Retailers Worry about ‘Flash Robs’
Photo: Andrea Pistolesi
Beef up the security! Flash robs are on the rise.
We’ve all seen the YouTube videos of spontaneous flash mob dance numbers and impromptu marriage proposals—but what about when those masses of people have cruel (and illegal) intentions?
The Wall Street Journal investigates the new phenomenon of the “flash rob,” a group of organized people who enter a shop en masse and steal. The malicious meetups are reportedly prearranged through Twitter or Facebook.
"It is mob behavior but it has some pre-meditation which is a new thing," Read Hayes, director of the Loss Prevention Research Council, told the Journal. "It's still a sporadic thing when you consider the thousands of retail locations some of these chains have. But it's pretty scary for employees, or any customers who happen to be in stores when this happens.”
The flash rob seems to have some characteristics of the looting that occurred during this summer’s riots in England, with as many as 40 people swarming into a store and grabbing anything they could get their hands on.
A Philadelphia Sears lost thousands of dollars worth of merchandise in June, and the National Retail Federation reported that 10 percent of 106 retailers surveyed said that they’d experienced flash robs.
In related news, check out Kate Moss and Terry Richardson as robbers.
