New Scam

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Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 2:41 pm

Just got this in mail today from a friend.

TRUE! It happened to me at Wal-Mart

bought a bunch of stuff, over $150, & I glanced at my receipt as the cashier was handing me the bags. I saw a cash-back of $40.

I told her I didn't request a cash back & to delete it. She said I'd have to take the $40 because she couldn't delete it. I told her to call a supervisor. Supervisor came & said I'd have to take it. I said NO!

Taking the $40 would be a cash advance against my Discover & I was not paying interest on a cash advance!!!!! If they couldn't delete it then they would have to delete the whole
order.

Therefore, the supervisor had the cashier delete the whole
order & re-scan everything!

The second time I looked at the electronic pad
before I signed & a cash-back of $20 popped up. At that point, I told the cashier & she deleted it...

The total came out right. The cashier agreed that the electronic pad must be defective. Obviously, the
cashier knew the electronic pad was defective because she NEVER offered me the $40 at the beginning.

Can you imagine how many people went through before me & at the end of her shift, how much money she pocketed?

Just to alert everyone. My co-worker went to Milford DE Wal-Mart last week. She had her items rung up by the cashier.

The cashier hurried her along and didn't give her a receipt. She asked the cashier for a receipt and the cashier was annoyed and gave it to her. My co-worker did not look at her receipt until later that night. The receipt showed that she
asked for $20 cash back. SHE DID NOT ASK FOR CASH BACK.

My co-worker called Wal-Mart who investigated but could not see the cashier pocket the money. She then called her niece who works for the bank and her niece told her this. There is a
scam going on. The cashier will ask for cash back and hand it to her friend who is the next person in line.

Please, Please, please check your receipts right away when using debit cards. The store has the cashier under investigation now. We can only pray that she is caught very soon.

I am adding to this. My husband and I were in Wal-Mart North Salisbury and paying with credit card when my husband went to sign the credit card signer he just happen to notice
there was a $20 cash back added.

He told the cashier that he did not ask nor want cash back and she said this machine has been messing up and she canceled it.

We really didn't think anything of it until we read
this email. Please be aware!

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 2:50 pm

From Snopes:

Quote:

Origins: Versions of the same basic "cash back" e-mail have been circulating since late 2004, all featuring the scenario of a Wal-Mart customer who uses a credit card which is charged for a cash back amount (despite the shopper's not having asked for cash back), but no cash is handed to the customer, and the discrepancy is noted only when the shopper spots the added amount on the receipt. In concept, this items sounds similar to an earlier piece which spread
the false claim that gas stations were imposing surreptitious $10.00 surcharges on credit card customers. That is, a customer misunderstood or misinterpreted something that happened to her while shopping, but — despite not having any evidence of a deliberate attempt to defraud — was quick to write and circulate a message erroneously accusing retailers of wrongdoing.

If something like the account described above really did take place at some WalMart somewhere back in 2004 (or since), it could simply have been a mistake, the result of a cash register malfunction or inattentiveness on the part of the cashier and/or the customer, rather than a deliberate theft. There are also a few implausibilities here: most merchants provide cash back only when the purchaser uses a debit card (not a credit card, although Discover apparently is an exception to this), and cashiers don't generally have the ability to initiate a cash back request from their registers, as a Wal-Mart cashier confirmed for us:
We CANNOT request cask back. The "buttons" that you press to say no or request an amount are very close together. People accidently press the wrong ones all the time. We as cashiers have no control over this. Also, if you look up on the pole that has the register number on it, there is a black bubble. THAT is a camera that they use to watch us. They check those all the time. The only way we could steal the customer's money would be to print their check for more than the total. That could be easily checked by the customer when we hand it back to them.
We've also checked out (and spoken with cashiers at) a number of different retailers, including WalMart, and verified this to be true: At none of the locations we visited could cashiers initiate cash back transactions on their own. It's possible that on occasion a cashier might accidentally (or deliberately) neglect to pay out a cash back amount requested by a customer, but that transaction must be initiated by the customer. Lacking more convincing detail and evidence of cashiers' engaging in a widespread rip-off scheme, we'd have to surmise this item is likely more about customers misplacing blame for their own errors.

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 3:02 pm

Now I feel like a fool for puting this here. I should have checked it out first.

Posted: Fri Aug 21, 2009 8:05 am

@Seamless

I found it interesting, since in the UK you can't get cash back on a credit card, only with a debit card.

It seems strange that Walmart still employ those clerks?!?