday June 17, 2022 @10:05PM (#62630348)

            No. Refusing to enforce the law means that you get selective enforcement. It will still be enforced when politically convenient.

          • > It seems only in California is it okay to steal. Refusing to enforce

            > the law means the law may as well not even exist.

            When I asked my co-worker here in Colorado why he left California, this was one of his reasons.

            We've decriminalized auto theft here and seeing auto theft rise enough to make the local news. Who knew?

          • That's only basically from the I-52 to the Mexican border.

            There is no I-52 in San Diego or anywhere. The Interstate Highway System is not numbered like that.

            There is an I-12 and an I-5 in San Diego. Is this some weird mishmash of those two?

            • There is a 52 freeway that runs from the I5 to the I 125. It's called the 52. So yes, Interstate or I would be incorrect. It's a local bypass. Sorry for the confusion.

      • Shopa are closing because people shop online.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by HiThere ( 15173 )

          It's not quite that simple:
          1) Shop are closing because people shop online.
          2) People shop online because the local shops don't stock things they occasionally want.
          3) When people are shopping online anyway, they might as well order the other things they might have bought locally.
          4) go to 1

      • My parents used cloth diapers and washed them. Apparently modern poors don't do that. My parents were not poor but came from poor backgrounds and retired very well off thanks to financial discipline. I did likewise and retired early.

        America is a land of opportunity but it seems immigrants hustle harder than entitled natives.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by q4Fry ( 1322209 )

          To be fair, lots of shared laundry facilities do not permit diapers to be washed there. It's the lower-income households that have to use those in the first place.

          I used cloth diapers and washed them. In my experience, they have to be changed more frequently than paper diapers, and it's substantially more work. I was able to use my own washing machine, but I hosed down the diapers into the toilet first. When you don't own the washing machine, there's no incentive to pre-wash them, which is why the laundroma

      • > Diapers are an expensive burden on a low-income household.

        Agreed, Kids are expensive overall and diapers are just one peice of this expensive puzzle. Does anyone actually think about how expensive kids are BEFORE they have them? Particularly low-ihcome households? With so little money to spend on themselves beforehand?

        What did parents do before plastics were invented? You know, the kind used in disposable diapers? The expensive one that are a burden on low-income households? Oh yeah, they used CL

    • Walgreens has been going around telling the media that they're closing stores due to all the thefts when in fact the store closures are because there's too many of them,

      This is pretty much nonsense. If you wanted to see those Walgreens in SF getting robbed, all you'd have to do is hang around one for a little while.

      So what's the new solution? More cops. More of our tax payer dollars needed to protect their property.

      Maybe something is wrong with your city. In San Francisco, they've started homeless outreach programs. You can see unarmed agents walking around train stations. They are experimenting with housing homeless people. Anywhere it makes sense to have an unarmed policeman, SF is making use of them. Overall it seems to be working.

      And no discussion about why people are buying hot diapers and baby formula.

      Because they can resell them easily.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        This is pretty much nonsense. If you wanted to see those Walgreens in SF getting robbed, all you'd have to do is hang around one for a little while.

        Right, because you saw a video of a Walgreens being robbed on the internet the fact that this isnt happening anywhere near enough to cause store closures doesnt mean anything.

        I mean use your brain, these stores have insurance.

        • I mean use your brain, these stores have insurance.

          Yeah, that's how insurance works. It's free money. Premiums never go up.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by skam240 ( 789197 )

            It would take an awful lot of of robberies to make insurance for a national chain too expensive. If you can show me numbers on robbed Walgreens that are that high please let me know. Until then you dont have a point.

            • The people who have access to the numbers say my point is true. You don't believe them, probably because of some cognitive bias you have.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by skam240 ( 789197 )

                Hahahaha, what a fall back!

                Well why don't you cite them as a source then. And you'll have to do better then the word of Walgreens.

            • Stealing is wrong regardless of who you are stealing from. Why do you feel it's okay for people to steal from these companies? They have workers to pay also you know. Heck, the individual departments in the store have managers that can bonus but if everyone robbing us blind, who do you think does not get the bonus? That's right, the poor sap making $19 an hour and could really use the measly $500 bonus but it's something. But hey, stealing is okay, right? Fuck the workers.

              I guess it would be just fine if I

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by skam240 ( 789197 )

                Stealing is wrong regardless of who you are stealing from. Why do you feel it's okay for people to steal from these companies?

                Good lord, when did I ever say that? We're talking about whether these large shop lifting events are actually what are causing Walgreens to close, not whether it's morally okay to shoplift. Maybe be a little more mindful of what you're reading.

          • because crime is going down, and with it there's less shoplifting. The stores know that, but they seem to like spinning this narrative of out of control crime. It's a good distraction from lower sales due to other reasons. Gets the CEO off their hook from doing their job.

            Walgreens, for example, wasted billions on Theraos' fake test system. They went all in on it. It massively hit their bottom line when it turned out to be a scam. So they've got a LOT to distract from.

            But pretty much every CEO is try

            • Walgreens, for example, wasted billions on Theraos' fake test system. They went all in on it. It massively hit their bottom line when it turned out to be a scam.

              Dude that was a decade ago. Stick to facts and stop spreading propaganda.

        • it's an established fact that the plural of anecdote is data. Plus, did you know you can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true?
      • why can they resell diapers and baby formula so easily? Why is there a market for illegally obtained diapers? Is it maybe that we have large numbers of people who can't afford them at legitimate stores?

        • So some how that makes it okay to steal from these companies instead?

          So what your saying is it is perfectly acceptable to steal whatever you want because well, I can't afford it but why shouldn't I have these things anyway.

          Who do you think is getting hurt by the theft, just some nameless stockholder (your 401k)? No, it's the poor worker bees at the bottom that get squeezed.

          Do you think it's okay to take parts of people's cars for resell also? They need the money, probably for formula and diapers, so it shou

          • So some how that makes it okay to steal from these companies instead?

            You're looking at the small picture, people are stealing and that costs some money. But why are they stealing? If the system is breaking down so badly that they need to steal to exist, then that's an indictment against the system and the people who are profiting from it. Wage theft exceeds all other theft, most minimum wages are not living wages, the system is unsustainable and in collapse. You can't fix this problem without fixing the system of treating human needs as profit centers.

            • Look in the mirror, Slashdot. Promotion of human rights is flamebait here. Is this what you wanted to be?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by PPH ( 736903 )

          Why is there a market for illegally obtained diapers?

          Because, like Tide Detergent [consumerist.com], diapers and baby formula are commodity items that can be used as a kind of currency for black market goods.

          What? You thought some poor single mom was stealing that stuff to feed her kids?

          • I was in Washington, DC during the crack era, to attend a wedding. I was wearing a suit and fancy shoes, walking down the sidewalk toward the church. Having some city experience in NYC 1970s, I was carrying some cash in a place where I would not need to reach toward my wallet. A thin young woman emerged from an alley, and asked for money for diapers for a baby. Did she want money for diapers for a baby, or to sell for crack? Because she looked unfortunate, and because I did not know if accomplices we'r

    • Walgreens has been going around telling the media that they're closing stores due to all the thefts when in fact the store closures are because there's too many of them, the closures were planned and when local news outlets pulled public records on police calls to Walgreens they found a _decrease_ in calls over time that matched the overall decrease in crime in the US.

      The problem is getting bad enough in large cities that California is thinking of making shoplifting illegal again, even if it means hiring back some of those defunded cops.

      • Shoplifting was never made illegal. That is a bold face lie. Shoplifting was being treated as a high class felony rather than the minor crime it is. This was resulting in crazy shit like decades long mandatory sentences for stealing a bottle of baby formula. The right wing media is lying to you, and I get that it feels good, but it's bad for you. Eat your vegetables, they're good for you, and they taste fine if they're well cooked. I recommend John Oliver and Beau Of The Fifth Column as chefs.

        Now if yo

        • Shoplifting was never made illegal.

          Years ago when I grew up in Orange County, it certainly was illegal. How times have changed.

    • Local Home Depots where it used to be you could just pick up what you want and go to check out now have security cages for tools and lawn equipment. I don't feel like I live in an urban area anymore :(. And it stopped feeling like a country area about 30 years ago.

      Anyway, they wouldn't go to the expense unless they were losing enough product. Regular customers usually foot the bill through increased prices but that isn't enough anymore. It is that bad.

      And as for too many Walgreens, we have that here e

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      "Sales are down because the fed is jacking interest rates"

      Sales are not down because interest rates have bumped up modestly by the Fed,., it is currently about 1.75 per cent which is quite low. Inflation on the other hand is directly sucking money out of people.

      The price of fuel is a major factor. The Wall Street Journal in yesterday's (17 June 2022) edition did a story on why. It is a combination of factors having to do with refineries cutting back during covid now having to adjust, and our dear energy com

  • If that goes beyond passively correlating local data, it's safe to say DHS has left anything resembling its mandate far in the rearview mirror.

    And way to bury the lede, CNBC.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gtall ( 79522 )

      One problem with DHS is that it is a dirty snowball of an agency. Congress decided in the 2000s to create this agency by throwing everything they could think of into it. As a consequence, it has many competing priorities. This suits Congress well because they have only one agency to fund and can beat on them to the press for failing at any one of their missions. It also makes it easier for Congress to pass the football to the agency for the myriad programs instead of having to look at them individually by t

      • Yup. The funny thing is, what bugs me most about it is its name. Normally governments try to hide it when something has blatantly totalitarian overtones, but in that case they just ran with it.

  • Veblen Goods (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rmdingler ( 1955220 ) on Friday June 17, 2022 @04:13PM (#62629534) Journal

    I'm not much on conspicuous consumption, but if I were needing to buy a name brand doohickey that costs 15-20x what a good serviceable doohickey is going for, I wouldn't shop for it on Amazon, Ebay, or Facebook... counterfeiting is much more common than fencing stolen goods these days.

    • Both are such a simple tech fix. What everyone needs to ise is REAL UPCs, which is to say larger composite numbers that track items individually and by group. That you can have the most crude sort of private ledger system, that tracks them through known businesses and to anonymous buyers at certain locations. All anyone needs to do to sell is scan rUPCs and Amazon can verify through the service. Donâ(TM)t let anon private buyers resell except as *used*. People donâ(TM)t want to buy used food or un

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Sometimes you can get free stuff by ordering obvious fakes from Amazon or eBay and then reporting them. In many places it's illegal to post known fake stuff and they usually just ask you to dispose of the item anyway. The seller rarely wants to pay return postage.

      So if the fake thing is serviceable it might be worth a punt.

  • on ebay because the next gen of nvidia cards is around the corner and the crypto bros and others are trying to get rid of shit so I've been looking to see what's available, mostly GPU wise that I might be able to scavenge for a build and then give the rest to the wife as I piece together the rest.

    Anyway, I've seen two or three within the last week, very casually browsing, which looked incredibly fishy, one of which was definitely stolen from Walmart via CC fraud (I asked the seller for a receipt and they fu

  • I stopped buying anything over $100 on Amazon due to counterfeit products. I stopped buying certain brands on Amazon due to counterfeits. I guess I wouldn't know if I got an item that was stolen but otherwise legitimate on Amazon. Gave up on eBay years ago, what a shit show. Never used FB. These companies are killing themselves - I say let them.

  • Reperations status: complete (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Hope you got what you wanted because that was it. Now we're all equal.

  • Being frictionless is also important to them, but not only being frictionless to consumers, but also being frictionless to sellers.

    every time Amazon or eBay (or similar) have introduced measures that increase friction for sellers, they get an outcry, and lose a lot of sellers...

    Setting up anti-stolen-goods measures will increase friction for sellers.

    Amazon and ebay (and similar) will fight tooth and nail before introducing measures against this, not because they want to be avenues for fencing stollen good, but becuase this increases friction for sellers (and also because they inherently oppose any regulation)

    • Amazon and ebay (and similar) will fight tooth and nail before introducing measures against this, not because they want to be avenues for fencing stollen good

      Don't they? They get a cut, so I'd figure they're in favour. Better for them for stolen goods to be sold on Amazon than legit stuff sold in someone else's store.

  • Prop 47 (Score:1, Insightful)

    by labnet ( 457441 )

    Well, in this brave new woke world, where legislation is passed that incentivises petty theft
    https://www.hoover.org/researc... [hoover.org]
    What do you expect?

  • Force the marketplaces (all of them) to do more to stop stolen (and for that matter bootleg/fake) goods being sold on their sites.

    The marketplaces have no reason to go after stolen or fake goods because they get their cut regardless, if you change the law so the marketplaces become liable in the event they are made aware of stolen or fake goods being sold on their site but don't then act to stop those goods being sold, things will improve.

  • Of course we can't openly do UBI, that would be communist, so this way is the next best thing. And it seems to be working, high end sellers simply make up their losses ... wait for it ... by increasing prices to the rich. The same rich who are happy to put BLM signs in their yards but balk at implementing real change.
  • If I leased a space to someone who used it to make a profit fencing goods while adding a percentage, I would have culpability in the crime. Amazon among many others have completely skirted laws regarding resale goods that pawnshops cannot begin to touch.

  • Just saying, complaining on a high level.

    Are they afraid millionaires' trophy wives will choose a different company to schlepp their cellphone?

  • ...what fuels this as an enterprise is the ease of committing the crime when there is no fear of punishment.

    You'd think a district attorney would understand something as simple as that.

  • Just hold Amazon, Ebay and Facebook accountable for those sales.

    AFAIK, Apple has struck a deal with Amazon and Amazon basically made it next to impossible to list any Apple gear for anybody else but Apple. Especially fake chargers and cables were a big problem.

    So, Amazon can do this, they just need to be correctly "incentivized".

    They could wipe COVIND "conspiracy theories" from Facebook, surely Facebook can remove this stuff, too. They just don't want to, because they get a cut.

  • Easy solution: put criminals in prison and keep them there. For some reason, the left disapproves of that because too many criminals are the wrong race or ethnic group.

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