How a US Funding Bill Targets Online Sites to Help Stop Retail Theft (apnews.com) 37
This week America passed a $1.7 trillion federal spending bill — and it includes a big win for retailrs reporters the Associated Press. It forces online marketplaces like Amazon and Facebook "to verify high-volume sellers on their platforms amid heightened concerns about retail crime...."
The bill, called the INFORM ACT, also seeks to combat sales of counterfeit goods and dangerous products by compelling online marketplaces to verify different types of information — including bank account, tax ID and contact details — for sellers who make at least 200 unique sales and earn a minimum of $5,000 in a given year.
It's difficult to parse out how much money retailers are losing due to organized retail crime — or if the problem has substantially increased. But the issue has received more notice in the past few years as high-profile smash-and-grab retail thefts and mass shoplifting events grabbed national attention. Some retailers have also said in recent weeks they're seeing more items being taken from stores. Target executives said in November the number of thefts has gone up more than 50%, resulting in more than $400 million in losses. Its expected to be more than $600 million for the full fiscal year.... Walgreens, Best Buy and Home Depot have also pointed out similar problems.
The National Retail Federation, the nation's largest retail trade group, said its latest security survey of roughly 60 retailers found that inventory loss — called shrink — clocked in at an average rate of 1.4% last year, representing $94.5 billion in losses [included damaged products and theft by employees] ... It also noted retailers, on average, saw a 26.5% uptick in organized theft incidents last year.
It's difficult to parse out how much money retailers are losing due to organized retail crime — or if the problem has substantially increased. But the issue has received more notice in the past few years as high-profile smash-and-grab retail thefts and mass shoplifting events grabbed national attention. Some retailers have also said in recent weeks they're seeing more items being taken from stores. Target executives said in November the number of thefts has gone up more than 50%, resulting in more than $400 million in losses. Its expected to be more than $600 million for the full fiscal year.... Walgreens, Best Buy and Home Depot have also pointed out similar problems.
The National Retail Federation, the nation's largest retail trade group, said its latest security survey of roughly 60 retailers found that inventory loss — called shrink — clocked in at an average rate of 1.4% last year, representing $94.5 billion in losses [included damaged products and theft by employees] ... It also noted retailers, on average, saw a 26.5% uptick in organized theft incidents last year.
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Ah yes, "mostly peaceful" looters.
Yup, just like those "mostly peaceful" tourists [imgur.com].
Re:Apples and oranges (Score:5, Funny)
" More Black people now live in food desserts "
Food desserts? Is that like let them eat cake?
Re:Apples and oranges (Score:4, Informative)
One riot, enabled by pulling back the capitol police,
Yes, those capitol police who "pulled back" [youtube.com]. Just a bunch of "peaceful tourists" [imgur.com] those police let in [imgur.com].
False. Pelosi had nothing to do with this. The con artist change the rules so the National Guard could not deploy [thehill.com] without direct orders from then Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller, which is contrary to everything which came before it.
Further, the con artist never gave orders [cbsnews.com] to release the National Guard to protect the capitol, and in fact the only reason he would have done so was to protect the terrorists [cnn.com] storming the capitol.
And still further, the con artist and his regime were trying to put in place a scheme to overthrow the election using crap from Qanon [imgur.com] and others [imgur.com]. Pence even hung up on Peter Navarro [imgur.com] who was suggesting a way to steal the election.
Now then, when you're done lying and gaslighting, let us know, because it seems highly unlikely the very people involved in the insurrection who gave sworn testimony are lying.
Perhaps a simpler answer (Score:1)
Start using CCTV to capture faces and prosecute people for taking part in riots that were clearly criminal activities. They are all accessories to theft, assault, and murder, and we can get five or ten years in the pen for each one of them. Do that at one riot, and the habit of having riots goes away quickly, just like people jumping onto passing cars to claim the insurance money stopped after dashcams became normal.
They call it fencing? (Score:2)
[Was there a brain fart around here?]
Rather hard to understand the actual story here. But reading between the lines (and I even read most of the linked piece), the actual concern appears to be with people who are fencing stolen merchandise. Various channels of theft, but they are trying to follow the money trails through the online retailers. In a sense, the approach makes sense to me, but...
Fat chance that Congress can solve any real world problem. And it's only going to get worse going forward. If Superwi
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but they are trying to follow the money trails through the online retailers
It makes sense, but they should first target manufacturers - pass a law giving manufacturers a legal duty to serialize their products and put a secure unique scannable serial number schemes on units and the packaging, and maintain a database.
Then require retailers both offline and online to scan the numbers and maintain a database of serial numbers in inventory for each product, And to document with each customer order a record of
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I think that makes sense, but most of the more expensive items already have serial numbers. I should have read the story more closely, but this seems to be targeted at less valuable stuff that is being fenced in bulk using low-cost online channels.
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but most of the more expensive items already have serial numbers.
Yes.. exactly. I believe the key differentiator is whether the product is durable enough to have a warranty. If it is, then manufacturers serialize units in order to help protect themselves against warranty claims (they can lookup the history of a serial number to confirm the purchase date). If there's no warranty, then they don't bother and maybe just serialize an overall "Lot Number", because it costs the manufacturer to serialize i
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I think there needs to be a lower limit, but it sounds like you are going all the way down to serial numbers for bread and soap? But actually that kind of stuff is hard to serialize since it can be repackaged...
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actually that kind of stuff is hard to serialize since it can be repackaged...
I am saying it's Okay that in theory a criminal could repackage it, and they should be prompted to serialize the units and imprint with a manufacturer number, regardless of that possibility.
The people are fencing goods because it's easy money. They are likely to not put the extra time and effort into repackaging.
Also if they do, then they'll have to materially misrepresent the product as being homemade or something - Otherwise
geez (Score:2)
The federal government cracking down is making it so the only way one can still profitably steal from retail chains is just to get a mob of "urban youths"* to walk into stores and take the stuff.
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What's with the "urban youths" in scare quotes and the unattached asterisk? Were you leaving to say something more specific? Please enlighten us.
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Just to prompt the sort of panty-wetting comment like you made, frankly.
The asterisk was because I'd footnoted that 'Euphemism employed to protect the quavering' but I figured that was obvious and just forgot to remove the asterisk.
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So not following your euphemism avoiding drivelling is "panty wetting"?
Be plain. Say what you mean. Are you afraid of saying what you mean? If so, why? You are effectively anonymous here, so the worst that will happen is people will associate your username with foolishness, but that's likely already the case anyway.
Tax enforcement? (Score:1)
Call me cynical, but this looks like tax-fraud-prevention rule to me.
Two issues (Score:4, Insightful)
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My friend registered for Gumtree, sold a guitar, someone bought it within 30 minutes and collected it in person. Paid cash.
A few minutes later he gets an email from Gumtree saying his account is banned. No explanation, no way to appeal it.
There system is clearly very broken.
The bill is a NO-OP (Score:2)
Verification only applies to selling more than 200 items thru a marketplace in a 12-month period. Without verification the obvious outcome is a marketplace which sees more unverified sellers hawking stolen goods so each unverified seller stays below 200 items.
This likely results in buyers and marketplaces being even less informed due to lack of seller history and seller related feedback.
Suspect real motivation for this is that imposing requirements on legitimate sellers is a process hurdle that favors larg
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That's less than one $20 sale per weekday. This has to be the stupidest laws yet.
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Where do you get 200 different items? The article says 200 unique sales and $5000 revenue.
The article is wrong. The act only applies to new or unused consumer products. You can conduct any number of transactions involving used items or non-consumer products and in doing so you would not be considered a high-volume third party seller.
Incredibly Dangerous (Score:2)
Help me out here. (Score:1)
Disclaimer, I'm not American and I am not part of the American political or economic systems.
So, stores open up and start selling goods. The stores in poor areas then get looted into oblivion so they then close. Then the inhabitants of those areas complain about not having stores and how this is due to systemic racism. So, what I'd like to know is, in my limited experience of this (watching youtube videos, reading Slashdot/reddit and online forums etc) it appears the theft is mainly done by black people. Th