Fraud, Fraud...and more Fraud

Since I last chatted...I am saddened to admit, there have been no more apprehensions. As in, not one in the month of February. This time last year I had three under my belt. (By the way, February 9 marked my one year anniversary as Police Chief of my retail store. I ended the year with 20 shoplifter apprehensions, five employee apprehensions, one macing and two lacerated elbows).

Instead of straight up theft apprehensions, apparently the white collar crimes have picked up. Every day, it seems, I am walking into yet another fraudulent transaction investigation.

We have an assortment of people involved. I have a white mother and daughter coming in and shopping for an hour, loading up two shopping carts with merchandise, and proceeding to the register line. Once in line, they produce a tupperware container filled with coupons, and from it, matches almost every piece of merchandise with a coupon. As a result, two shopping carts cost them $2.32. That is not a typo. Just in case you didn't see it the first time, two shopping carts loaded with merchandise cost a total of $2.32.

So, using coupons isn't against the law. That really comes under the "smart shopper" column. However, they don't stop there. Over the past weeek, it has become apparent, through diligent review of video tapes, (because there are no shoplifters in the store...I have to do something), I notice the same coupon duet, returning merchandise the next day, shopping for another hour, and repeating the same procedure again. Suspicious? How many times do you need to shop for two cart loads of merchandise in a week? So I examine the situation closer. This is where I find the real problem for us, benefit for them.

When they return ten items the next day, they are getting the full price for the items back in a gift card. If you recall, their total order came to $2.32. Their return of just ten of the items yielded them %15.84. I am terrible at Math, but that seems like they made off with about $13.00 of which they never paid for to begin with. Innocent mistake? Maybe they aren't trying to make a profit, and it's cashier error, or paperwork error, etc etc... However, there is one more finding... when they go back shopping the next time, they purchase the same things they just returned! Verdict: Scam. Investigation continuing...

I also have two black females, and one or two black males who have joined efforts in their operation. I was approached the other day by an employee who was assigned to our Electronics Counter. The only reason he came up to me was because he needed a manager to unlock the Electronics Stockroom, and it happened to be me doing it for him. If this didn't cause our paths to cross that night, I really wonder if I would have ever heard from him. As I walked away from the stockroom, after unlocking it for him, he calls out to me...

"Question for ya!"

I stopped and walked back through to the back hallway to listen intetntly to his question, which I fully expected to be rivetting, if not totally random.

"Are we allowed to accept VISA gift cards whe they purchase PSP's and DSI's...and..."

I stopped him mid-sentence.

"I have a VISA gift card, are you going to stop me from buying whatever it is I want with it?"

He started to walk away with his tail between his legs but then paused and addded that he just had a customer who bought four PSP's with his gift card.

"Are you kidding me? You already made the transaction, and then think to ask if its okay that you did?" I was shocked, but knew his history of doing dumb things, so it really wasn't too shocking. "And let me ask this... someone who buys a stack of PSP game systems at 200 dollars a piece, with a gift card...does this raise any red flags with you at all? Other than whether you are allowed to take the gift cards?"

"Well it just happened, literally a few minutes ago..." he replied trying to save himself.

"So the customer has already left huh?" he just stared back at me. "So, no, it didn't raise any flags huh?, nothing suspicious about a guy buying numerous game systems with a gift card..."

He stuttered and stammered for minutes, until I finally walked away shaking my head. I had suddenly been given yet another investigation... and I just wished he didn't have anything to do with it.

I checked video of the transaction he was speaking of. A black male walks into the store alone, walks directly to the CD and DVD aisle and paces up and down. When the employee walks by, he suddenly walks out and aks him about the game systems which are locked in the display case on the other side of the department. The employee helps him out, and brings out the four he asks four, adds a few other DVD's and rings him up. This transaction comes to over 650 dollars. The customer pays for the merchandise with a card, later identified as a VISA gift card. He is handed a bag filled with merchandise and he walks out of the store with it. I try to get a good shot of the customer and get a still photo of him incase the card comes back stolen. Experience shows purchases like these are often done with stolen cards.

I check the time and realize I am due at the neighboring store to help interview an employee who is accused of stealing merchndise. I grab my coat and head back out of the office, doing one more lap through Electronics before I leave the store "unprotected."

As I started toward Electronics, I saw another employee walking quickly toward me, sorta signalling me with his fingers. As he walked by me he whispered...

"There's a girl in Electronics trying to buy a bunch of PSP's..."

Only fifteen minutes had passed since the first guy made his purchase. I instantly thought they could be working together. I did a lap down the back aisle so she wouldnt see where I was coming from. I came out and walked right behind her standing at the counter, waiting to be rung up. She was a thin black girl in her late twenties with a pony tail sticking out of her baseball cap. Before she turned to see me, I kept walking straight to the service desk by the front door. My mission now was to see what car they got into and hopefully get a license plate.

Since I was leaving for another store anyway, I waited for the girl to walk behind me out the door, then I walked out behind her, pulling my car keys out as I walked. She walked straight out toward the far end of the lot as I walked left toward my car. I peeked over to her as I acted like I was unlocking my car door, and saw her throw her bag of merchandise into the trunk of a silver Dodge Charger. She then walked up the passenger side and got in the front. I jumped into my car and pulled up behind them as they sat at the red light at the exit from the lot. I typed their license plate into my cell phone as we tunred out of the lot and sent it to the LP I was about to meet. At that point I thought I was done with the case for a while.

Once I arrived at the other store, I asked for the information I had sent over the cell phone, explaining the situation we had with the gift card purchases. As luck would have it, the scenario sounded familiar to him as well, and within a minute I was being shown video of the same people making purchases in this store too. The case just doubled...

I called back to the Electronics Department and asked about the transactions. I wanted in detail what was bought, how it was bought and how it all went down. It was then I learned that I didn't have two people making purchases, I had three. One male and two females. By the time the Electronics Department employee stopped me to ask about gift cards, he had already rung up the first two people for about 700 dollars each. The third girl left with about 600 dollars of video game systems.

The next day, I started right in on investigating and documenting the three transactions. I found the receipts for each transaction, complete with times, merchandise bought, cards used and amounts. On video I saw the guy, and the two girls. While reviewing it for the fourth or fifth time, I noticed something odd. Each time the person was making the purchase, they were talking on a cell phone. Then, I noticed, as the man and the first female was being rung up, the thin female with the pony tail, walked into the store on her cell phone, hung out near the front of the store, then slowly meandered out behind the one carrying the merchandise.

As I was reviewing the transactions, I got a call from the LP at another store which isn't in our district. He was explaining to me about a customer using a stolen gift card. Once he stopped, I described the case I was looking at and of course, it sounded very similar. One way to tell was for him to look at my video. A few hours later, he stopped in to my office and I pulled up the video. Sure enough, the same day they were in my store, they were also in his attempting the same thing. The big difference in the transactions is the fact that in addition to game systems, the male also tried to buy two 50 inch Tv's at the other store. Once the employees began asking questions, the guy left the store, leaving the TV's he had purchased with the card, behind on a flatbed.

The visiting LP added that each time someone came in to make a purchase with the gift cards, the pony tailed girl acted as lookout, watching their back. It made me wonder what she was prepared to do if the people were stopped. Would she just warn them and run, or is she armed and ready to help the other ones get away?

So, for now, we have them making purchases for over $6000.00 in the other district, $2000.00 in my store, and we are still checking video in other stores.

With any luck, we can help the Police Department make some arrests for Fraud, ID Theft, Theft by Unlawful Taking, Forgery and many more charges I may have never even heard of.

It's not as fun as beating someone to the front door and surprising them... but it's still taking a bite outta crime. And it would be nice to be able to say I have been spending my time this month saving the store some money.

Stay tuned...