The plot thickens on the $2.004.99 Lowes gift card scam
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Back in July, we brought you this story from Ed Wessman, a Giles County resident who found an unusual $2,004.99 charge for a gift card from Lowes on his credit card statement from June.
Wessman is adamant that he never purchased any such online gift card from the retailer.
He is working with the Giles County Sheriff after Lowes gave him the short shrift, he says. And he has not found satisfaction — yet. But he has found a sympathizer.
She called me at work Tuesday, and asked that I not use her name. She’s an 81-year-old woman from Masschusetts who was calling from Maine (where she was visiting). And the exact same thing happened to her.
On her July credit card statement was a June 22 charge for $2,004.99 from Lowes.
The called told me that she has made only three purchases from Lowes in her life. She’s not a regular customer, and she bought no gift card, she said.
But somehow, she wound up on the hook for a $2,004.99 Lowe’s gift card, which she is disputing through her credit card company.
She gave me her e-mail address, and encouraged me to forward it to Wessman, which I did. He sent me this response Tuesday afternoon (I have combined 2 emails he sent me, and removed her identifying information):
Wow, that is very interesting Dan,
This date just predates the time I was speaking to Lowes on the phone about my situation, when they told me they no longer accepted “large” (up to $5,000) requests for gift cards via the internet without additional confirmation information. I will send this info along to Giles Co Sheriffs office. Officer Thwaites at Giles Co has been working this case for me. Thanks again!
Just as an update, got a note back from (Mrs. X) and she indicated that she knew of at least one other person who had this happen to them, so the story enlarges!
I have forwarded that information to Officer Thwaites at Giles County Sheriffs office for his info. Please note the corrected name for Officer Thwaites!
Ed
If anyone else out there has noticed a gift card charge in the unusual amount of $2.004.99 from Lowes on their credit card statement, please drop me a line.
August 3, 2011 - 12:00 PM
This kind of thing is not unique to credit card accounts. A local company allowed someone to charge roughly a thousand dollars worth of purchases to our company account without a legible signature (required) because they gave them a verbal PO (which we do allow) and we ended up having to pay for it as they felt they had “met the burden” for responsible stewardship. We closed the account and will no longer do business with them. They threw away thousands in future business to keep 1K. Sure it was a former employee but we could never prove it and they knew that as well. People and business getting ripped off is simply nothing new. I thought the credit card companies promised to take care of this crap.
We had a similar incident on our personal account and the bank (BB&T) credit card services called us to verify when the charge came in, closed the account and since I signed an affidavit that it was not a legitimate charge, they gave our money back. My son just went through something similar only not as simply solved with Member One FCU.
A few years ago we had a employee’s check stolen from his mailbox. Kroger cashed the check and was on the hook for the money because the bank (again BB&T) took the money back from them after the affidavit was signed by the employee.
It happens a lot more often than people think and it is bound to be worthwhile to the thieves.
I had an employee charge $1800.00 on my comm lowes card ,after closing that account they mailed me a check and then charged it back to my new account ! He had purchased gift cards for many different restaurants gas etc ,i even found after my wife had discovered that this was going on all the cards had their full balances left on them and were at a pond shop ,i even got all the pin numbers and called lowes to cancel them and they said it couldn’t be done !!my next move is court against the credit card company !!!!