 My Story.....
So, I've been lurking these forums for the past couple of weeks, and decided I'd make my first post.
Anywho, I've been doing the whole "retail fraud" thing for quite a while now. Perhaps the only reason I started in the first place was because I've been unemployed since the middle of January of this year, times were getting tough, and I had just about exhausted my unemployment benefits whilst still searching for a job.
When I first started my streak of mischievous acts, I started out small. I'd usually go to my local Safeway or Wal-Mart Super Center and grab one of those re-usable sacs made of that weird fabric which almost feels like carpet. I'm sure some of you know what I'm talking about. So, I'd make my way around the store, mostly the grocery section, and pick out what I needed for the week and place it in the bag; which, btw, was on my shoulder as if it were a man-purse. When the bag filled up, I would simply walk out of the store, like I had paid for it..... ;-) Now, I did this for a good 2 to 3 weeks, alternating between a couple different stores in different locations (SafeWay, Thriftway, Fred Meyer, WinCo, etc), until I eventually filled up my whole pantry and was set for a good month. I got bored with "buying" food real fast.
This is where it gets interesting. Since I was bored with stealing food items, I decided it was time to move onto bigger and better items. I tried my local Fred Meyer, which is kinda like Wally World (walmart), except its cleaner, the staff are friendlier and more knowledgeable, and it isn't ghetto as all mighty hell. I thought, maybe I'll try a DVD player. So, I walked around, acting as if I was comparing DVD players, picked up the most expensive one they had (theres a catch to this....just wait), yanked off the sensor sticker thing, and casually walked out. Now, this is the best part. At Fred Meyer, you can return anything up to 3x without a receipt up to $300 per 90 days. So, what I did was; I returned the merchandise, and since I didn't have a receipt, they put the full refund amount on a FM gift card. I then took the FM gift card, and used it to purchase 2 $100 Visa GC's and a Starbucks GC. I did this up until I had exhausted my return limit at FM, and I moved on to Wally World where I did the exact same thing. So, all this took place within about 3 weeks, the whole Fred Meyer thing, that is....and once again, I got bored since I could no longer return anything.
So, I started taking even BIGGER things. I started calling a couple different retailers posing as their partner stores to find out what their LP schedules and policies were. One store I found to be perfect was Lowes (hard ware store). Their policy is that the store associates are NOT allowed to chase you. So what'd I do? Well, I'll tell you what I did. I rented one of those big Dodge diesel pickups; I'm sure you know what I'm talking about, the ones with the Cummins Turbo Diesels.... Anywho, I pulled right to the front of the store, where they have those propane grills, the big expensive ones. Well, me and my friend hopped out, loaded the grill up, and took off. What'd we do with it, well, it's sitting on my deck....I dunno how to use it.....lol  |