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Call Center Fraud On The Rise - Up 45% Since 2013
Composed by Pindrop Labs researchers using Pindrop's Phoneprinting technology to analyze more than 10 million call center calls in the US and UK, the 2016 Call Center Fraud Report indicates that such fraud attempts have risen 45 percent since 2013.

While security has evidently managed to put up a fight, additional losses were inevitable, rising 14 percent over the same period. The researchers found that organizations lost about $0.65 per call to fraud, a figure that can add up to millions of dollars for organizations fielding millions of calls. In a statement announcing the report, Pindrop suggested that advances in "online and mobile security plus the abundance of breach data and the rollout of EMV chip cards in the US means cybercriminals are changing tactics, exploiting the weakest link in the organization: the call center." findbiometrics.com

California Advances Cargo Theft Bill
The Assembly voted unanimously to advance a bill that is intended to combat truck theft with an emphasis on high-value agricultural loads. The bill, AB2805, now moves to the Senate.

There were 158 cargo theft incidents one year ago. The thefts resulted in more than $18.7 million in financial losses - more than any other state.

Olsen adds that local law enforcement agencies do not have jurisdictional authority, investigative facilities, or data systems to appropriately address the state's cargo theft problem. In an effort to address the issue, Olsen's bill would create a task force to develop and adopt standards for detecting and tracking theft. The task force would also be responsible for setting up a program to focus on tree nut industry thefts where they have had 32 separate cases of agricultural cargo theft have taken place within the past year valued at $10 million. landlinemag.com

Sports Authority Inc.'s hopes to avoid liquidation are fading
Modell's Sporting Goods Inc. has backed away from a potential deal for the chain that would have kept some of the stores operating under their current name, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Sports Authority has set a deadline of Wednesday for bids for an asset auction on May 16. That day, it also will auction 140 store leases. The company's scheduled to appear in court by May 27 for sale approval, and it remains in talks with a number of possible bidders for the leases, including competitors Dick's Sporting Goods Inc. and Academy Sports & Outdoors, the people said. bloomberg.com

"It's Not Going to Be Pretty"
Staples & Office Depot Navigating the Afterlife
Now Staples and Office Depot are left to navigate the afterlife on their own. It's not going to be pretty. Here's how analysts' described their standalone outlooks on Wednesday: "Downward trajectory," "race to the bottom," "vulnerable," "difficult situation," "challenged." With the collapse of the Office Depot merger, Staples will now explore a sale of its European operations, close at least 50 stores in North America and cut another $300 million of costs (i.e. jobs). Those aren't the responses of a healthy company, nor is it exactly the most pro-competition outcome.

The FTC's heart may have been in the right place, but should Staples and Office Depot continue their march toward irrelevance, businesses are going to be left with one choice for office supplies anyway: Amazon.

The FTC argued that Amazon wasn't a strong enough competitor in the sale of office supplies to businesses, even as it has eroded Staples and Office Depot's more consumer-facing sales. That's a little hard to believe considering Amazon's business-supply unit has passed $1 billion in sales in less than a year with revenue climbing by 20 percent each month. 

If history is any guide, underestimating the e-commerce giant is a bad move. Office Depot and Staples know this. bloomberg.com

OMB completes review of OSHA recordkeeping rule
The White House Office of Management and Budget has completed its review of a rule from OSHA that would require electronic recordkeeping and reporting, a sign that the rule may soon be published.

The Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses final rule would require employers with at least 250 employees to electronically submit injury and illness reports to OSHA on a quarterly basis. oshatoday.com

CVS Affiliate Settles Worker Overtime Claims For $1.47M
An Arizona federal judge on Monday approved a $1.47 million settlement between a CVS Pharmacy affiliate and a class of corporate employees claiming they had been misclassified as exempt from overtime pay, and subsequently dismissed the litigation. law360.com

Grocery Execs Not Liable For Slip And Fall, Texas Panel Says
A Texas appeals court held Monday that four corporate officials for H.E.B. Grocery Co. LP should not be held individually liable for injuries a customer suffered after slipping and falling on a wet floor at one of the chain's locations.  law360.com

OshKosh Kids Clothes Maker Sued Over 'Phantom Markdowns'
Children's clothing company Carter's Inc. and its OshKosh B'gosh brand were hit with a proposed class action Monday in Georgia federal court for allegedly using "phantom markdowns" to mislead customers into thinking they were buying products at a discount.  law360.com

Lafayette, LA: Police launch initiative to combat shoplifting spike
The Lafayette Police Department's Community-Oriented Policing unit met with loss prevention representatives from local big-box retailers Tuesday morning to hear their concerns about shoplifters stealing from their stores. Retailers voiced their concerns with habitual shoplifters, as well as the emergence of shoplifting rings in the area. Interim Chief Reginald Thomas said that in some cases, shoplifters will travel to Lafayette from Texas to shoplift, going as far as renting a hotel room to spend a couple days stealing merchandise from local stores. Spurred on by an uptick in reports of store theft to police, Thomas created the Community-Oriented Policing unit to focus on reducing the amount of shoplifting in Lafayette. In 2015, LPD made 950 shoplifting arrests and responded to 1,090 shoplifting reports. theadvertiser.com

Michigan House passes active shooter alert bills
Local police departments would be responsible for notifying Michigan State Police of a public threat. MSP would then send text messages to nearby cell phones with the help of geo location technology. It's technology similar to an amber alert.

The active shooter alert bills stem from the February mass shooting spree in Kalamazoo. wwmt.com

FEMA Crisis Management Workshop coming to the Kansas City area on May 26
FEMA is kicking off a series of regional private-sector preparedness and operational coordination workshops this year. This first one will take place on Thursday, May 26, 2016, 8:30 AM - 4:30 PM (Central Time), at the Johnson County Administration Building in Olathe, Kansas. Learn about business continuity, disaster response, and the cost benefit of preparing for severe weather. Identify preparedness and mitigation steps needed to ensure safety and business continuity. Complete assessments and begin developing a plan. Work with other business, community, and local government leaders to discuss your response to a simulated tornado scenario in Johnson County. Register here.

The Kroger Co. is  looking to hire 14,000 associates

Petco to open 27 stores and opens new DC in Reno

Quarterly Same Store Sales Results
Wendy's Q1 North American comp's up 3.6%, sales down 16.2% due to sales of 375 stores
Macy's Q1 comp's down 6.1%, sales down 7.4%

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Advance Auto Parts' Data Breach Remedy Falls Short, Suit Says
Credit Monitoring Offer Woefully Inadequate
Advance Auto Parts' offer of 24 months of credit monitoring for employees whose personal information was compromised in a data breach isn't enough to make up for its negligent conduct, a proposed class of employees allege in a suit removed to Louisiana federal court Tuesday.

Walter Bradix IV said employees whose social security numbers and gross wages were obtained through a phishing attack will still have to spend significant resources to correct the inevitable impact of the breaches on their credit histories despite Advance Auto Parts' credit monitoring offer.

According to the complaint, a third party was able to access private employee data in March through a phishing attack, or an email scam in which people are duped into sharing confidential information.

In the attack, an Advance Auto Parts employee was convinced to share a file containing certain employees' names, social security numbers, 2015 gross wages, and the states where the employees pay income taxes. The company said in a memo to employees that the information wasn't obtained by breaching Advance Auto Parts' information systems.

Bradix alleged that the information in the attack has likely already been used, and in fact said he has already noticed two unidentified inquiries on his consumer credit report attempting to secure vehicle financing. law360.com

Wendy's: Breach Affected 5% of Restaurants - 300 locations
Wendy's credit card breach at the nationwide fast-food chain uncovered malicious software on point-of-sale systems at fewer than 300 of the company's 5,500 franchised stores. Investigation into the breach is continuing, malware has been removed from all affected locations.  krebsonsecurity.com

Wal-Mart Sues Visa Over Transactions
Wants consumers to use PINs instead of signatures
In the lawsuit, filed in New York state court Tuesday, Wal-Mart said Visa has prohibited it from requiring PINs only, forcing the retailer to allow customers to use a signature in those transactions.

Visa has long required merchants to give customers the choice of signing or entering a PIN, and the company has said some shoppers want that flexibility.

Visa also maintains control of the transaction with the signature method, since merchants have the ability to route PIN transactions through a non-Visa network. Visa's rules are different than those of MasterCard Inc., which lets merchants decide how they want customers to verify payments, according to people familiar with the matter.​

The dispute also involves money: Wal-Mart pays Visa about five cents more per signature transaction than it does for those that use a PIN, said a person familiar with the rates.

Wal-Mart says it prefers PINs because they are more secure than signatures. Debit cards are the most frequently used form of payment at Wal-Mart, accounting for more than 70% of the dollar value of card payments, the retailer said in the lawsuit. wsj.com

Chip Cards Slap U.S. Merchants With Unexpected Higher Debit Fees
Some merchants have seen their debit-transaction fees increase by about 20 percent since Oct. 1. 

The problem is that about two-thirds of the new readers at smaller retailers aren't set up right, according to Richard Crone, chief executive officer of the consulting firm. Their software tends to favor debit-payment networks from Visa and MasterCard Inc. over other systems, which can be cheaper for merchants on certain transactions, he said.

For example, when customers insert a chip-based debit card into a new terminal, they may be offered only Visa's network as the choice. Or they may see two options: "Visa debit" or "U.S. debit." Since most consumers don't know what "U.S. debit" is -- it's actually is a link to smaller networks like NYCE -- they usually pick Visa.

The main issue is that under the amendment sponsored by Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, an ally of the retail industry, merchants must be given at least two options for routing transactions. However many processing companies and vendors haven't upgraded their clients' terminals with software designed to steer transactions to the least-expensive debit network. In many cases, the choice is preset, or it's shoppers who are making the decision when they are prompted to choose a network.  bloomberg.com

Alibaba's Taobao Steps Up Measures to Fight Fake Luxury Goods
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's online shopping platform Taobao is tightening controls on the sales of luxury goods, requiring sellers to show proof of authenticity, as it fights sales of fake items on one of China's top online platforms.

From May 20, sellers of luxury products will be required to upload proof, such as an invoice or authorisation letter from the luxury brands, for examination by Taobao, or the goods will be removed from the portal, while their funds can be frozen.

"To create a healthy shopping environment with a high level of integrity and to protect the legal interests of consumers and brand owners, Taobao is gearing up to regulate sales of luxury brands' products," it told sellers in a notice dated May 4.

It tells sellers to act promptly to examine and rectify counterfeit goods, under threat of possible shop closures and other penalties. businessoffashion.com

Fake orders: The dark side of China's booming e-commerce business
A small e-retailer created a big news recently in China when it admitted to a practice many believe is commonplace on China's online marketplaces: a seller placing fake orders to boost its apparent sales and thus its rankings in search results on the country's huge online shopping malls.

Flower e-retailer Shanghai Aishang flowers Co., Ltd. last week confessed in its prospectus filed in advance of an initial public offering of stock that it hired workers to place orders from its store on Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.'s Tmall.com and JD.com, two major web marketplaces, in order to move up in search results. Aishang Flowers said in the prospectus that it considered creating fake orders "a marketing approach" and didn't include the fake orders in the sales reported in the filing.

ThThe practice of placing fake orders is so common that the industry has created a term for it-"brushing orders"-and some have suggested big marketplace operators like Alibaba, China's leading e-commerce company, don't make much of an effort to curtail the activity.

Alibaba also says it has punished 220,000 sellers for creating fake orders in February, including closing 6,000 stores and deleting sales records for 390,000 products for which there were suspect orders. internetretailer.com

Consumers like retailers' omnichannel capabilities
Retail chains that allow store pickup or returns of online orders receive high praise from consumers; a new Internet Retailer survey reveals 91% of respondents who have picked up an online order in a store rated the experience "excellent" or "good."

The time and money store-based retailers spend to simplify online shopping and order pickup across multiple channels is working, as a healthy portion of consumers take advantage of retailers' omnichannel capabilities and say that they're pleased with the results.

In a March online survey of 200 consumers, Internet Retailer found that 40% of respondents have purchased an item online and picked it up in store. For those who have exercised that option in the past year, the majority were pleased: 58% described the experience as good and 33% as excellent. Many agreed they are likely to choose the option in the future. internetretailer.com

New U.S. Rules Make Foreign Goods Better Deal for Online Shoppers

50 Thoughts That Can Motivate You to Do Anything  Sometimes when procrastination gets the best of us, all we need is a little bit of motivation. Thoughts are powerful, so the next time you need a pick-me-up, or a burst of inspiration, grab one of these positive thoughts to reenergize yourself and your focus. It's never too late

21 Things to Say to Yourself to Stay Motivated  Life has its highs and lows so keeping yourself positive and motivated during the more challenging situations is critical to finding success. It can be hard to find the light in the dark times, but here are some thoughts to keep you going. Quit talking, and begin doing