Written Among The Stars

For those who don't know I work in fraud for my day job. I have seen it all and heard it all, and then next week I'm sure I'll hear something new. I pride myself on being pretty saavy when it comes to people running a scam. But I learned this week that it can happen to anyone....including me. Luckily nothing bad happened, but still, lesson learned.

So I was at Walmart with the hubby, we were doing our weekly grocery shopping. We got approached in line by two guys. Now, they were kinda sketchy looking so I was suspicious and tried to push them off on hubby...but he wasn't paying attention so that didn't work lol. They tell me that they need cash for gas money, they have $80 in Walmart gift cards. So if they give me the gift cards to use, will I take out $60 in cash for them and the extra $20 is just their thank you. I figured, well if there's no money or the incorrect amount of money on the gift cards then I can always refuse...and if there is then no harm done.

So we check out, the gift cards have exactly the amounts on them that they told me that they did. I take the $60 in cash and hand it to them, everything's kosher and everything is fine. They say thank you, we say good luck, and go to our car. Once at our car, one of them approached us and says that we had agreed to give them $70, not $60. I said no, I don't think that's how it went. But to get rid of him (because now he's freaking me out) we give him the only cash we have left $5. He leaves to go meet up with his buddy who is approaching someone else in the parking lot...presumably with the same story. Now something is sketchy.

Hubby and I go home and decide that it's weird and we're going to call the Walmart manager. We do, and he says that it's a scam and happens all the time. The gift cards were either stolen, or they stole merchandise from Walmart and brought it back to "return" it...but because they don't have a receipt Walmart gives them a gift card. Then they get unsuspecting people to use the gift cards and get cash so that they are not on camera doing anything with the cards. He apologized that it happened to us, asked us for a description of the gentlemen and what time and register we were at so they can review the surveillance tape and hopefully catch them doing it to someone else and have them arrested.

Honestly, I have never even heard of this before! I mean, what the hell? Here I was trying to do a good deed for someone and I helped someone defraud the store! I am horrified. Right now I am feeling less than charitable to anyone, for any reason.