=+Discuss whether Javier is behaving in a professional manner.

The following is an excerpt from a conversation between two sales clerks, Fred Loya and Steph Gillespie. Both Fred and Steph are employed by Wireless Electronics, a locally owned and oper¬

ated electronics retail store.

Fred: Did you hear the news?

Steph: What news?

Fred: Alice and John were both arrested this morning.

Steph: What? Arrested? You’re putting me on!

Fred: No, really! The police arrested them first thing this morning. Put them in handcuffs, read them their rights—the whole works. It was unreal!

Steph: What did they do?

Fred: Well, apparently they were filling out merchandise refund forms for fictitious customers and then taking the cash.

Steph: I guess I never thought ofthat. How did they catch them?

Fred: The store manager noticed that returns were twice that oflast year and seemed to be increasing. When he confronted Alice, she became flustered and admitted to taking the cash, apparently over $5,000 in just three months. They’re going over the last six months’ transactions to try to determine how much John stole. He apparently started stealing first.

Suggest appropriate control procedures that would have prevented or detected the theft of cash.

The following is an excerpt from a conversation between the store manager ofTrader Sam’s Grocery Stores, Jennings Maloy, and Sam Burley, president ofTrader Sam’s Grocery Stores.

Sam: Jennings, I’m concerned about this new scanning system.

Jennings: What’s the problem?

Sam: Well, how do we know the clerks are ringing up all the merchandise?

Jennings: That’s one ofthe strong points about the system. The scanner automatically rings up each item, based on its bar code. We update the prices daily, so we’re sure that the sale is rung up for the right price.

Sam: That’s not my concern. What keeps a clerk from pretending to scan items and then simply not charging his friends? Ifhis friends were buying 10-15 items, it would be easy for the clerk to pass through several items with his finger over the bar code or just pass the mer¬

chandise through the scanner with the wrong side showing. It would look normal for any¬

one observing. In the old days, we at least could hear the cash register ringing up each sale.

Jennings: I see your point.

Suggest ways that Trader Sam’s Grocery Stores could prevent or detect the theft ofmerchan¬

dise as described.