Your thoughts on this auction?

zincoxide

LULUBELLE wrote:

Kath - it will hurt someone. Subway are franchises, if the owner loses money, their business could go under, then the employees lose their jobs. This is a major league fraud, I can't believe that anyone could see it otherwise. Sorry for taking this attitude - but I'm a retail Loss Prevention and Security consultant, so I know the harm it could do.

'Major League Fraud' is possibly taking it too far:

1. It's not fraud - it's theft
2. Major League? It's unlikely to run into thousands before it is stopped

However - working in the same type of role as yourself, I do agree that this could have an adverse affect in a business. But you will find that when they cotton on to this the loyalty card scheme will either stop or dramatically change to prevent future loss.

If Subway are aware of this as posted by someone else, then they should be taking steps to prevent it. If it is a previous employee, they should be reported to the police. If it is a current employee then an internal investigation should take place before a police report is made.

I would suggest this is due to a lack of controls at Subway, these items have a value so should be counted regularly to deter loss. This doesn't however excuse anyone if they decide to buy them. And of course if the police do get involved they may knock on your door (unlikely however) to gather evidence.

kathfisch

zincoxide wrote:

The work side of me says don't do it...the moneysaving side says don't do it, my moral side says don't do it...but there's a stinking little voice screaming 'Fill your boots!'.

:T :T :T Well said, exactly what I've been thinking! :T :T :T

LULUBELLE_2

zincoxide wrote:

'Major League Fraud' is possibly taking it too far:

1. It's not fraud - it's theft
2. Major League? It's unlikely to run into thousands before it is stopped

However - working in the same type of role as yourself, I do agree that this could have an adverse affect in a business. But you will find that when they cotton on to this the loyalty card scheme will either stop or dramatically change to prevent future loss.

If Subway are aware of this as posted by someone else, then they should be taking steps to prevent it. If it is a previous employee, they should be reported to the police. If it is a current employee then an internal investigation should take place before a police report is made.

I would suggest this is due to a lack of controls at Subway, these items have a value so should be counted regularly to deter loss. This doesn't however excuse anyone if they decide to buy them. And of course if the police do get involved they may knock on your door (unlikely however) to gather evidence.

Have you looked how much he's already made from it? I suspect that Ebay won't be the only place that he's selling them, so yes Major League. You say past or present employee - how do you know that it's not a leak at the printing end, or forgeries? I have no doubt that it is being investigated by Subway - if, as you say, you work in the same role as I, then you also know that in multi-site retailing, it's not the work of a few days to find the culprit.You also know that you cannot make assumptions as to the M.O.

zincoxide

LULUBELLE wrote:

Have you looked how much he's already made from it? I suspect that Ebay won't be the only place that he's selling them, so yes Major League. You say past or present employee - how do you know that it's not a leak at the printing end, or forgeries? I have no doubt that it is being investigated by Subway - if, as you say, you work in the same role as I, then you also know that in multi-site retailing, it's not the work of a few days to find the culprit.You also know that you cannot make assumptions as to the M.O.

I pity the retailer you work for if it takes you more than a few days to find the culprit of anything, anyone working for me that takes longer than 24hrs in a case such as this would be answering some serious questions.

eBay are very co-operative when you approach them in the correct way.

LULUBELLE_2

'I pity the retailer you work for if it takes you more than a few days to find the culprit of anything, anyone working for me that takes longer than 24hrs in a case such as this would be answering some serious questions.'

Lol! I would never that put staff under time constraints to come up with a result - I wouldn't want them manufacturing evidence. It would be the same as giving the police a set time to solve a crime - it would lead to serious errors and unprofessional behaviour.

zincoxide

LULUBELLE wrote:

'I pity the retailer you work for if it takes you more than a few days to find the culprit of anything, anyone working for me that takes longer than 24hrs in a case such as this would be answering some serious questions.'

Lol! I would never that put staff under time constraints to come up with a result - I wouldn't want them manufacturing evidence. It would be the same as giving the police a set time to solve a crime - it would lead to serious errors and unprofessional behaviour.

Let's not get into a tit-for-tat here...no good for anyone!!

Basically what Lulubelle and I are saying is avoid this auction.

Lulubelle - I agree to differ!

devils_spawn

Wholeheartidly agree with Zinc...no point in a T&T conversation!

Although I would question the ethic of Lulubelle - if you are not prepared to give time limits then you are prepared to leave yourself open to more abuse?! Seems to me like you must be in a fairly junior position by your answers.

BTW - Franchise of Subway are permitted to opt out of this scheme so if they are gonna lose a lot of money then they will simply opt out.

But I still wouldn't buy as a previous poster said - we'll all go crazy if a company does something wrong but it's much more light hearted when we are prepared to encourage this sort of behaviour and cause losses for a company - even worse, a franchise that some poor person may have sunk all their money into!

MyUserNamesTaken

kathfisch wrote:

Thanks for updating us on that! Interesting isn't it.

If what MyUserNamesTaken says is true then the guy's feedback record doesn't represent the whole truth. Very hard to create a record like that though, can't possible have conned all those people I wouldn't have thought!

Surely the point is not to try to stop him selling them through ebay, rather trying to catch the employee(s) nicking the things in the first place.

Anyway, I've decided to leave all the seemingly dodgy sellers to their dubiously legal activities and try to buy from genuine sellers. Why anyone would fill a card through purchasing subs but then not redeem it escapes me! But if they wanna sell then I'll be there to buy!

Thanks everyone for your thoughts

Oh, what I say is very much the truth. In fact, I can also tell you that the seller isn't the person working for Subway. He's actually only acting as a go between. If you saw the websites he's involved in, you'd see that there is actually more than one person involved in this. I can't say much more than that, as it's being taken up by Subway. As stated earlier, though, Subway have told me that Ebay is being extremely uncooperative over the whole affair.


He hasn't conned people, as such. The majority of the time, buyers have received exactly what they've paid for. However, what they are receiving has been stolen from Subway. If something goes wrong with this buyer, he becomes extremely abusive and nasty. He will leave feedback which is completely untrue. As stated earlier, the buyer who left him negative feedback had it removed by Ebay due to the contents.

MyUserNamesTaken

zincoxide wrote:

If Subway are aware of this as posted by someone else, then they should be taking steps to prevent it. If it is a previous employee, they should be reported to the police. If it is a current employee then an internal investigation should take place before a police report is made.

I would suggest this is due to a lack of controls at Subway, these items have a value so should be counted regularly to deter loss. This doesn't however excuse anyone if they decide to buy them. And of course if the police do get involved they may knock on your door (unlikely however) to gather evidence.

Subway is doing all it can to stop this. Many Subways in the US and Europe now refuse to take the cards for this very reason. Having spoken to a couple of Subway managers, I was told that Subway franchises are meant to count the stamps and keep accurate records of how many stamps they get through. Some, however, are not doing this. This is where the problem lies. The person selling rolls of 5000 stamps is also being investigated, as his theft is just as obvious.

devils_spawn

Has the buyer you know provided the name & address of the seller to Subway?

If so then Subway should have reported this to the police with the culprits details to have it stopped.

Sounds to me like Subway may be dealing with this on an amateur level and do not understand the options open to them.