Archived Unpreventable laundering?

[EagleEye]

We have a guest that repeatedly launders money on a petty basis, and I'm going to outline his process. After that, I'm hoping for some suggestions on how to stop this crap.

1. He comes in with lots of coupons, usually legit but some are questionable. He follows the coupon policy but usually only buys small <$5 items and pays very little for them.

2. He comes in and does a no receipt return to gain a gift card for the full amount.

3. He repeatedly buys more and more of the same small DPCIs on his newly acquired gift care with more of those coupons.

4. He comes in EVERY DAY and returns 2 or 3 items SEPARATELY using his gift cards as a lookup. Since the items all have a return value of under $5, he gets cash for everything.

He just repeats this, and he's in the store literally every day.

*We are not allowed to deny a gift card lookup, and cannot call him out on it according to AP. Does anyone have any strategies I could propose to try to get this guy to stop coming to our store?

 

[Sanzano]

Hey GSA and guest service ninja here 🙂 Unfortunately this sort of thing is completely up to your stores AP and LOD in terms of how they want to attempt (or not) to prevent it. its the kind of thing that requires every ETL and AP to be on board with. However if you are able to get leadership's support, these are some strategies I've used with success in the past:

A) Explain to the guest that just as we reserve the right to limit quantities purchased we also reserve the right to limit quantities returned. Due to the guests consistent returning it has created an influx of these similar items in our inventory and has become a burden on the store. For this reason we are no longer to able accept returns of yours as per corporate directive.

B) Limit gift card cash outs. One of the stores I've been at limited the amount of Gift Card cash outs to 2 per guest per day. (We would only say, "We can do 2 only." ) This keeps is in line with California law, but still doesn't give the scammer a full win.

C) Scan the gusts giftcard, do the lookup like normal, pull up the item that he wants to return. then keep scanning it until eventually it gives you the red screen that says "This item was not found" because it has already found all the items that match. this is basically just a trick to confuse the guest into believing the system isn't finding their items on the gift card (which btw isn't a guaranteed return anyway, it would only be guaranteed if they had a receipt.) Explain to the guest that the system for some reason isn't showing that they purchased the items on that gift card, and show them the screen. Explain to them that perhaps it is due to them purchasing it very recently or from a different store. (Or both)

Regardless, every return you do for these sorts of situations make sure you reprint the receipts so that AP can continue building a case on them.

 

[Retail Girl]

Unless he is doing them at separate times, I explain that all of the returns need to happen on one transaction. That shuts them down pretty quickly. And yes, I will go so far as to post void out the last return and redo it if they try to turn around and do a second one.

 

[Hardlinesmaster]

Ap is watching him. Just let your Gstl, know about the guest actions, too.

 

[masterofalltrades]

AP is probably building a case on him, so don't scare him off. just let them know EVERY time he comes in. They need to document everything.

 

[Sanzano]

That's tricky RG, I'd love to be able to implement that into my routine too but how do you get around the fact that the guests always make up excuses as to why their separate purchases need to be processed separately?

 

[dcline414]

If the coupons are manufacturer ones, Target gets reimbursed and isn't losing money when the guest cashes out. I'm guessing AP and the STL would have more appetite to stop this if it were target or cartwheel coupons, in which case the company is taking the hit.

If this is low dollar and the store isn't losing money, it probably just isn't worth their effort to try and stop the behavior.

It seems like so much effort on the guest's part to cash out petty coupons... doesn't seem like the profit would even cover the gas so many trips to the store would require. Maybe the behavior will stop on its own?

 

[HRbuddy]

I was reading on here, am I reading correctly or can you use a gift card as a receipt now?

 

[mrknownothing]

I was reading on here, am I reading correctly or can you use a gift card as a receipt now?

If you have the gift card that you used to purchase an item, you can use it for receipt look-up within 90 days, just as you can with a credit or debit card.

 

[Xanatos]

"Items without a receipt may be denied refund or exchange." Might not be an exact quote, but that should be posted at guest service.

If I'm 99% sure that this person either stole the items or is abusing coupons, I'll deny it without a receipt. Also, my ETL-AP told us that we can outright deny someone a perfectly legitimate return if they are repeatedly abusing coupons like you are saying (even if they have the receipt and the items are new and unused, etc.).

 

[HRbuddy]

I was reading on here, am I reading correctly or can you use a gift card as a receipt now?

If you have the gift card that you used to purchase an item, you can use it for receipt look-up within 90 days, just as you can with a credit or debit card.

Ohh this is news to me! Thanks for the update! We are talking store gift cards, the scalable ones correct?

 

[Nauzhror]

Yes store giftcards, scan them then hit K1.

 

[RedMan]

You can also use a blank check to look up a receipt if the guest paid with a check. Insert it into the check reader and it will prompt you scan the item to be returned.

 

[Producer]

"I'm sorry, our Guest Services Team Member went to lunch. They'll be back in 45 minutes" 🙂

 

[Flabbergasted]

"I'm sorry, our Guest Services Team Member went to lunch. They'll be back in 45 minutes" 🙂

I wish we could close Guest Service for lunch, like they do at Pharmacy.

 

[defang]

You can also use a blank check to look up a receipt if the guest paid with a check. Insert it into the check reader and it will prompt you scan the item to be returned.

Too bad we can't use blank checks for anything else.

 

[Retail Girl]

That's tricky RG, I'd love to be able to implement that into my routine too but how do you get around the fact that the guests always make up excuses as to why their separate purchases need to be processed separately?

If they are on separate transactions, then I'm not really sure you have a good way to enforce this.

 

[Retail Girl]

Also, my ETL-AP told us that we can outright deny someone a perfectly legitimate return if they are repeatedly abusing coupons like you are saying (even if they have the receipt and the items are new and unused, etc.).

Yeah, that works until the guest calls the guest service number. Then you either have to do it or the STL/ETL-GE will be required to call and apologize and issue a gift card and deal with the wrath of the DTL...and thus you have to deal with their wrath.