A National Epidemic
90,000 Packages Disappear Daily in N.Y.C. - Is Help on the Way?
1.7M Stolen Daily = $25M Loss Daily Nationwide
Package theft has also soared in cities like Denver and Washington. The increase has frustrated shoppers and led to creative measures for thwarting thieves.

Corporate mailrooms in New York and other cities are overwhelmed by employees shipping personal packages to work for safekeeping, leading companies to ban packages and issue warnings that boxes will be intercepted and returned to the senders.

A new start-up company is gambling that online shoppers who are worried about not getting their packages will be willing to pay extra to ship them to a home-based network of package receivers in Brooklyn.

In New York City, where more orders are delivered than anywhere else in the country, over 90,000 packages a day are stolen or disappear without explanation, up roughly 20 percent from four years ago.

About 15 percent of all deliveries in urban areas fail to reach customers because of package theft and other less frequent issues, like deliveries to the wrong house, according to transportation experts.

Around the country, more than 1.7 million packages are stolen or go missing every day - adding up to more than $25 million in lost goods and services. Nearly 1 in 5 respondents nationally reported having had a package stolen.

Yet the extent of package theft has been largely underestimated because most cases are not reported to the police. Customers have little incentive to do so when online retailers typically refund or replace items for free, often with few questions.

Most police departments do not track package thefts, but those that have examined the problem have reported notable increases.

Package horror stories have become so common that some state lawmakers are taking aim at thieves. In Texas, package thieves could face up to 10 years in prison under a new law. A South Carolina bill, called the Defense Against Porch Pirates Act, would make package theft a felony. nytimes.com

DOJ Announces Update to Policy on Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems
UAS Model For Law Enforcement in U.S. - Can LP Use it?
The Justice Department announced today the publication of its updated Policy on the Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems. In light of advancements in unmanned aircraft system (UAS) technology, and lessons learned from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's limited use of UAS, the Policy enables the Department of Justice's law enforcement components to safely and responsibly employ UAS technology within a framework designed to provide accountability and protect privacy and civil liberties.

"Our new policy promotes the responsible, appropriate, and effective use of UAS by the Department and can serve as a model for our state, local, tribal, and territorial public safety partners as they develop their own UAS programs and best practices."

The publication of the updated policy can be found here. justice.gov

Chicago's "Coddling of Shoplifting Felons" Policy May be Coming to an End
'Beleaguered' Democrat ILL. States Attorney Faces Democrat Opponent Bob Fioretti in Democrat Primary March 17, 2020
Controversy-plagued Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx for the office in the March 17, 2020 Democratic Primary election. Foxx is best known for bending to political favors to drop charges in the Jesse Smollett hoax, embarrassing the Chicago Police Department (worse than Police Chief Eddie Johnson has done). Foxx has also declined to prosecute individuals involved in retail theft of major businesses whose crimes are under $1,000.

Fioretti appears to be the strongest challenger to unseat Foxx whose office missteps have been an embarrassment to Cook County taxpayers. Her biggest blunder is the mishandling of the Jesse Smollett investigation.

In announcing his candidacy, Fioretti asserted that Foxx "is in way over her head" in the county's top prosecutorial office. Fioretti strong support of law enforcement will restore "the dignity of the office."

The long time civil rights attorney said the people of Cook County are less safe due to Foxx's policies of "coddling of violent criminals, shoplifting felons, and campaign contributors show a jarring and unacceptable disrespect for victims, business owners, taxpayers and police officers who put their lives on the line to make us safer every single day."

Let's be honest. Kim Foxx has been a disaster. Its time for her to go. She's in way over her head. suburbanchicagoland.com

Biometrics and the future of payment transactions
Mobile Biometrics Authenticating $2 Trillion in Payments Annually by 2023
New research from Juniper Research found that mobile biometrics will authenticate $2 trillion worth of in-store and remote mobile payment transactions annually by 2023.

Benefits of biometric authentication for payments - Top 5 reasons to authenticate payments using biometrics

The future of biometric and payment authentication
There is no doubt that biometric authentication for payments is the way the world is heading. Whilst the USA and Europe are often seen as innovators, it's actually India who lead the way when it comes to biometric adoption for payments. They currently have over 1 billion consumers who have established a digital identity with the government. Fingerprint and iris recognition captures are kept on file along with an image and this is then used for the collection of social welfare payments.

Visa are also rolling out new payment cards through Mountain America Credit Union and Bank of Cyprus which will feature an on-card biometric sensor for contactless payments. The card will test the use of fingerprint recognition as an alternative to PIN or signature to authenticate the cardholder during a transaction.

A recent blog post by NEC New Zealand analysed the future of facial recognition and what this might look like in 2020. One such area is the use of facial recognition for complete contactless payment. Your credit card details will be associated with your facial recognition profile and payment will be made simply by presenting your face. This is already under development in Taiwan and Japan at 7-Eleven stores who are rolling out staffless stores where customers can do everything from accessing the store to making a payment using their facial recognition profile.

Conclusion: As we head towards 2020, we expect to see an even greater roll out of biometric technology as a way of authenticating payments. biometricupdate.com

Credit card fraud analysis: which states are most at risk?
Analyzing different types of fraud
Each year, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center publishes an annual report(1) which details the instances of different types of cybercrime, broken down at a state-by-state level.

By analyzing four of the most prominent types of online crime - credit card fraud, identity theft, personal data breaches, and phishing - we have built a Risk Index to identify the states which may be most at risk of suffering cybercrime.

Full report. cardconnect.com

Atlanta man gets 7 yrs 8 months for million-dollar diamond & high-end jewelry fraud scheme

Conning Diamond & Jewelry Dealers, Wholesalers, Retailers Nationwide

Over the course of his scheme, Smith attempted to defraud these companies of nearly $1.2 million in diamonds and jewelry and successfully obtained nearly $570,000 in merchandise.

Cory Smith and his 'runners' conspired to defraud diamond and jewelry retailers and wholesalers by taking advantage of the fact that many transactions in the industry are done by "memo financing."

Memo financing is a type of consignment arrangement under which diamond or jewelry dealers will borrow diamonds or jewelry from a supplier (typically another dealer or wholesaler) and will pay for the merchandise only after they are sold (or otherwise return the items unsold). The use of memo financing is widespread in the diamond and jewelry industry and has been used for generations.

Smith took advantage of this "memo financing" system by contacting jewelry and diamond suppliers across the United States and falsely representing that he was employed or affiliated with a well-known or established diamond or jewelry dealer. Smith would then direct that the merchandise in question be sent to an actual jewelry store in Georgia or elsewhere and typically provide the actual address of the detailer/retailer he was falsely purporting to represent. After receiving the tracking information for a particular shipment, Smith would then contact the shipper (i.e., UPS, FedEx) and have the shipment re-routed to a residential address or a FedEx or UPS facility or retail store near where the actual diamond/jewelry dealer he was falsely purporting to represent was located. Smith would thereafter arrange to have "runners" pick-up the shipment from the FedEx or UPS location or residential address. Smith facilitated this process by making travel arrangements for the runners to travel from Atlanta to out-of-state locations, including North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, to pick up the packages containing the diamonds/jewelry. Over the course of the nearly two-year scheme, Smith defrauded more than a dozen diamond and jewelry wholesalers and retailers nationwide. justice.gov
 

Thanksgiving Holiday & Cyber Monday
The Numbers - The Dollars - The Trends

NRF: Thanksgiving weekend draws nearly 190 million shoppers, spending up 16%
Black Friday tops the Holiday Weekend & Cyber Monday as the busiest day
End of the Day: More Shopped Online Then in-Stores
A record 189.6 million U.S. consumers shopped from Thanksgiving Day through Cyber Monday this year, an increase of 14 percent over last year's 165.8 million, the National Retail Federation and Prosper Insights & Analytics said today.

Shoppers spent an average $361.90 on holiday items over the five-day period, up 16 percent from $313.29 during the same period last year. Of the total, $257.33 (71 percent) was specifically spent on gifts. The biggest spenders were 25- to 34-year-olds at $440.46, closely followed by those 35-44 at $439.72.

The survey found that 124 million people shopped in stores while 142.2 million shopped on retailers' websites; demonstrating today's seamless shopping world, 75.7 million did both. Consumers who shopped in both channels spent an average $366.79, spending at least 25 percent more than those who shopped in only one or the other.

For the first time, Black Friday topped Cyber Monday as the busiest day for online at 93.2 million shoppers compared with 83.3 million. Saturday followed at 58.2 million, Thanksgiving Day at 49.7 million and Sunday at 43.1 million.

Black Friday was the busiest day for in-store activity, with 84.2 million shoppers, followed by Small Business Saturday (59.9 million), Thanksgiving Day (37.8 million), Sunday (29.2 million) and Cyber Monday (21.8 million). Of those shopping on Saturday, 73 percent were likely to shop specifically for Small Business Saturday.

Thirty-nine percent of consumers looked to emails from retailers for information on deals and promotions, edging out conventional advertising circulars, which were tied with online search at 38 percent. Mobile devices played a significant role, used by 75 percent to research products, compare prices or make purchases, up from 66 percent last year. nrf.com

International Council of Shopping Centers - ICSC
Target, Best Buy and Lululemon were Thanksgiving weekend retail winners, analysts say
About 160 million people went to stores over Thanksgiving weekend, spending an average of $504, up 50% from last year, according to data from the International Council of Shopping Centers.

Online shoppers spent $4.2 billion on Thanksgiving, the first time the final tally exceeded $4 billion. Black Friday reached a record $7.4 billion in online sales, and broke the average order value record, hitting $168. And Small Business Saturday drove big business, reaching a new record $3.6 billion in online sales.

For the month of November, online sales totaled $68.2 billion, with 11 days surpassing $2 billion in online sales. marketwatch.com

Coresight Research
Holiday 2019: US Black Friday Sees Companies Promote More Heavily,
Shoppers Continue to Migrate Online
This year's Black Friday saw retailers promoting more heavily than last year, consumers continued to migrate to online platforms at the expense of brick-and-mortar shops.

• Brands and retailers in the US hit $7.2 billion in digital revenue on Black Friday, up 14% from last year.

• The intensity of promotions was modestly higher than last year.

• Coresight Research's store visits showed Walmart and Target enjoyed strong foot traffic, and both had a solid lineup of store-only promotions. Trends were more mixed at other retailers.

• The five brands with the most social callouts on Black Friday from across the globe were PlayStation, Nintendo, Apple, Xbox and Google.

With Thanksgiving falling six days later than last year creating the shortest possible number of days between Black Friday and Christmas, retailers began holiday promotions early, increasing advertising and deepening discounts seeking to drive foot traffic and sales. Consumers responded by spending more-but more spend went online this year, continuing consumer migration to digital platforms. coresight.com

A Nation of Returners
This year, 77% of consumers plan to return some of their gifts and nearly 20% expect to return more than half, according to a survey by Oracle of 15,800 consumers. Experts say the thought process behind purchasing gifts has shifted.

As gift-returning has grown, shoppers are more likely to go to stores that have generous return policies so the recipient can take back the gift if they choose. cnbc.com