Mark Herman with Precinct 4 said, "In some of the cases they were getting $300 Wal-Mart gift cards, clothing, just all kinds of purchases."Ĭonstables say the clerk did the same thing with checks written by other Wal-Mart customers.įebruary 2016 also saw the sentencing of a Walmart customer who (along with his wife) defrauded other customers of hundreds of thousands of dollars through the method of peeking over their shoulders to obtain personal information which the couple used to create counterfeit checks:Ī man who cashed $300,000 worth of counterfeit checks using personal information stolen by peeking over the shoulders of hundreds of Wal-Mart customers was sentenced to prison. "It was almost $3,000."Īuthorities believe the clerk gave the checks to other people who then went on shopping sprees inside the store.Ĭapt. You are supposed toĭavis says - and authorities confirm - a clerk at Wal-Mart never returned Davis' check at the time of purchase, the clerk was able to re-run the check through the electronic reader again and again.įive times, they changed the amounts each time," Davis claimed. She said, "I had gone to Wal Mart and written a check for $37 and did not realize I did not get that check back, which is the custom with electronic transfer. Pam Davis never thought writing a $37 check at Wal-Mart would cost her thousands of dollars, but that's exactly what happened. Unfortunately some Wal-Mart shoppers did not get their checks handed back to them and it cost them thousands of dollars. When you write a check at Wal-Mart, you hand it to a clerk who then runs the check through an electronic scanner and hands it back to you. In some cases, dishonest sales clerks have abused this procedure by deliberately failing to return checks to customers, then re-scanning the checks multiple times and using the ill-gotten proceeds to purchase gift cards and other merchandise.įor example, TV station KTRK in Houston reported the following check-theft scam by a Walmart employee in December 2006:Ī former Wal-Mart employee is behind bars for her role in what authorities are calling a check fraud scheme. As always, consumers are cautioned to take steps to limit disclosure of their personal information and to be aware of their surroundings.Īs for the content of the memo, we note that instances of check fraud have been tied to a then-new practice (used in some Walmart stores) of processing checks not by the "traditional" method of retaining them and submitting them to banks for deposit, but by using them as authorizations to initiate electronic funds transfers (EFTs) and immediately returning them to customers. Members of the public should not rely on information contained in the letter. The Department will be conducting an internal investigation and, at the conclusion of the investigation, will take the appropriate corrective and/or disciplinary action. This letter was not official or sanctioned in any way by the Department of Public Safety unfortunately this letter was made public. It was alleged in the letter that the employees of the store would obtain a customer's checking account information, and the information would be used to create fraudulent checks. On Thursday, July 26, 2007, an unauthorized letter was distributed to employees in the Baton Rouge field office of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, Office of Motor Vehicles, concerning an alleged multi-city fraud and theft ring operating at Wal-Mart involving Wal-Mart employees.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |