#27 Merlin -> You are naive. (Thats a good thing, though)
They buy the items w/ EBT, typically expensive single items. (Think fungible gallon of milk). Then they bring them back w/ no receipt later that same day, typically when there is a different front end manager or store manager on duty.
FYI. I have been in groc. business and my wife is in groc. mgmt.
The people running these scams use social engineering attacks.
1. Loss prevention interactions are law-suit bait.
2. Returns w/o receipt are incredibly hard to deny w/o also being lawsuit bait.
They will know more about your corporation and it’s business partners than any employee in the place. They know which vendors have cash in their trucks (COD accounts or pop vending machines, etc).
They will:
Send in associate to ask to speak to the manager about quality of XXXX or attitude of checker XXXXX, get managers name, description and front end managers name, description, typical response time for irate customer call and dispute resolution process.
They will likely carpool or at least arrange to arrive in ‘packs’. While people are making their case for product return at the service desk, there will be several ‘shoplifters’, some obvious, some not so much working the store. The management team will be overwhelmed (DOS attack) with team members calling to report the shoplifters. A vendor will very likely be trying to deliver, so the back door needs to be open. Manager will have to either go after the shoplifters taking $250 in roasts and steak out the door while they deal with the obvious fraudulent product return or they will (almost always) authorize the fraudulent return or delegate authority downward to do so. Police will not investigate shoplifting after the fact even with an outside eyewitness and surveillance video showing both the taking and the license plate of the car they left in. The more fraudulent the people are, the louder and more aggressive they will be at the customer service desk. They WILL KNOW the managers name and district managers name and threaten to call them at home on the weekend to discuss this “OUTRAGE of not getting cash back when they paid cash earlier in the day and don’t need the product now that their family can’t visit after all”.
Once the EBT has been converted to either ‘in-store credit’ or cash, it is now fully fungible. The in-store credit can be sold, traded or further converted to cash via the same process at a different store.
This goes on every day in every grocery store in America and is well documented via surveillance video. Pay a little extra attention from now on and see how much of this you can now personally witness.
The real outrage for these comments is that our service members are paid so poorly that if there is a family involved, they almost certainly need WIC & foodstamps.
