Board 8 > Costco worker just tried to pull a pretty good scam on me.

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StealThisSheen posted...

Corrik posted...

StealThisSheen posted...

To be fair, it's entirely possible to forget you didn't use the card if you price checked it, since your brain will fill in the blanks on a long day

But the fact that he didn't even check the card or look at the receipt after says it wasn't an accident

Any store with cameras is gonna catch this scam and fire them.on the spot. I err to this being a mistake, but i mean someone trying to scam you is possible.

You realize 99% of the time the cameras aren't actually being watched for stuff like that, right.

Unless he did something super obvious like pocket the gift card, the cameras aren't going to show anything out of the ordinary. It'd show him type in the card, and then it'd be all too easy to go "Oh, I thought I slid it but I guess not"

If someone says their gift card wasn't scanned, the camera is going to show it wasn't scanned in conjunction with the receipt.

He says a mistake. Okay cool. The customers gets the money back and now that employee has the mistake noted. Guess what happens if it happens a second time? Probably not buying its a mistake this time and even if so, still going to be action taken.

Like, most people who use gift cards are definitely looking to make sure it was applied. The number of times a person told me I didn't apply their gift card when I did at walmart is probably a stupid number. Takes a second to point out where it is on the receipt though.

It's just a really dumb scam that might net you a very small sum before losing your job if anything at all. Much better ways to scam if you wanna scam. Though, people do dumb shit all the time so who knows.
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Well, like has been mentioned, $30 is a hell of a lot to try it on

But people pull this scam on $5 here and there all the time and don't get it caught if the total's high. $10 is being brave. $30 is stupid, but then again, it's very hard to assume it's a mistake when he didn't even check the card or the receipt before giving it back, since... If it's a mistake, you absolutely DO want to make sure, because losing the store $30 is going to be an infraction, too.
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StealThisSheen posted...

Well, like has been mentioned, $30 is a hell of a lot to try it on

But people pull this scam on $5 here and there all the time and don't get it caught if the total's high. $10 is being brave. $30 is stupid, but then again, it's very hard to assume it's a mistake when he didn't even check the card or the receipt before giving it back, since... If it's a mistake, you absolutely DO want to make sure, because losing the store $30 is going to be an infraction, too.

If that part is accurate from Olivia's story, then the only thing I can think of for it not being a scam is that when the customer mentioned it that he was like oh shit in his mind I did forget to scan it and just handed it back and said the money was still on it.

I know a lot of people talk shit on employees from mcdonalds or walmarts and shit about how can they be so fucking stupid and their job is so easy. But the jobs really are monotonous to the points that sometimes you just zone out or make simple mistakes on mundane shit. Mistakes happen.

Not saying this was definitively a mistake though.
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Corrik posted...

But the jobs really are monotonous to the points that sometimes you just zone out or make simple mistakes on mundane shit. Mistakes happen.

The main issue is that the cashier didn't react like it was a mistake. He reacted like he knew exactly what was going on.
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-hotdogturtle-- posted...

Corrik posted...

But the jobs really are monotonous to the points that sometimes you just zone out or make simple mistakes on mundane shit. Mistakes happen.

The main issue is that the cashier didn't react like it was a mistake. He reacted like he knew exactly what was going on.

If that part is accurate from Olivia's story, then the only thing I can think of for it not being a scam is that when the customer mentioned it that he was like oh shit in his mind I did forget to scan it and just handed it back and said the money was still on it.
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StealThisSheen posted...

Well, like has been mentioned, $30 is a hell of a lot to try it on

But people pull this scam on $5 here and there all the time and don't get it caught if the total's high. $10 is being brave. $30 is stupid, but then again, it's very hard to assume it's a mistake when he didn't even check the card or the receipt before giving it back, since... If it's a mistake, you absolutely DO want to make sure, because losing the store $30 is going to be an infraction, too.

So how often were you actually able to nail someone over this scam?
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redrocket_pub posted...

StealThisSheen posted...

Well, like has been mentioned, $30 is a hell of a lot to try it on

But people pull this scam on $5 here and there all the time and don't get it caught if the total's high. $10 is being brave. $30 is stupid, but then again, it's very hard to assume it's a mistake when he didn't even check the card or the receipt before giving it back, since... If it's a mistake, you absolutely DO want to make sure, because losing the store $30 is going to be an infraction, too.

So how often were you actually able to nail someone over this scam?

Usually only when somebody got too bold and went for too high an amount, when they got caught numerous times by customers, or when another employee ratted them out.

Though there were one or two times where the employee was dumb enough to use the gift cards in the same store, and we noticed they were using a strangely high amount of gift cards, so we started watching them.

Basically, enough to know it's a pretty common scam, but not enough to really make a dent or say it's easy to catch.
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I think some of it is more like, even once someone knows about it, how do you actually go about catching them doing it? What more, who do you get to do it?
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KokoroAkechi posted...

I think some of it is more like, even once someone knows about it, how do you actually go about catching them doing it? What more, who do you get to do it?

With smaller scams like this, we'd typically let the employee hang themself. We'd call them in, bring up something vague, such as "We noticed some discrepancies with the gift cards in your bag," and see what they said. You'd be surprised how often they'd admit to it, whether out of guilt/worry, or by trying to deny it and saying the wrong thing. If they did, great. If not, we'd just let them go, but say something vague about monitoring it/etc. to scare them from doing it.

It's very hard to actually catch them in the act without a secret shopper, yeah.
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Tldr version capitalism is bad and makes everyone a garbage piece of shit or dead

StealThisSheen posted...

As somebody who has worked loss prevention at a few places, it's actually a fairly common scam in retail when people have gift cards and seem like they aren't paying attention/have a high total and may not notice

Basically, the total was $80. What this guy did was pretend the total was $80 AFTER using the gift card, implying the total was originally $110. Thus, he was hoping they'd pay the $80 like they did and then he could keep the unused gift card.

When people have a high total, a lot of things, just plain aren't paying attention, etc... People who run this scam will pretend that they already used your gift card, and that the total they tell you is the total after the gift card amount was taken off... When actually, it's the entire total. Then, if the customer pays the amount and doesn't say anything, the employee gets to keep the gift card.

The reason it's common is that it's hard to catch unless the customer catches it, since the register will not show anything weird about the transaction. All pulling the records will show is: Total was $80, customer paid $80. If they notice, it's pretty easy for the employee to say it was a mistake.

Pretty much this. Also, to clarify, when confronted the guy did not look at the receipt or the card. He just handed the card back and said it's on the card. It's possible that it wasn't a scam as Corrik said but I highly, highly doubt it based on how the whole thing went down. Sorry for being a bit confusing jn the initial post, I was on the bus trying to write while still pretty bemused by the situation.

And for further clarification, I had $30 on the card. My bill was $80 when, had the gift card been used, it should have been $50.
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so wait, did you end up paying $80 in the end? if so they essentially declined you the ability to redeem the gift card, which is illegal.
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digiiiiiiiii posted...

so wait, did you end up paying $80 in the end? if so they essentially declined you the ability to redeem the gift card, which is illegal.

No. Illegal would be them saying he is not allowed to use it. They never said that. They handed it back. He could have returned and rebought $30 worth of items and used his card if he so chose to.
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What Corrik said. I still have the gift card which has 30 bucks on it. Really, that just means I get to go to Costco again without a membership which is great.

Had I not caught the scam, I would have paid $30 extra on my bill and lost the gift card.
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I'd like to add that even though management said it's probably a mistake does not mean they won't remember what you told them or look into the problem.

Costco in particular will stand up for their employees
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