Stupid Best Buy Employee / Criminal of the Day

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A Best Buy employee was busted processing thousands of dollars in fake returns and keeping the cash. Nice, customers have to show ID for a $5 exchange but store employees can make fraudulent returns for months and not get caught. :eek:

Police arrested a 24-year-old Best Buy employee who allegedly stole at least $3,500 after months of making fraudulent returns and pocketing the cash, authorities said. On Tuesday, police charged Holmes with theft by deception and two counts of forgery. Vineland Municipal Court issued her a warrant with bail set at $5,000. She was released on recognizance.
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I'm surprised he got caught so soon. I worked with a guy at MicroCenter that stole at least $50,000 over a 2 year period using the same technique. In fact they never really knew how much he got away with. He was returning things past the 30 day return period with a manager password. The manager changed the password and he got desperate, started returning things before the 30 days, and got caught. People would come in to return things and I would say "I'm sorry I can't return this because you've already returned it". Customers would get irate and the managers caught on quick.
 
its amazing how these people can get away with this for so long and then they finally get caught, but I as a customer have to jump through hoops and its a pain in the ass to get my money back on something i actually bought from them.
 
I grew up in Ocean City NJ, and we had students from Millville go to high school with us. So I'm not really surprised that they aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. The only normal kids from that bunch had teachers for parents. Some of them were a blast to hang out with since their parents didn't have time to watch them.
 
she*

More interesting than the story is that you guys didn't read the story and you made the assumption that this was a dude.
 
moral of the story is..........

Bust Buy can screw you in the ass repeatedly, but you can't screw Bust buy.
 
quackduck said:
she*

More interesting than the story is that you guys didn't read the story and you made the assumption that this was a dude.
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They also barely even read the quote, as it says "she" and "her" in it...
 
I only clicked the link hoping to see the suspect but the writer of the article was pretty cute.
 
I used to work for best buy as a service technician and then with geek squad. We had to be involved in most returns and ran our own register next to customer service so I'm familiar with the returns process there.

I'd have to say that that store must of had pretty bad managers or they were in on this because you have to login to the register with your own employee number and the cash in the drawer as well as all returns receipts had to add up before you could punch out and leave or else sign documents stating the descrepency and over a certain amount you could be canned right there or have the cops called if the managers felt a crime was committed.

Now I'm not saying it isn't possible to pull this off unassisted but I was at a pretty crappy store in a lower class area so although we had theft there is a chain of events that needs to happen for this to work.

The lack of physical returns to be shipped back to the warehouse alone would have tossed up all kinds of flags and while you can write off a mistaken item taken back under the wrong sku number or try to be creative with the nonexistent return, you cannot get cash returned over a certain dollar amount of I think was $100-150 either so the tons of little item sku's missing from the return logs should have told someone to watch this person way before $3500 in cash went missing.
 
I've been working at microcenter for 6 months at returns and I can't even think of a way to make this happen for one item, let alone $3500 worth. Shit be monitored. I could easily get the money to match but then they're looking for merchandise. I guess somebody could hide it when taking it back to be Returned to the vendor. But then there's like no way to make it out of the store with it. I mean hell, there's really no way to even get any of the recycled broken shit that we don't even keep track of because somebody would see you walking out the door with it.

In conclusion, the managers and LP at Best Buy suck.
 
Really? You put this crap on the front page? This happens EVERY day at EVERY large retail store in the world. It isn't news, and the amount embezzled isn't even noteworthy. I'm surprised they had nothing better to report on in the Vineland newspaper (much less [H]).
 
undermined said:
I used to work for best buy as a service technician and then with geek squad. We had to be involved in most returns and ran our own register next to customer service so I'm familiar with the returns process there.

I'd have to say that that store must of had pretty bad managers or they were in on this because you have to login to the register with your own employee number and the cash in the drawer as well as all returns receipts had to add up before you could punch out and leave or else sign documents stating the descrepency and over a certain amount you could be canned right there or have the cops called if the managers felt a crime was committed.

Now I'm not saying it isn't possible to pull this off unassisted but I was at a pretty crappy store in a lower class area so although we had theft there is a chain of events that needs to happen for this to work.

The lack of physical returns to be shipped back to the warehouse alone would have tossed up all kinds of flags and while you can write off a mistaken item taken back under the wrong sku number or try to be creative with the nonexistent return, you cannot get cash returned over a certain dollar amount of I think was $100-150 either so the tons of little item sku's missing from the return logs should have told someone to watch this person way before $3500 in cash went missing.
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Having also worked at Best Buy a very long time ago, I agree with you that this person likely did not act alone. The fact that any transaction requires you to enter your employee number alone should have caused her to get caught on the first day she tried it.

At least during the 2 years I worked there, BB seems to have been a haven for criminals. While I was there, my supervisor got fired because he stole the Forest Gump soundtrack on mini-disc. And then the senior sales guy over me got fired because he was taking camcorders, putting them into empty TV boxes, and then having his buddies come in to buy the empty TV box with all the camcorders in there.
 
undermined said:
I used to work for best buy as a service technician and then with geek squad. We had to be involved in most returns and ran our own register next to customer service so I'm familiar with the returns process there.

I'd have to say that that store must of had pretty bad managers or they were in on this because you have to login to the register with your own employee number and the cash in the drawer as well as all returns receipts had to add up before you could punch out and leave or else sign documents stating the descrepency and over a certain amount you could be canned right there or have the cops called if the managers felt a crime was committed.

Now I'm not saying it isn't possible to pull this off unassisted but I was at a pretty crappy store in a lower class area so although we had theft there is a chain of events that needs to happen for this to work.

The lack of physical returns to be shipped back to the warehouse alone would have tossed up all kinds of flags and while you can write off a mistaken item taken back under the wrong sku number or try to be creative with the nonexistent return, you cannot get cash returned over a certain dollar amount of I think was $100-150 either so the tons of little item sku's missing from the return logs should have told someone to watch this person way before $3500 in cash went missing.
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You didn't think hard enough. The manager of my local Best Buy got arrested for this same scam after getting over $30K in cash. This actually seems to be a pretty common thing...
 
Like most criminals she got greedy, and got caught.
If she had only done this a few times, I she likely would have gotten away with it. Instead she just kept stealing until they caught her.
 
wow I think I got scammed too
I used a gift card to buy a game online
I returned the game to the bestbuy store because I just wanted something else
I told them I just want a gift card back
they told me they would return the game's credit to my gift card
I was like I already used my gift card
wtf
after being there 4 hours arguing with those idiots
I just gave up and f them they can keep their fing 10 dollars
 
jkw said:
Really? You put this crap on the front page? This happens EVERY day at EVERY large retail store in the world. It isn't news, and the amount embezzled isn't even noteworthy. I'm surprised they had nothing better to report on in the Vineland newspaper (much less [H]).
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You dont have to read it ya know...

timta2 said:
Yeah, but if a criminal works on Wall Street and gets greedy they get a nice bonus :)
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Better yet if a criminal works in the white house he gets to give bonuses to all his buddies.
 
Funny how this went from some idiot stealing for Best Buy to political corruption. Thank goodness for freedom of expression.
 
Disposed said:
You dont have to read it ya know...
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Yeah, I know ... but I care about [H] and the quality of content posted on the front page. So, I decided to take the time to provide candid, non-sugar-coated feedback. Steve, Kyle and the rest of the gang can do what they want with it. If they think twice before posting another lame article about small scale embezzlement by a single BB employee at one store, then I think it'll make the front page content of [H] better. If they choose to ignore my suggestion, then I'm fine with that too. Or heck, they could start posting three times as many articles about BB employee theft, just to spite me ... and I'd chuckle, read it, and keep coming back, and keep posting in the forums.
 
The more I read about stupid criminals in Millville, and Vineland, the more I am glad that I moved to Sicklerville...

Annoyance
 
In my time at the evil blue and yellow box I saw an assistant GM get busted for that. Was the funniest thing I saw.

And yes for the record. Millville NJ is full of a very colorful group of people. What's funny is how new that store is. Glad I only made it out to that crap town once a year for a lan party.
 
undermined said:
Iyou cannot get cash returned over a certain dollar amount of I think was $100-150 either so the tons of little item sku's missing from the return logs should have told someone to watch this person way before $3500 in cash went missing.
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I have gotten more than $150 in cash @ bestbuy doing a return
 
FLECOM said:
I have gotten more than $150 in cash @ bestbuy doing a return
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It's actually gotten annoying most retailers always give cash now no matter what the amount because people complain about the 3 day processing. I talked to best buy and walmart they both said you gotta let me them know how you want it back otherwise it's always cash, but it's from employee to employee.
 
I'd like to see someone lose their finger when they steal. No time - wasting more tax payer resources. Why let them victimize society twice? first for the theft then housing them. Fuck that. Just cut off a finger.

As an added bonus you save money on background checks. Just look at their hand.

Third I bet people would not steal.
 
quackduck said:
she*

More interesting than the story is that you guys didn't read the story and you made the assumption that this was a dude.
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You guys? LeftSide was the only one who said he, and just once at that. Could be a slip for all you know. Look who's making assumptions.

OT: Good on Best Buy for catching her early on. I wonder if she'll have to reimburse them for lost monies. Sucks about her mother though. It's at least nice to know she used some of the money to pay for her mother's surgery.
 
Let this be a lesson. Never rip off a business, stick to ripping off consumers, its open season on them.
 
There was a forum member here that, for years, sold a bunch of merchandise stolen from Best Buy this way. Forget his name.
 
My old store deputy manager got canned the same way, good reason, dumb method.
 
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