‘Industrial’ shoplifter made £500,000 tricking shops into fake refunds
‘Industrial’ shoplifter made £500,000 tricking shops into fake refunds
Posted by ClassicFlavour
‘Industrial’ shoplifter made £500,000 tricking shops into fake refunds
‘Industrial’ shoplifter made £500,000 tricking shops into fake refunds
Posted by ClassicFlavour
12 Comments
Not cool. But damn those numbers are impressive…
> Between July 2015 and September 2019, she received £60,787.09 in refunds from Boots, despite having only spent £5,172.73 with the high street retailer during that same period.
I used to work at a head office of a major retailer and there was an era not long ago where gangs would fly in, basically do a London to Glasgow tour over a couple of days doing this and then leave the country.
Made people a lot more vigilant to it so surprised she managed to do this for so long.
Maybe they should have figured it out after the first 100k and not after the first 499k.
We had someone try this when I worked in a clothes shop – taking stuff off the shelf, and just walking up to the till and asking for a refund on it. If you don’t actually see them do it it’ll often work – in our case she got unlucky and picked up something that had gone on sale for the first time that day.
This is impressive.
I mean, it’s obviously wrong – but finding a loophole like this and successfully defrauding these big companies for so long and for so much money is very impressive.
If the loophole was that obvious/easy then many others would be doing it.
She could have/should have quit while she was ahead. But because she got caught, the loophole has now been identified and closed by the retails, as per the article.
An expensive mistake by the retailers, really. If anything like this is possible, then there will be someone out there who will discover it and exploit it.
All things considered, a genuine ‘world-class’ fraudster by the sound of it. Insane that she got away with it for so long. Makes you wonder how many others like her operate without ever getting caught?
What a legend. Hide the money offshore and you’re set.
I’m still trying to work out the loophole. She stole an item, bought some cheaper things, went to the till and convinced them to refund the lot. How did tens or hundreds of staff not see the expensive item was not on the receipt?
I hope she gets a nice prison sentence and not a slap on the wrist.
At 500 grand she may as well have just stolen the shop.
I have some knowledge here.
Bottom line is- you do NOT give someone a refund who doesn’t have a receipt.
Steve Tristam “she is the most dishonest person I have dealt with in my years policing”
I would think Steve has been somewhat fortunate then that the most dishonest person he has met is someone defrauding a few big name shops and not someone guilty of something far worse