Tausi Insider

Photo : Tero Vesalainen ( Shutterstock ) I received a notice in the mail some months ago that I was involved in a data breach   a certain massive, multi-national telecomm   company was settling . L ike many people involved in such settlements, I was not offered a ludicrously small amount of money as a reward for being an unwitting victim. Instead, I was given the mostly useless gift of free Identity Theft Protection. Identity Theft Protection (ITP) services promise to monitor your financial and online life (so often intertwined these days) and alert you if your personal information is compromised in order to steal your identity. This can involve anything from using your credit cards to make illegal purchases to more complex schemes that use your information to borrow money or open accounts in your name, potentially ruining your credit score and leaving you with an enormous mess to clean up. Considering the damage that identity theft can do to you , paying for ITP seems like a ...

The National Retail Federation estimates it accounted for US94.5 billion in losses last year, up sharply from the previous year. Glenn Lowson/Tausi Insider Gus Carlson is a U.S.-based columnist for Tausi Insider Walk into most any drugstore in a U.S. city to buy a tube of toothpaste, a stick of deodorant or a bottle of Aspirin and you may be surprised: They are locked up in cases, like diamond necklaces or Rolex watches, and accessible only by key-bearing employees – if you can find any to help you. The reason? Theft, often accompanied by violence and aggression in urban locations, has quickly become the biggest plague on U.S. retailers. The National Retail Federation estimates it accounted for US$94.5-billion in losses last year, up sharply from the previous year, and nearly half its members are spending more on loss-prevention technology than ever before. Big retailers are sounding the alarm, warning that the issue is so acute, they can no longer account for it in the normal cost ...

People shop in the produce area at a Loblaws store in Toronto on May 3, 2018. Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press Shoplifting has surged to an alarming level across Canada, industry insiders say, with inflation and labour shortages cited as major factors behind the increase. The uptick has triggered concern among Canadian grocers even as the rise in food prices helps pad their bottom lines. Grocery prices were up 11 per cent year-over-year in October and they’re not expected to ease any time soon. The total cost of groceries for a family of four is expected to be $1,065 more than it was this year, according to the most recent edition of Canada’s Food Price Report. Inflation in food prices is one of the main drivers pushing more people to steal, says Sylvain Charlebois, senior director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University in Halifax. “There is a correlation between the two, absolutely. Theft is an ongoing issue. But the intensity actually does increase when food prices...

People shop in the produce area at a Loblaws store in Toronto on May 3, 2018. Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press Shoplifting has surged to an alarming level across Canada, industry insiders say, with inflation and labour shortages cited as major factors behind the increase. The uptick has triggered concern among Canadian grocers even as the rise in food prices helps pad their bottom lines. Grocery prices were up 11 per cent year-over-year in October and they’re not expected to ease any time soon. The total cost of groceries for a family of four is expected to be $1,065 more than it was this year, according to the most recent edition of Canada’s Food Price Report. Inflation in food prices is one of the main drivers pushing more people to steal, says Sylvain Charlebois, senior director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University in Halifax. “There is a correlation between the two, absolutely. Theft is an ongoing issue. But the intensity actually does increase when food prices...