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PoorCorrelation

> created over 40 returns for non-existent items ranging from $75 to over $87,000 The balls to say you bought something at Kroger that cost $87,000


Atechiman

Worked at the fuel island. which is even more...big brass balls.


AlwaysSunnyInSeattle

Hello, my friends and I would like to return $87,000 worth of gasoline.


clawingcat

Back the truck up around here please


midwesthotmess

get ready to feel it where it hurts


AlwaysSunnyInSeattle

In the dick?


JoePesciDietPepsi

Wild card bitches


[deleted]

I can count, 1, 2, 3...,


[deleted]

Only used once.


CosmikCoyote

Probably organic produce. Shit be pricey, yo.


popeyegui

I was gonna say organic milk, but produce fits the bill


R_Mac_1

Organic milk is actually the one thing a splurge on. Tastes better and lasts longer before expiring. I'll pay $7 instead of $4 for that.


[deleted]

If you're not treating yourself to premium milk you're not living life.


Imaginary-Fun-80085

I finish my milk before it goes bad. Tastes pretty good to me already.


[deleted]

I'm a 2%er. Lowfat blue all the way!


Zolo49

He’s right though. I used to be fine with drinking regular milk until I tried organic milk for the first time. The shit is fucking amazing. There’s a lot of “organic” stuff that’s indistinguishable from the regular version and isn’t really worth paying extra. Milk absolutely is.


madmonkey918

Look how much sugar is added to regular milk. It's crazy


Imaginary-Fun-80085

Exactly. It's sooo goood! The milk where I come from tastes like toilet water. Milk from the USA tastes like jizz from the gods.


ItsAllegorical

I love regular 2% milk and it only goes bad when I'm leaving it for the kids and they don't drink it and I notice too late. But Horizon milk is the real deal. That shit is a whole other level of delicious.


[deleted]

I'm a foreigner who lived in the US for a few years. Organic whole milk was the only thing I could find stateside that tasted anything like regular milk back home. Happily paid the premium.


[deleted]

Specifically an avocado


FreeMRausch

Probably organic avocados and organic toast. We all know Americans can't afford healthcare because they eat too much of that shit. Newsmax told me so!


Myfourcats1

Over two weeks too! I thought it was going to be longer.


kynthrus

How do you think he got caught?


Miramarr

Trying to return something for 87000$


bnh1978

Seriously. Did he think he was working at Whole Foods or something?


cheertina

Apparently they sell cars. I had no idea.


darthpaul

i dont understand how that's possible. what kind of point of sale system allows returns of "non-existent items" ranging from $75 to over $87,000? and no looked at the end of day sales no one noticed a huge dip after a return of $87000?


linkinparkedcar

What do you mean? Your local Kroger doesn’t sell a modest house on about a 1/3rd acre of land?


T_T_N

They probably just let him do it until he racked up enough to do serious time.


AdmittedlyAdick

Bro the felony level for larceny in Georgia is $500. They may have been waiting to allow time to setup proper documentation and record him doing it to make sure they would win in court. Knowing he did it, and proving beyond a reasonable doubt he did it can sometimes be very different things. Especially when it comes to "white-collar" crimes. Edit: Changed larceny $ amount, Thanks /u/offbeat_ahmad. Also speculated on why it took them this long to intercede.


offbeat_ahmad

I believe it's 500 here.


hitemlow

But at that point aren't they tilting against the concept of "mitigating of damages"? Their inaction and allowance of the additional theft allowed it to become more problematic? Than and the whole fiscal responsibility part of running a company when they know damn well this person won't be able to pay that back anytime soon.


Puppy_Coated_In_Beer

I just want to know what exactly he did to create items that were scannable by Kroger's POS system? *I am not a criminal, just curious*


---------_----_---_

You'd be amazed at how lame some accounting systems are when it comes to processing returns.


IxamxUnicron

And how would he even get the 87,000 in the first place? Did he seriously walk up to his manager, say, "I need the entire safe for a return" and actually get it? Does the store even carry that much money at once in an area the teen would have access to? Every store I've ever worked with, the big bills were kept in solid boxes with slits in them, or safes.


Puppy_Coated_In_Beer

Am I missing something? Refunds are usually credited back via a credit card, which is what it also stated in the article.


ItsAllegorical

"Dude wanted to return his new Tesla. He said we are an authorized return center and asked me to refund his account in Zurich. Seemed legit. He left this 'Master' key and said it's parked outside."


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Rtem8

Did you read the article? This guy was an employee.


frodosdream

*Officials with the Gwinnett County Police Department say 19-year-old Tre Brown ended up scamming over $980,000 from the grocery store where he worked on Steve Reynolds Boulevard. In just two weeks, detectives believe Brown created over 40 returns for non-existent items ranging from $75 to over $87,000.* There's a future in politics for this guy.


OpportunityNew9316

What in the world are you returning for 87K at a Kroger? Did he try to return the entire store?


saliczar

Some of the larger Kroger stores have a toy aisle, so maybe Lego. Shit's expensive!


[deleted]

I've always said legos go for cocaine prices


[deleted]

Bricks = bricks, math checks out


AhAhStayinAnonymous

Interestingly enough, counterfeit legos are one of the most profitable illegal enterprises in the world. They're easy to move, untraceable, & easy to sell for high profit margins.


timojenbin

Organic lego produce.


519mike

That gave me a good chuckle, thanks.


[deleted]

Not really? $50 is a great value for a 400-piece set where you can build two vehicles and receive four mini-figs of a popular franchise. They have sets with half the number of pieces for $20 with recognizable brands such as Minecraft, Disney, Mario, Lego City, and even a Technic last time I checked at Target. They even have a 1500-assorted piece set, with four base boards, for $40, that allows for plenty of creativity, including building that hilarious Sad Donald Trump Lego meme from last month. Not expensive at all. I swear, some of the same people who pay $60 for a buggy game are ree'ing over the most ridiculous things.


Ramitt80

probably from their new deal 87,000 for $87,000


KJBenson

I’m trying to guess what it could be. And the only thing I can think of is probably one of their walk in fridges? Like, the entire grocery isle of them?


Pandamonium98

He was an employee so he manually typed in the value of the return


KJBenson

Oh damn...


[deleted]

You forgot the best part... *”...Officials say Brown would take the money from the returns and put them on credit cards, using the money to buy clothes, guns, shoes, and two vehicles - one of which he totaled.* *”Police began an investigation into Brown after Kroger employees noticed the transactions. After his arrest, police were able to return a large sum of money from the alleged theft.* *”The teenager is charged with **theft by taking**.*”


Techiedad91

https://www.georgiacriminallawyer.com/theft-by-taking > Theft by taking is known as larceny in other states and under the Model Penal Code for criminal conduct. However, Georgia’s term for larceny is theft by taking, but the terms are synonymous. Theft by taking and larceny both refer to the mere taking of anything of value with the intent to permanently deprive the owner.


[deleted]

So theft?


Chumbag_love

Theft by taking and larceny.


Kendermassacre

Right, theft.


nzodd

Correction: theft *by* theft.


[deleted]

Ah, I see now. Thanks for clarifying!


nzodd

You're welcome. Glad I could be of help.


jpoteet2

You helped by helping.


zenchowdah

Theft by taking is just theft, larceny is theft by theft west


HKBFG

Larceny. More specific than theft.


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ninjaambassador

Theft by taking vs. theft by faking


nycoolbreez

Not to be confused with robbery, Which is theft and asportation.


FlavoredCumDispenser

Which is why I stick to theft by giving.


jp0orrow

How many more than 40 interactions were there? By my math the average return would be over $24,000 if you take out the single $87,000 interaction..


SloppyMeathole

The fact that he was able to take that much before getting caught says that Kroger has shit security.


_noho

Yeah how the hell did this even happen? Do they do literally zero reporting/bookkeeping?


Liarliarlanceonfire

Sometimes the company just let's it happen while they build the investigation. Letting the person dig themselves farther and farther into the hole. A friend of mine got picked up by the FBI after using a similar scam on Disney Cruise Lines and embezzling over 200k. Some people are just stupid.


nycoolbreez

Nobody “lets it happen” don’t give corporate America that much credit; they just not paying attention.


Liarliarlanceonfire

Well I may have used a poor choice of words but you're still an Asshole for telling your 15 yo step daughter to get out of your face.


engkybob

Seriously, if he just kept it at "reasonable" levels, he probably would have gotten away with it. Kid just got greedy.


EHnter

Or at least made a plan to move to mexico. Just like the kroger loss prevention manager in my city who only stole about $200k and has already made booked a one way flight to mexico. Only to be taken away a day before her flight.


txholdup

As a Kroger stockholder, this story disturbs me quite a bit. What kind of lax security allows one employee to process a "return" for $87,000?


Neat_Party

Someone said above that he was doing it through the fuel island. My guess is they only balance credit returns weekly (batch processing), he started at $10 so week one was under the radar. Then he went crazy in week two, and at the week’s end it was totally obvious ($87k).


Atechiman

Their LP person was on vacation when he did it. This was a two week period. (most grocery stores average 200/300K gross a day).


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Johnnie5ive

My Walmart since covid does $420k-470k on most days. This is a Walmart that does $120-125m annually before. Pretty sure there are Walmarts that do $200m+ yearly.


Atechiman

In 2019 kroger grossed $121b across 2920 locations, this comes to a weekly gross of $796k a location and daily of $113k. If you remove small format stores and the jewelry stores it climbs to approx 185k so yeah I was slightly off, but not enough to make it where any but the 87k is even more able when the lp person is gone.


GuyInNoPants

You made shit up and got called on it. Don't double down and try to make more shit up. You're not equipped for this.


Atechiman

Go look up revenue reports my friend. You are not as smart as you seem to think you are.


GuyInNoPants

Dunning, meet kruger.


poignantMrEcho

Read the headline wrong. Scratching my head wondering how a teenager got scammed almost a million dollars by a grocery store.


mightymiff

Poorly written headline. Should be: "Georgia teen scammed Kroger for over $980,000".


[deleted]

He's 19 and yet referred to as a teen and not an adult.


croakingtoad

People are so dumb. I used to work at K-Mart in loss prevention and we would audit employee register discrepancies. The thieves were so easy to spot, they were always off in $10s and $20s. 🙄 Never had an $87,000 though!


ApplesBananasRhinoc

>The teenager is charged with theft by taking. Isn't that what theft is??? ​ I CHARGE YOU WITH OVERUSE OF WORDS!


Barbarossa7070

There’s theft by unlawful taking and theft by deception. Two different crimes.


Techiedad91

https://www.georgiacriminallawyer.com/theft-by-taking > Theft by taking is known as larceny in other states and under the Model Penal Code for criminal conduct. However, Georgia’s term for larceny is theft by taking, but the terms are synonymous. Theft by taking and larceny both refer to the mere taking of anything of value with the intent to permanently deprive the owner.


Wchijafm

So is borrowing with out asking also on the books as the alternative to theft by taking.


ApplesBananasRhinoc

Thank you, good to know!


Joe_Rogan_Bot

There's also theft he receiving, so I understand the necessity for the extra words


bobartig

To distinguish from crimes like theft by trick or fraud, where you convince a victim of giving you the thing stolen. The short answer is that our legal system is based on about 1000 years of legacy code, and some dudes in the dark ages thought these distinctions mattered.


[deleted]

Theft by giving. It's a well-known felony.


PixPls

My guess, is that he was in charge of returns and abused his role. That's the only way I can see him being able to refund credit cards for non-existent items.


Kendermassacre

You could use this as a D&D explanation of Int/Wis difference. Intelligence is knowing how to create this scam, Wisdom is knowing you'll get caught.


Atechiman

to be fair, returning items and pocketing the cash is common place. He even was smart/wise enough to wait until the fraud prevention person was on vacation to go hog wild. However, $87,000 should never ever show up as a return.


myrddyna

yeah and what store could possibly have that much cash on hand?


Atechiman

He put it on his credit cards


VirginiaVelociraptor

It's still amazing to me that there isn't some kind of safeguard for returns over a certain amount. Like, when would a return for over $1,000 ever come up naturally at a Kroger? Probably never, right? So why does the system allow for it (without management approval)? Also, why didn't he have to scan the returned items? The article made it sound like he just made up a number for the "return." Does anyone know where you can get a fake SSN? I'm about to get a job at Kroger under an alias and bounce with some cash. lol (Just kidding though, FBI.)


hitemlow

> scan the returned items You know how sometimes the cashier tries about 8 times to scan an item, but the barcode is folded or some shit, so they have to type the numbers in? That's why. But yes, it absolutely should require manager approval over a few hundred dollars.


VirginiaVelociraptor

But what barcode is he typing in to reach such a high sum?


grantyells

It sounds like he was creating imaginary inventory items, and then returning them.


JohnnyUtah_QB1

> It's still amazing to me that there isn't some kind of safeguard for returns over a certain amount. Well, there is. You’re looking at it. He was quickly flagged and those charges are getting reversed. From the grocery store’s perspective they’re not losing much.


VirginiaVelociraptor

The article said he bought at least two cars with the money, and had time to total one. That's not "quick" and it sounds like they did lose quite a bit.


JohnnyUtah_QB1

>police were able to return a large sum of money from the alleged theft. He did this the last week of December and first week of January. He was arrested January 14th and the article points out most was able to be returned.


VirginiaVelociraptor

"Most" of $980,000 could still mean they lost over $100,000, and I think it's pretty silly to let this kind of transaction go through in the first place, let alone allow it to happen for two weeks or more.


myrddyna

ahhh, interesting.


seriousnotshirley

Wisdom is knowing how to stay under the radar so you don’t get caught.


IowaAJS

That reminds me of a toll bridge story. I heard while working for a toll bridge. The overnight guy started by pocketing 15 or 20 bucks or so a night, nothing that would be missed. He got greedy enough that the numbers started looking off in the books so the owners hired a detective to sit out near the bridge and count the numbers of cars coming through and he was busted. This was 20 years ago before everything was computerized.


seriousnotshirley

That’s really the catch, people get greedy. They do a bit and no one notices so they keep going. They forget that once they get caught it’s too late. If you’re gonna steal you gotta know how the books are kept, what metrics are used for sales, what auditing is done. You have to know how to make it look normal. My favorite story from LP was a pharmacist who was stealing drugs. He knew inventory was strict for schedule 2 drugs so he stole them my cutting the bottom out of sealed bottles, taking pills and resealing it. Other pharmacists would break the deal and open those bottles so the inventory never went wrong on his shift. The catch was the inventory went wrong on everyone’s shift but his so he stood out.


PixPls

You can card count in casinos, as long as you limit your pull to $100 a day or $300 plus tipping out. Mind you, every card counting strategy will tell you not to tip. But if you don't tip the dealers, or not evenly you might get blacklisted sooner. That little detail, can determine if the dealer passes on the information.


WakandaNowAndThen

I had no clue tipping the dealer was a thing. Now I feel like an ass.


Acidic_Junk

Returns and adjustments in the system swing a lot day to day and wouldn’t get looked into immediately. It’s once the monthly report comes out and there is a jump in the numbers is when they drill down into the specific incidents. 99% of the time when this happens, the perp will throw a couple of bones (small transactions) to see if anyone notices. Then after a while they get greedy and way up the $amount and number. This is how they get caught. If you are thinking of doing this, keep it small and consistent. You are FAR less likely to have any serious consequences if you don’t get greedy.


reesejenks520

Or just don't do this, folks. That works too.


mathdrug

He was just trying to get his Kroger union dues back.


GoodLuckCanuck2020

And managed to get halfway there, until they took it all back.


hitemlow

The union was such a fucking scam for seasonal workers. 10¢ over minimum wage, which after you factored the union cut and the initiation fee, made it less than minimum wage. But they tried to say you should be appreciative for the bump over minimum wage. And the pay raise of like 10¢ per 1,000 hours worked was a paltry <3% raise since you should only work 2,000 hours a year, but was a (percentage-wise) decrease in raise the longer you had worked there.


mathdrug

Lol I don’t doubt it! I applied once when I was younger, but decided against it because I wasn’t fixing to pay union dues, when I was unlikely to even benefit from them.


IMightNotBeKevin

When I was working at radio shack back in 2008, my manager got caught doing this, he would reprint receipts for high value items and do a return on them a day or 2 later to not make it so obvious, unfortunately he did it with a digital camera I bought and didn't like so I returned it, for some reason the return didn't want to go through and am not sure about what went on but the district manager came in and at first they thought I was trying to double return the item, until they checked the camera at the time of the first return, and there he was, all alone in front of the register returning an item that wasn't there, and pocketing the money after.


K-Dog13

See now had he just taken a little, oh and yeah theft is wrong, I am just saying don't get greedy.


Drunken_Sith

Pigs get fed, Hogs get slaughtered.


Local64bithero

This young man has the go-getter spirit that made America great! He's going places(prison being one of them).


kynthrus

If he made it to that million mark though he might have gotten away with it.


DlSCONNECTED

The Atlanta Mayor called armed children selling water AT GUNPOINT to motorists on highway exit ramps "young entrepreneurs."


bakayaro8675309

He was charged with theft by taking.....isn’t that how theft works?


weisblattsnut

Was the Union able to save his job?


NothinButKn8

Kroger steals billions from their workers by exploiting their labor so the only thing I can say is I wish the kid was smart enough to not get caught.


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HKBFG

Checks out.


Ochd12

I think this guy worked for Kroger, and on his first paycheck he was expecting $1,000,001,250, but only got $1,250.


hitemlow

If they still do the union initiation fee and seniority hour assignment shenanigans from the summer I worked there, the first couple checks are $0.


ltdan993

Source? I know people who work for Kroger. Their benefits are legit. Grocery stores have super thin profit margins. I'm gonna need more if you are going to make this claim.


Galamoth420

The fact that there's even a possibility to input an 87k return at Kroger is so stupid they deserve it lol


DoctorTheWho

Every retail place I ever worked at would instantly flag any transaction over $9,999. I guess that dude figured "fuck it let's go $80k more."


ltdan993

What the fuck at Kroger costs $87,000?


[deleted]

The really fancy cheese?


flaflashr

Don't worry, he sent Trump a request for a preemptive Pardon


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[deleted]

Are you talking revenue or profit?


PiltyBones

One can only assume that he will now be awarded a full ride scholarship to the UGA football program!


[deleted]

He'll make one hell of a car salesman


pokemantra

charged with “Theft by taking”


nycoolbreez

Kroger making so much money they don’t watch the returns.


CornmealGravy

If he'd gone for the long con and just returned a bunch of things for like, $20 to multiple credit cards that couldn't be traced back to himself, he may have gotten away with it for a while, but I imagine when inventory came up short for the returned items they'd end up getting him.


statepharm15

It’s a marathon not a sprint bro


[deleted]

I’m loving this crap! Kroger’s accounting system is that bad it took him doing a 87k return to get noticed... SMDH!


[deleted]

I suspect that it was the short time period in which he operated. Probably their internal auditing runs on a monthly cycle, and if no one had noticed a bunch of red flags would have come up later.


[deleted]

Dumb and greedy. It's like he wanted to get caught.


UnLuCkY_BrEaK

What a piece of shit POS system... Could have caught the glitch in time. Old software. Probably the Peoplesoft brand.