WESTFIELD – A woman who apparently managed to scam a Springfield Road department store actually lost money, a store employee said, when she fled after she was approached by employees – leaving behind merchandise she had paid for.
A WalMart employee called city police Oct. 25 at 2:05 p.m. to report that an apparent shoplifter had fled the store with a gift card she had fraudulently obtained.
Officer John Barnachez responded to the call and was told by Jacob Griffin, the supervisor of the store’s loss prevention team, how the woman had executed the scam.
The suspect had placed pairs of identical items in her shopping cart and then used a self-checkout aisle. There, she held a pair of items in her hand and but only scanned one of them.
After making a legitimate payment for the items she did scan, the woman then took her receipt to the service counter where she returned the duplicate items, receiving a $92 gift card for the “returned” merchandise.
Her plan, however, did not take into account the loss prevention employees who routinely watch the video feeds from cameras strategically placed over the self-checkout areas.
Accordingly, when the suspect began her way out of the store she was stopped by loss prevention employees. She apparently panicked and abandoned the basket containing she merchandise she had actually purchased.
Griffin reported the registration number of the vehicle in which she fled. He told Barnachez that the merchandise she had paid for but abandoned was valued at $141 and “stated that the store actually made money off of the scam.”
Barnachez reported that the store management will mail the woman, identified by the purchase she had made, a “No trespassing” order.
