Ohio Wal-Mart Gift Card Thief Gets $11K Just For The Asking
Written by Evan SchumanSeptember 23rd, 2010
Earlier this month, a man called a 24-hour Wal-Mart in Columbus, Ohio, at 1 AM and told an associate he was with Wal-Mart's IT department. The caller instructed the associate to activate gift cards, read him those card numbers and then scratch off the tape on the back of the cards so she could tell him the authorization codes, police said. And the associate obliged. Hours—and more than $11,000 in online fraud—later, the store realized it had been had.
This incident, which police are still investigating, raises the issue of associate training. Preliminary information given to police by Wal-Mart did not indicate that the caller gave the associate any reason to believe he really was from Wal-Mart IT. Nor was any reason offered as to why an IT person would make such a request. Was the thief assuming the 1 AM crew might be more accommodating and less suspicious?
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One Comment | Read Ohio Wal-Mart Gift Card Thief Gets $11K Just For The Asking
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-Christine
September 23rd, 2010 at 7:46 pm
The bigger surprise in this haul is that WMT’s risk control people didn’t get flagged immediately that a rouge store was ringing up $11,000 of cards in the middle of the night.
This is an old “dial-for-dollars” con more often pulled on unsuspecting convenience store clerks. The scheme involves very articulate, persuasive crooks knowledgeable about procedures serial-calling stores – usually from out of state or even the country. Just keep calling until someone falls for the scam.
I’ve been in stores when the calls come in and they can be quite persuasive, even for a cynical old dog like me.