If anything, I’d say he’s scamming the Insurance company.
We had stuff stolen from the back of our truck, and our insurance company asked for a list of the stuff and receipts we could find (we did have many) and told us to go buy new stuff and send them the new receipts and they reimbursed us.
He could be buying expensive stuff to get the receipt, returning it, then using the receipt to scam insurance.
Are the things he’s buying and returning items that can be just picked up off the shelf? - if so, it could be as simple as:
Buy toaster
Return next day with receipt only
Collect another toaster from the shelf
Saunter to customer service desk, get refund
You now have your money back, plus the original toaster.
I wish I read this thread before going to the store, because I would have payed more attention to what I heard… Sorry I have nothing to add except that there is some sort of scam at play here.
I over heard a conversation today in an art supply store. I didn’t catch the whole thing, but one clerk was describing a problem to another. It seems someone was buying an item, using it, and returning it for store credit, then buying it again, etc, etc. Eventually, the person gets a new employee to give a cash refund instead of store credit, and the store is left with a used item. Its possible that the store was getting conned out of cash somehow as well, but I didn’t hear exactly how.
Well, as of MY closing time, he hadn’t returned to buy all the stuff he put on hold…but the store he’s dealing with is open two hours longer than mine, so we’ll see tomorrow. From what more I learned today, he originally came in with the list of items he’d purchased in the past, and was trying to round up all those items, or similar ones. He paid for those items with a combination of cash and credit…and one of the cards he tried to use was declined. Not unusual, but not a comforting thought. then the next day he came back and exchanged the pen he’d bought because he didn’t like it…no funds changed hands, it was an even exchange. I blieve he did the same thing again the next day…but with a different item from his original purchase. Again, even exchange. The he asked the staff to put a ton of stuff on hold until today. Said he’s be paying with a check.
Now our electronic check clearing system reads the magnetic numbers on the check, and supposedly verifies available funds in the account. Now since those funds aren’t put on hold, it is possible for someone to buy something with a check, then go to their bank and withdraw the money from their account before the store closes and transactions are finalized and fund transfers take place. We don’t key in the code on the check. and we wouldn’t accept a check from the insurance company made out to him…
And you can’t try that “pick up another item from the shelf” scam, because we generally greet everyone through the door, and we’re a tiny store. And he hasn’t tried to return anything bought elsewhere…
Our Home Office must have been satisfied with his explanation to produce a list of his purchases for the last years or so…that’s not something we normally do, so he would have had to convince them.
Maybe by tomorrow I’ll have new news.
Actually, the card scanners do not check a live balance in the checking account when you swipe your card. At best, they read a flat file that is a day old. It is entirely possible to make a debit card purchase without having the funds available. The difference is that the bank is on the hook for the overdraft, not the merchant.
…he’s stealing wheelbarrows!
Just call the cops & ask. :rolleyes:
There may well be a scam, but I’ve known any number of “flakey” doctors in my time. And he could be a “doctor” of anything. My husband’s BIL uses the term doctor, although his is a PhD.
Ask what, pray tell? Why some guy keeps returning stuff he’s bought?
Some places can. They’ll even write the check out for you, and hand it back when they are done.
Well, he didn’t come in today. He called twice…he only wants to deal with one particular clerk because the manager was rude to him…she says she wasn’t, but I know her…she gets exasperated and isn’t good at hiding it. Since that particular clerk is off until Thursday, he won’t be in until then. One of the other clerks said that the guy gives her the creeps…she couldn’t explain why, said he’s nice enough, but seems off. And he was wandering around the store, when it was busy and full of people and only one clerk to watch everything…with a duffle bag. Duffle bags make us retail types nervous. As do old, well-used plastic shopping bags, puffy coats carried over one arm, and people who come in and say, “you don’t have to come over and talk to me, I’m just looking”.
Same clerk every time?
I smell collusion.
Were there rebates on any of these items?