LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review: Episode 35 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tony D’Onofrio, and Tom Meehan

Episode Date: December 3, 2020

The increase in online shopping for Black Friday and Cyber Monday comes with an influx of COVID-19 related scams. On this week’s episode, our co-hosts discuss this and more, including COVID-19 vaccinations, smart devices and IoT, efforts to protect curbside pickups, retail projections for 2021, fake raffles from live streams, and extended shipping scams.         The post CrimeScience – The Weekly Review: Episode 35 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tony D’Onofrio, and Tom Meehan appeared first on Loss Prevention Research Council.

Hi everyone, welcome to Crime Science. In this podcast, we aim to explore the science of crime and the practical application of this science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners, as well as other professionals. We would like to thank Bosch for making this episode possible. Take advantage of the advanced video capabilities offered by Bosch to help reduce your shrink risk. Integrate video recordings with point-of-sale data for visual verification of transactions and exception reporting. data for visual verification of transactions and exception reporting. Use video analytics for immediate notification of important AP-related events and leverage analytics metadata for fast forensic searches for evidence and to improve merchandising and operations. Learn more about extending your video system beyond simple surveillance in zones one through four of LPRC's zones of influence by visiting Bosch online at boschsecurity.com.

Welcome everybody to another episode of Crime Science Podcast. This latest in our weekly update series. Joined today by a friend and colleagues. Obviously, we've got Tony D'Onofrio here. We've got Tom Meehan and our producer, Kevin Tran. So what we'll do is, as per normal during this pandemic era, is spend just a couple minutes on updating on COVID. A ton going on.

We kind of go through prevention, testing, therapies, and vaccinations, you know, in that order. But on the prevention side, of course, still the viral load, not knowing who's viremic, in other words, shedding viral particles that can infect another human. That's why the masking and the distancing is taking place to reduce that viral load. I started to talk about, at least with family and friends and colleagues, about somewhat the equivalency with seatbelts, that you'll see people, well, masking doesn't work, but it's the same sort of analogy maybe as seatbelts don't work. Well, things can work to reduce and minimize the damage done in the case of the SARS-CoV-2 virus if we get the COVID-19 disease, reduces the severity of that disease because we don't take on board the same amount, the same load, the amount of particles, or those particles don't go as deeply into our respiratory system and get transported

via blood and so forth because of masking. Not as many viral particles escape on the droplets that come out of us when we speak, sing, sneeze, cough, spit, and so on. So that's what the masking does. The same way on the other side, of course, if those particles are out there via droplets, the droplets, it's difficult for them to make it through. So seatbelts may not stop injury. They may stop injury, but they may stop serious or severe injury or even ejection from the vehicle. I know around here, so many of these fatal accidents out in the more rural areas are because of ejection because of no seatbelt wearing. So for whatever it's worth, masking is still a good idea. And with some of

the exciting updates on the vaccination front, we can see that what we're looking at is most of the first three anyway, and many of the follow-on vaccines. And by the way, again, there are 13 in phase three trials. Now at least three to six, about six now have completed their phase three trials. It's just a matter of looking at all the data. But the data compiled on the big three that have come out first from Pfizer, from, you know, from obviously the BioNTech, as well as the AstraZeneca with Oxford University, and Moderna, by the way, is with BioNTech, all three of those have completed their trials. Now they've taken deeper dives into their data and seeing that, in fact, vaccination seemed to be highly, highly efficacious, above 90% in most cases.

The third, the AstraZeneca, seemed to be around 62%, except except again, in those that were dosed, it appears inadvertently with half doses on the first course. So keep in mind those first three have two doses. And so it's going to be interesting between first and second dose is normally around 28 days is the recommended protocol that they're seeing from the science so far. And so we would not gain full immunity or complete immunity or expected immunity from the doses until after sometime after that second dose. So before the first, between the first and second, and for a period of time after even the second, certainly reducing the onboarding, the viral load, if you will, from masking and distancing is what's going to be recommended for those reasons. So stay tuned as we learn more and more from the science.

But again, it looks like the efficaciousness of the first three vaccines that we know a lot about spreads across those above and below 65, those that are younger, those that even have comorbidities or underlying disease states, as we've heard. So those are all, that's all very, very encouraging. And in one of the, in one case, one of the vaccinations where there were, there was an infection or two by those in the vaccination arm, not the placebo arm, where almost all the infections took place, none were serious infection. And only one was fairly serious, I understand, in another of the vaccines. So very, very encouraging news, what's going on there, that they seem to work across people of color, age, and comorbidities, seem to be highly efficacious, require two. We talked about before the incredible logistic needs of distributing and administering vaccinations across the entire world, even just in a city,

much less across the entire, let's say, United States, where we're broadcasting from with 330 million humans, each requiring or ideally receiving two injections. And we know because of the cold chain requirements that the IoT will be heavily leveraged to understand how to best transport and store, stage, and so forth, what's needed out there. AI is being used now to understand better all the data that are available so far on, again, who should first receive, second receive, and so on. Again, who should first receive, second receive, and so on. What's the prioritization to get the best protection of the people, particularly those that most need it? So again, starting with those that are most exposed to others with the virus, those that are most vulnerable to serious disease from the virus. And then, of course, those are heavy spreaders of the virus to the most vulnerable.

Those are heavy spreaders of the virus to the most vulnerable. So stay tuned as the scientists and physicians figure this out using massive, very coordinated analytics across the entire world. And as we heard prior, some of these teams are working 24-7 in shifts and continue to do so. are working 24-7 in shifts and continue to do so. So it's a Herculean and brilliant effort that should be very much appreciated by all of us. Therapy front, 368 different therapies and different clinical trials, and dozens, if not hundreds more in preclinical trials or testing and development. So a lot going on in the COVID-19 front. So stay tuned. Going back domestically, when Tom joins, he can talk a little bit about any continuing violence. I understand Portland and a couple other places have had some flare-ups or in Portland, some more of the, that a feeding station that the looters, in this case, the demonstrators set up for themselves and also to feed homeless was in fact itself looted and destroyed. So, you know, just a confusing situation out there in a lot of these localities

and trying to get a better understanding how that affects people, but also in this case, how it affects the retail community and individual retail stores and those that work there and shop there. On the LPRC front, research continues. We've got, as I mentioned before, several new projects that have come in plus existing projects. So again, our projects start either in a working group, and bear in mind, again, there are seven working groups that work year-round at the LPRC that bring together dozens and dozens of retail chains,

as well as dozens and dozens of solution partners, those that make the solutions, create them, to work on compelling issues, on getting something new, getting something better, enhancing, improving, and then testing. So multiple in the organized retail crime working group has some initiatives. The violent crime working group, the product protection, merchandise protection working group, anti-shoplifting in this case. Merchandise Protection Working Group, anti-shoplifting in this case. We continue working on some really neat, exciting issues that are taking place with curbside and other transactional efforts out there. The AI continues.

We've gotten farther and deeper into collecting our data set and starting some of the annotation of the action video. Very complex and time consuming, but that is underway. Robotics, we've had, again, some exciting robotics moved into the LPRC Engagement Lab, the simulated store environment, with more to come on different types of robotic solutions, smart devices. So when we talk about artificial intelligence, again, we're mostly talking about computer vision, object and human action recognition, behavioral recognition, but also natural language processing, NLP. And then we're talking about robotics. We're talking about smart devices that might move items around that might take the place as far as less than compelling, exciting,

dangerous, dirty jobs and things like that to increase efficiency, customer experience, and profitability. So looking at some of those different issues and then how IoT, the Internet of Things, can help tie together many of these components and elements. And then working with the cybersecurity teams to better secure what's going on out there. The Safer Places Lab, the initiative under the University of Florida at the College of Engineering that I'm standing up, continues to make progress, a lot of planning. In fact, today I'll be heading out

from after this podcast to go for another planning meeting on that. Stay tuned. We'll release a lot more on Safer Places Lab. So a lot happening. We're planning for already impact 2021, um, as well as ignite 2021, which is our board of advisors, winter planning meeting. Um, and then the actual, uh, working groups, three of those working groups have their own summits. Those are also being planned for 2021. Um, and so we're looking at, uh, either one, the other, or a combination, of course, as everybody else is online and physical presence, depending on how things roll with people either gaining some persistent immunity through prior infection and or through vaccination. All right. So with no further ado, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to my colleague, Tony D'Onofrio. Tony, if you could fill us in on the world at large.

Thank you, Reid, for that very good update on multiple fronts. So today I'm going to focus on, again, what will be the new normal and some of the new research in terms of how retail is changing. And I'm going to start with some new research from Bright Pearl Reports who will try to answer the question, how will we shop and who will be the winners and losers? I'm going to focus on the US version, but there's also a UK version.

And if you'd like to see what's happening in the UK with that, please send us a note to one of us and we'll make sure and get you the UK version. But this research says that 78% will be buying online more frequently next year. 38% are more likely to shop online than in store. 55% not buy products online that they previously only bought in a store. 66% are planning to make fewer shopping trips to malls over the next 12 months. 45% say online deliveries are taking longer since the crisis. 42% say that unreliable delivery has lessened their trust in online shopping. The winning categories so far are groceries, and these are so far going

forward. Groceries, which we'll see are 41% planning to spend more in the next 12 months. Staple items, which we'll see 34% planning to spend more. And health and beauty with 34% planning to spend more. The losing categories are jewelry and watches with 28% planning to spend less. Luxury goods, 27% planning to spend less. And big ticket items such as cars with 29% planning to spend less. In terms of the product level, what are the products we're going to buy? The first one surprised me. Shoes was planning to spend more on shoes, 37%.

Mobile phones, 28%. Laptops, 26%. DIY, 25%. And video games, 24%. And again, the losing categories were sporting events, concerts, suits, so no more dressing up in a suit, festivals, and art. Those were the losing categories in terms of specific product. 31% are less likely to shop in-store than before the pandemic,

and 39% are flagging that they're only going to shop online within the next five years. So they're not even going to go to physical stores. So that's a little bit in terms of how we will shop, the winners and losers. And then the next set of reports are really in terms of the importance of customer service and why it's more important than ever. According to McKinsey Research in terms of what's happening to retail,

40% of respondents said they tried new brands and made purchases with the new retailers. The switch was higher in the US at 46%. It was 44% in the U.K. and 32% in Germany. The top five reasons why you would switch a brand in the U.S. were lower prices, better price-value ratio, support the employees, repurposing facilities, and offer relevant promotions and messaging. At least 50% want stores to follow guidelines that will keep both shoppers and employees safe. So the ability to switch brands is becoming more prevalent. So again, very important if you are a brand to keep customer service so they stick with you. And then some interesting data from Visual Capitalist and the five big picture trends being accelerated by the pandemic. Number one is screen time. We're spending a lot more time on screen, especially younger generations.

So 44 percent of people under the age of 18 report four hours or more per day spending on a digital device, and that's up from 21% pre-pandemic. The second one is the big consumer shakeup. Over half of consumers are willing to spend more if that means that they can avoid speaking to a retail clerk. they can avoid speaking to a retail clerk. 78% of consumers who made their most recent purchases using digital wallets are interested in making purchases via unattended channels. So again, the contactless and unattended stores are going to get a boost out of this. The pre-COVID forecast for online sales by 2020 as a percent of total sales was 22% pre-pandemic. It's now jumped to 34%. So what this data is saying is that by 2030, by 34% of total retail sales will be online versus the rest being in stores. So stores will still be the largest percentage, but they are going to decline.

Peak globalization will continue. The information component of globalization is becoming more important. Price of the worldwide economic as a piece of the worldwide economic puzzle. And then finally, number five, the wealth chasm. Billionaires are worth more, nearly half. And this one shocked me. Nearly half of 18 to 24-year-old people have nothing saved. Most impacted are the millennials, which, as I said in previous podcasts,

they became the largest generation in 2019, surpassing the boomers. And then the number five is flexible workplace. 98% of employees would like to work remotely at least some of the time for the rest of their careers. 82% of company leaders intend to permit remote working for some of the time as employees return to the workplace. And finally, let me wrap up with what happened on Black Friday. So on Black Friday, according to data from Sensormatic, visits to stores dropped 52% this year. percent this year. According to Retail Next, shopper yield, which can measure spend per consumer, increased an impressive 36 percent over last year. Adobe reported online sales on Black Friday increased nearly 22 percent as consumers spend nearly $9 billion online. This makes Black Friday online this makes black friday the second largest online spending day after cyber monday

cyber monday sales which are this week and i'll report on next week are projected to be between 11 and 12 billion which would be an increase of anywhere from 15 to 35 percent over last year so if you didn't get the message we're spending a lot online and with that, I'm going to turn it over to Tom. Thanks, Tommy. Thanks, Reid. Just wanted to touch on a couple things, and I know often there's a little bit of repetitiveness, but we'll just run through a little bit. First, wanted to kind of give an update on something we talked about last week with some of the logistics challenges

around delivery of some of the upcoming vaccinations as I think everybody's aware that at this point multiple are awaiting the emergency FDA approval and it couldn't come at a better or worse time in one sense where the beginning deliveries will probably, if everything goes as planned, occur a week prior to the Christmas holiday and be mixed in with all of the packages that run through. And some of the estimates that I'm reading, and again, this is both from a research standpoint and actually directly in the day job portion of what I do, is that the major carriers are looking at introducing 50 million packages, if you will, into the mix of it and the logistical nightmare of what it would be like last minute to add 50 million packages and taking away the challenges with the cold storage options, just the pure

logistics of moving from point A to point B. So more to come on that, but be aware that the expect continued disruption in the supply chain line. I think everybody is probably getting those notices from their online orders. If you're out buying holiday gifts or anything online right now, you're getting back to what I would say is the beginning of the pandemic messaging where deliveries are delayed due to COVID. A lot of the major global logistics companies are preparing for if they needed to take a large percentage of these, how would they prioritize packages and how would they manage the disruption that would cause. Also what systemically is available today to track these things. There is a substantial play on RFID here

of the benefits of RFID. So very interesting events that occur. And you also, the listeners will appreciate that a lot of the modeling around this logistics is based on about this change in delivering things to packages. And Big Pharma is not used to delivering millions and millions of packages to thousands of locations in real time. So very, very interesting events there. very interesting events there. And very reminiscent of the spring, there has been an influx of COVID-19 scams throughout the internet. Over the last week, there have been several reports of Cyber Monday and Black Friday websites spinning up that are scam websites for shopping

deals around it. One of the things that we often say here is, you know, just be mindful of if the deal is too good to be true, it probably is. You know, one's giving deals that don't make sense. It takes just a few seconds to validate a deal by looking at what an item sells for and other websites. The other thing is if it's not a known entity, if it's a company you've never heard of that doesn't have a lot of prior history, be very mindful of what it is. Additionally, there are a tremendous amount of text message and email phishing scams for places like Target, Amazon, Best Buy to get your gift card, your COVID-19 relief discount.

While I would say these things are common this time of year, adding the COVID or coronavirus to it actually, in some cases, gives people a false sense of, oh, this is okay. This is related to COVID. This coupon would never be real before, but retail is in trouble. So this is what they're doing. And actually a couple that I've seen really look good. And the messaging looks good, especially from some of the bigger brick and mortar stores like Target, where we're giving back to our communities. You've been selected and all you need to do is put your information here, click on this link, and you get a gift card or running through. Interestingly enough, the FBI has actually warned an increase of online scams. And there was a story ahead of Little Rock in Arkansas.

So I think when you think of Arkansas, we know that Walmart's headquarters are there, but in, you know, just in the last year, there were 22 million in Arkansas reported online scams related around this. So that's a, it's just one of those things. The FBI is actually talking about offices all over the country where they're trying to give numbers to show the magnitude of these scams. Unfortunately, this has been on the rise for many years as people become more technologically advanced and use the internet more. They become more prone to some of these online potential scams. Adding the COVID mix really, really is something to be aware of. The other thing that is coming up, and while this is not as widely spread, it is happening, is with the live streaming and some of the live shopping events via social media, you have some nefarious actors going ahead and starting a live streaming event, and they're doing raffles.

And these are raffles where they donate or they claim to donate to a local charity, and they collect seemingly small amounts of money, $10 to $15, sometimes $20, sometimes as low as $2, from people to win an item that's very desirable. One that was out the other day, which was a PS5 where they had 400 people put $60 a raffle. They were taking 400 raffles and they were going to donate the proceeds to a local charity. And this was a scam. There was no ps5 and it doesn't it doesn't take a lot to understand that this is a something that can be set up in a matter of minutes you do

a live stream video capability is significant today so you get your smartphone you get a really robust app and you can put together some really good stuff and in less than 15 minutes make $24,000 with no intention of ever paying anybody back. And because of the way that these are popping up, they're flyby. They're there and they're gone and there really is no recourse. Depending on the methods of payments that you use, you can have some recourse. One of the suggestions I would make is if you're using Venmo or PayPal, look at the terms, understand what your buyer protections are. The great thing is that a lot of the reputable apps have great buyer protection plans in place where the buyer is protected, but it's still being very mindful of if it's too good

to be true, it probably is, and take a little bit of time to just do, you know, a few minutes of due diligence that runs through. And the last one that I'll talk about, which is in the same realm, is specific to Facebook and Instagram, where there are these pop ups where do this and you're going to get something free. pop-ups where do this and you're going to get something free. And there is a seemingly legitimate looking video of a CEO of a very large company that's kind of post pasted together to look like that someone's giving something away. And there are two tails to this. One is a very nefarious action where someone's trying to get information. And the other one is something where I call this a time burglar scam, where someone is just trying to see how many likes and how many mentions they get to influence an account and move an account better on an algorithm, but there's no intentions really to do anything. And again, with a lot of these type of scams, it's not as easy as reporting some of the others because there is no customer service body. There is no challenge that runs

through. And the last thing, which is, again, not a new one, but it seems to be a COVID one, is there has been a rash of websites that went back up around holiday gifts shipping from China. These are generally legitimate companies in the sense that this scam is a little different, where a company spends three to six months establishing themselves on the internet, selling trinkets and very small, low price items. And then they introduce a seemingly large, desirable item at a price that is much lower than the competition. They're very adamant about that the shipping times will be 60 days plus. That allows them to get around some of the credit card chargeback pieces. And then they will ship an item that is much smaller

than it's supposed to be. So for instance, one of the ones that came up pretty regularly is there is this really interesting kind of indoor slide for stairs that you would think should be a couple hundred dollars. When you see it, it lists this for $39. It very clearly states on the website that it could take up to 90 days to ship, that it comes from Asia. And this is an established website that has been around for almost a year. You get an email that there's a shipment, you get everything that is, and then lo and

behold, 70 days later, you get a package that is about the size of your hand with a small piece of cardboard in it. And then when you go to dispute the charges, they have a tracking number. And the object here is the longer that they can run through, the better. This also, if you remember some of the seeds and nuts that were being sent from China, this is part of that kind of realm that they use those tracking numbers to establish order, online order potential. So they send you something that's worth three cents and hope to keep your difference. Interestingly enough, in this report, PayPal was aware of this. When people were disputing the transactions, the merchant was offering, basically bartering with

them saying, nope, I shipped this to you, but I'd be happy to give you 50% back for the inconvenience. I shipped this to you, but I'd be happy to give you 50% back for the inconvenience. And if you were beyond that, some people would actually accept that 50% off thinking that's all they could get. And then this illegal merchant still makes money. This is actually something that happens regularly, but has really had an increase in it. So it's basically seemingly good website with a product that's a little bit good to do and runs through. So wrapping it up with all of these, this is just paid extra special attention during this season. I understand that gift giving is certainly on the forefront. I know that some folks are financially in a tougher situation than early, but if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Back over to you, Reed.

All right. Thanks so much, Tom. Thank you, Tony, for all your insights as well. If there's an opportunity, there's a scam. Listening to old-time radio shows when I went to the University of Florida undergrad back in the day, and sometimes continue to. But it's interesting, like this is your FBI and some of those old radio shows, the sheer amount of frauds and scams that took place then, even during what might've been our most patriotic time, if you will, gives us an idea about human nature and that there really is nothing new, just new ways.

So thanks, Tom, for all those updates. Buyer beware. And so we just always need to stay on our guard. And thank you, Tony, again, for all the insights and understanding the dynamics and how people are responding, changing, and how retailers as well are responding and changing, adapting. And so we want to help make sure that our team at LPRC and at the University of Florida are right there supporting you all when and where you need it with good innovation and good rigorous research and evaluation. So on behalf of Kevin Tran, our producer, Tony D'Onofrio, and Tom Mead, I want to thank everybody for tuning in to Crime Science, the podcast. Please stay safe.

And as always, any and all comments, suggestions, critiques, recommendations are welcome at operations at lpresearch.org. Check out the website, LPRC, which is lpresearch.org. Stay safe. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast presented by the Laws Prevention Research Council and sponsored by Bosch Security. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more crime science episodes and valuable information at lpresearch.org. The content provided in the Crime Science Podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for legal, financial, or other advice. Views expressed by guests of the Crime Science Podcast are those of the authors

and do not reflect the opinions or positions of the Office of Prevention Research Council.