KFI: Police in Arizona were called to a Walmart in Yuma after a man attempted to return a computer with missing parts. When they arrested the man, identified as 23-year-old Thomas Frudaker, they learned he had been pulling the same scam at Walmart stores across the country. He successfully used the same fraudulent return scam at a different Walmart earlier in the day.
In total, police estimate that he pulled the scheme at thousands of Walmarts across the country over the past 18 months, bilking the company out of approximately $1.3 million. See more
There seems to be an information blackout on this story.
I’ve seen it several places and all they say is he bought a computer, removed parts and then returned it.
I need details, otherwise how will I pull it off at BestBuy?
I watched an asshole return an obviously heavily used pressure washer at a Home Depot. He bought it, did whatever job he needed to do, then returned it claiming it didn’t work.
They gave him his money back. I would have told him to go have sex with himself.
Lowell, that would ruin the poor man’s sphincter.
Seriously, I took the skin off my hand with one of those.
After he does his sentence and gets a haircut he would make a good congressman.
Most make a career selling the voters a bunch of worthless, fraudulent crap for more tax money.
$1.3 million? I’m sure he’s good for it.
Can Walmart permanently ban this turkey from all Wally worlds across the country. Place this jerks picture next to every cash register in all their stores in large letters saying Do not sell to this jerk and thief under any circumstances whatsoever or you will be terminated immediately. Or maybe they should just have stocks in front of all Walmart’s where they can place him in front of God and everybody and throw rotten vegetables and eggs and worse at him till he gets it in his thieving head he’s not welcome. Works for me.
Doesn’t he sing country music?
As in Randy Travis ?
Returned a Home Depot bought Generator more than 6 months after purchase. Full Refund from the manager.
How?
It was unopened, boxed, mint condition and I was moving. Hurricane season was approaching and he was understocked.
Broke even but was electronically charged, electronic bank re-charged and retroactively electrically covered under any circumstance.
I worked Night Receiving at Wallyworld long ago… you should have seen the stuff we packed for warehouse return. It was almost invariable that if there was a return of a pot-and-pan set that someone’s 1960s pots and pans were in the box.
They’d use a TV for one night (the Stupor Bowl, I reckon) and return it.
Just like Lowell said, use a pressure washer and return it.
Use a set of sockets for some greasy job and return them.
Buy a BB gun, and return the “box” with some ancient rusted BB gun in it.
On, and on…
There was no “intent.”
No intent, no crime, no foul.
He hadn’t smashed the hard drives with a hammer had he?
izlamo delenda est …
As near as I can tell, he was opening up the laptops and harvesting the CPU and fan assembly, the RAM, the SSD, and maybe the video GPU card, then boxing it all back and returning it, claiming it was unopened or was claiming it didn’t work.
Then he would turn around and sell the parts on eBay for a couple of hundred.
In any event the 1.3 Million dollar number is bunk, and I doubt the real dollar loss was more than $250k, maybe even half that, depends on who’s counting.
Still, a lot of money.
I think the kid is a junkie from his pic.
When the wife was managing a retail women’s clothes store every week some people would buy on Friday and return on Monday. So free rental for them but not for the store.
Same people that back into your car in a parking lot then drive off, if you find them “they didn’t know” they hit you.
The world is half full of scammers, the other half is busy burning in hell.
After my mom passed and my old man got married to a fresh off the boat pollack they had a half-breed baby. The cheep fucker my old man is, he bought as much stuff from Sears as he could for the kid. From the crib to the changing table to the clothes, toys everything.
Once the kid grew out of it all, he returned EVERYTHING.
What an ass.
geoff the aardvark- For quite some time now, Target has limited returns and has actually been banning people from making returns. They don’t ban you from the store, they just ban you from returning items. This isn’t just for theft reasons, it’s for mental reasons, too. There are people who have a habit of buying tons of stuff one week and returning it the following week like clockwork. Tags still on, never taken out of the bag. Strange hobby.
Retail Fraud or School Shooter. Looks like he could have gone either way. Thank you, Walmart.
There givers and takers in life, the sooner you see what they are the better.
This why I don’t give money to street people.
Damn, I have too much of a conscience to pull that crap.
“…and wickedness shall be broken as a stick…They are exalted for a little while, but are gone and brought low; they are taken out of the way as all other, and cut off as the tops of the ears of corn.”
Job
But yeah, story makes no sense. Where’d he get so many busted computers to return?
@grool
He’d buy the pc from Wal-Mart, harvest the inner workings to sell later on at a site like eBay or craigslist and then return the hollow shell claiming that the computer wouldn’t work.
Part of the problem is the think they are stealing from the rich store owners. They are stealing from me and you. Everything we buy is priced to cover these thefts.
Wal-Mart… I thought you had to provide ID to return or exchange stuff without a receipt?
Anyhow, I hate the makeup/health isles. My WM, which isn’t in a bad locale, has just put in super-bright flashing led lights on a screen that says ‘recording.’ In every such isle.
I get they have to do loss control, and expect cameras, but I hat being treated like a thief when all I want to do is pick out a new toothbrush.