Bogus caller scams Walmart

Caller commits corporate fraud then calls back to attempt identity theft

By: Richard Gould | Hickory Daily Record
Published: September 03, 2010

A man with a phone managed to scam the Hickory Walmart out of $9,091 Wednesday, when he convinced a cashier he was calling from the corporate office.

During a call that came from a restricted number and lasted about 20 minutes, the thief talked his victim through the process of loading the money onto a gift card and giving him the card’s access code, which will allow him to access the money online, according to the incident report.

The cashier was working in the electronics department when the call came in at about 5 p.m.

The caller said the store’s cash registers had been overcharging and needed to be reset. Then he asked his victim for her cell phone number so he could call her back and walk her through the process without tying up the store’s phone lines because, “It’s going to take some time,” according to the report.

The caller told his victim to go to several registers. He told her the specific registers’ numbers and locations as she went through the store thinking she was resetting the machines by entering data and swiping the gift card.

This had gone on for about 20 minutes when the employee’s manager saw her on her cell phone. He asked her what she was doing and the caller hung up.

Several hours later, another call came in from a restricted phone number. The second man’s voice was different from the first. He lied to the cashier and told her he was a Hickory Police detective assigned to the case.

“If you don’t cooperate, you’re going to be in trouble,” he said and began asking her for personal information including her name, birth date, social security number and her mother’s maiden name, according to the incident report.

When he asked for her bank account number and information, she refused to cooperate. She called her bank to let them know what had happened and to make sure they wouldn’t give anyone access to her account or credit.

“This is the first time that we’ve seen anything like this, so we’re trying to spread the word,” said Capt. Thurman Whisnant of the Hickory Police Department’s Criminal Investigations Division. “We are working with managers at other area retail stores and encouraging them to review their protocols with their employees to avoid being victimized in the future.”