Inept Scam Artist

Entry posted by thurisas October 6, 2008

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So we all know that there are intelligent people out there and there are most assuredly some very unintelligent people out there. This is a story about one of the latter.

I had a customer try to do a return the other day. He was a nervous looking sort and that usually sets me right on alert. There's nothing to be nervous about with seeking a valid refund. That was my first tip that Mr. Inept wasn't exactly on the up and up.

Mr. Inept wanted to get some money back for an item he said his mom purchased. Now, please keep in mind that this person had to be in his 40's and he was speaking as if his mom did much of his shopping. Okay, fine, I can accept that might be true for any number of reasons. This, however, increased my suspicions.

Mr. Inept had a HP monitor he wanted to return and had no receipt and couldn't remember the day he bought it. Okay, fine again, some people throw away their receipts and think that everything with every new item is going to be peachy keen and hunky dorey. I'd already accepted that if this guy was telling the truth anyway he wasn't too bright. Still, one must assume the best until the customer proves themselves otherwise. Still, every alarm was going off now.

Mr. Inept put his item on the counter and I finally got a good look at it as he was telling me his story. I almost couldn't help but chuckle as Mr. Inept explained to me how he wasn't satisfied with the color on the monitor when he hooked it up. How he just wanted to "Get it off his hands" now. The reason I was chuckling had nothing to do with the story.

You see, my store employs an anti-theft device called spider wire that takes a specific tool to unlock. Failing to do so properly results in a very annoying alarm. This wire is snuggly set around high-ticket items and it is impossible to get into the box the item is in without mangling it. You know what? Mr. Inept's monitor had the spider wire completely snug around the box.

When I cheerily pointed this out to Mr. Inept he claimed that we must have forgotten to take it off. Fine, said I, I can accept that such a thing might happen. I told him we had systems in place just for this reason. I took the serial number on the box and went to look it up. At this point Mr. Inept was very nervous and suddenly declared he didn't want to deal with the hassel. He told me to keep the monitor and he walked away.

I decided to follow Mr. Inept and converse with him about how sorry I was this didn't work out for him. I let him know that I thought it was a really good idea for him to keep the monitor and walk out the door with it. Apparently this sort of pressure started to smarten him up because he declined saying again how he didn't want any part of it and started walking faster.

I got my last chuckle when he left the store and walked clear across to the other side of the building where our other entrance was and then moved to the farthest part of the parking lot. I did the only thing I could do in this situation and chuckled at Mr. Inept as I walked to our security cameras and got a nice picture of him.

Now, you might think this is the end to my little tale, but Mr. Inept came back a few days later. He was speaking with a higher member of management than myself. I just happened to walk around the corner to see them and heard Mr. Inept speaking about the monitor. I couldn't help but cheerily ask him if he'd remembered the date of his purchase. As soon as he recognized me he was off again.

My question is, how can ANYone be THAT stupid?