Archived Your Weirdest Scam/Fraud Moment?

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Jenna120 said:
I had a weird call today, I don't know if someone was trying a scam or not. Lady called, said she had bought a Target gift card at Safeway. She said she gave it to someone who tried it and there was no money, but someone told her the wrong barcode might have been scanned. I wanted to pass her on to guest services but they were busy. She wanted to read the numbers to someone who could check and see if the card was activated or if there was money on the card, I'm not quite sure which since she loved throwing in details.

What do you all think? Once I told her to call the phone number on the back of the card she was content and hung up, she didn't push beyond me telling her that, which makes me think it wasn't a scam. But on the other hand, why would she want to read a gift card number over the phone to someone?
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We just got an email about this. Apparently, typing the number in the system activates it or something. We were told not to do it and to direct them back to the store where they purchased it.
 
The booster who didn't figure out that the three of us doing the guest service tango around you in cosmetics was a clue we knew you were loading up with no intention of paying. Don't be shocked when local PD meets you at the door with the silver bracelets when you try to leave. When they had to take you to the ground I do hope that road rash burns for a few days..

Dumb bitch..
 
PharmaQueen said:
We just got an email about this. Apparently, typing the number in the system activates it or something. We were told not to do it and to direct them back to the store where they purchased it.
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I had another phone call yesterday, I don't even remember what the guest was calling about, which shows how ordinary her request was. But at the very end she threw in "Can I read you my gift card number so you can tell me what's on it?" Totally, completely unrelated to what she was asking about, it literally made me think "Where the heck did that come from?" Thanks for the warning, because of that warning I knew to immediately deflect it back to telling her to call the number on the card.
 
Jenna120 said:
I had another phone call yesterday, I don't even remember what the guest was calling about, which shows how ordinary her request was. But at the very end she threw in "Can I read you my gift card number so you can tell me what's on it?" Totally, completely unrelated to what she was asking about, it literally made me think "Where the heck did that come from?" Thanks for the warning, because of that warning I knew to immediately deflect it back to telling her to call the number on the card.
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I actually had one today as well. Told her the same thing. She then asked me to transfer her to guest services to see if they could and I told her I couldn't transfer her and they couldn't either because they were the ones who told us we couldn't. She thanked me and hung up. I then called GS and gave them the heads up. Saw the GSTL later as I was leaving and she told me they DID receive a phone call shortly after I called from someone asking them if they could tell them the balance of a gift card.
 
A brother and sister came through SCO and the brother started totally chatting me up like oh you're so pretty your bf is so lucky he better treat you right let me know if he doesn't blah blah blah and he was literally talking to me the entire time they were there and after they left I realized he must have been just distracting me while she "forgot" to scan some stuff or doing some other sketchy things, like he barely even looked at me before he started talking lol so idc, just because I didn't catch them doesn't mean someone else won't
 
Leo47 said:
A brother and sister came through SCO and the brother started totally chatting me up like oh you're so pretty your bf is so lucky he better treat you right let me know if he doesn't blah blah blah and he was literally talking to me the entire time they were there and after they left I realized he must have been just distracting me while she "forgot" to scan some stuff or doing some other sketchy things, like he barely even looked at me before he started talking lol so idc, just because I didn't catch them doesn't mean someone else won't
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Yup that's how they do it. Or two people will go to different SCOs and one will keep asking for help while the other "forgets" to scan. Let AP know if you didn't already so they can flag them.
 
Yep. They look a little different from the ones that we sell, but there are places that sell them.
 
I could tell fraud/scam stories from my previous jobs all day, maybe even write a dictionary sized book but thankfully I've been able to dodge any front-end work at Target. I got really tired of fraudster bullshit and especially being thrust into potentially dangerous situations with REALLY pissed off tweakers (you never know who might be packing a gun, for example, and yes I've had to call the cops on people at prior jobs more times than I can count) so at Target I've made sure to avoid anything that involves touching money or any cards with money on them. There's definitely an exponential uptick in the amount of bullshit you deal with as soon as you start handling cash, so no thanks. Freight basically pushes itself, is drama free and your Zebra won't try to shoot you which is 10/10 in my book
 
Holiday 2017 Return Fraud Stories.....


Chick returned a bunch of random shampoo (some we dont carry and some that are missed salvage) stated she got them as a gift o_O

Dont make up stupid stories on why your returning anything you clearly used coupons for
 
Got a lot of these at my last few jobs...memories

Yesterday I was talking to a guest about printers (pulled me away from pushing toys) and she randomly started asking me if I like my job, how much I make, etc. I told her some bullshit amount and she gave me a melodramatic "Aww, that's not very much! But what if I told you about a job opportunity where you could make triple that and have weekends off?" So I played along and asked her for more details, but instead of more details she just handed me a business card, made up some excuse to leave and GTFO'd.

Everything about her was sketchy as fuck. She was obviously trying to hide a foreign accent, and chewed on some of her words like she'd spent a while practicing how to put on an American accent. Her dress style was "not from anywhere around here", maybe Eastern Europe.

So of course when I googled this "consulting" "business" (and you're never going to believe this!) ....it was a scam! No records or licenses with the city to be found. The phone number was registered to Google Voice. Probably one of those "send us $2000 by Western Union and we'll get you started" deals. Used car status: unbought
 
While watching the front the other night, noticed a guy at SCO purchasing thousands of dollars worth of Disney gift cards, in separate transactions ( 5 $100 cards per transaction). He made at least 9-10 transactions like this of $500 In Disney cards each time.
Also paid for the majority of them with target gift cards (not sure if it was the same gift cards or different ones, just saw my SCO TM entering in the access codes a few times).

About halfway through, I noticed and walkied the LOD...explained the situation and that it seemed odd especially since he was splitting up the transactions. She said there wasn’t really anything we could do since there was no AP on duty that night.

Whole situation seemed sketchy to me, but maybe it was just how the guy was acting and the multiple transaction thing. Anyone ever seen anything like that before?
 
Bethy said:
While watching the front the other night, noticed a guy at SCO purchasing thousands of dollars worth of Disney gift cards, in separate transactions ( 5 $100 cards per transaction). He made at least 9-10 transactions like this of $500 In Disney cards each time.
Also paid for the majority of them with target gift cards (not sure if it was the same gift cards or different ones, just saw my SCO TM entering in the access codes a few times).

About halfway through, I noticed and walkied the LOD...explained the situation and that it seemed odd especially since he was splitting up the transactions. She said there wasn’t really anything we could do since there was no AP on duty that night.

Whole situation seemed sketchy to me, but maybe it was just how the guy was acting and the multiple transaction thing. Anyone ever seen anything like that before?
Click to expand...

You could have intervened and asked sco if everything was okay. Then ask the guest if they were planning to go to disneyland world or a cruise. Just go off of what the guest says...
 
Bethy said:
While watching the front the other night, noticed a guy at SCO purchasing thousands of dollars worth of Disney gift cards, in separate transactions ( 5 $100 cards per transaction). He made at least 9-10 transactions like this of $500 In Disney cards each time.
Also paid for the majority of them with target gift cards (not sure if it was the same gift cards or different ones, just saw my SCO TM entering in the access codes a few times).

About halfway through, I noticed and walkied the LOD...explained the situation and that it seemed odd especially since he was splitting up the transactions. She said there wasn’t really anything we could do since there was no AP on duty that night.

Whole situation seemed sketchy to me, but maybe it was just how the guy was acting and the multiple transaction thing. Anyone ever seen anything like that before?
Click to expand...
I thought you could not purchase a GC with a GC?
 
REDcardJJ said:
You cannot purchase Visa, AMEX, or MasterCard gift cards with Target GiftCards. POS will tell you when you aren’t allowed to use Target GiftCards as payment.
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But are you allowed to purchase gift cards (steam, iTunes, Xbox etc) with gift cards? Every time I’m at SCO, the TM stops me and says you can’t use gift cards to purchase third party gift cards. I’m using the wallet app and not a gift card barcode but it’s annoying they keep telling me this.
 
JohnSith373 said:
But are you allowed to purchase gift cards (steam, iTunes, Xbox etc) with gift cards? Every time I’m at SCO, the TM stops me and says you can’t use gift cards to purchase third party gift cards. I’m using the wallet app and not a gift card barcode but it’s annoying they keep telling me this.
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As far as I know, you can purchase any gift card, other than visa/MC/Amex, with a target gift card. You can even purchase a target gift card with a target gift card. You just can’t purchase a visa/mc/Amex gift card with a target card. And you can’t purchase any kind of gift cards with a merch return card.

Those issues all pop up on the register and don’t allow you to proceed though so no reason for a TM to intervene. Unless maybe it’s related to the TM discount and they think you’re buying gift cards to get the discount off the purchase of other cards or something?
 
JohnSith373 said:
But are you allowed to purchase gift cards (steam, iTunes, Xbox etc) with gift cards? Every time I’m at SCO, the TM stops me and says you can’t use gift cards to purchase third party gift cards. I’m using the wallet app and not a gift card barcode but it’s annoying they keep telling me this.
Click to expand...

Yes, you can. POS will give a warning when you’re purchasing gift cards that cannot be paid for with Target GiftCards. That TM doesn’t know our policies very well.
 
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