Boss Lady's shady side business

[bhskittykatt]

Shady-looking guy came into the office yesterday, and a conversation approximate to the following happened:

Guy: "Yeah, is the manager in?"
Me: "May I ask what this is regarding?"
Guy: "Uh...it's kind of personal."

*Red flag* *Boss Lady was in the back office during this whole exchange, and could overhear most of it*

Me: "May I ask who's seeking her?"
Guy: "Uh...my friend just said to come see the manager at [my motel] and he'd help me out."
Me: "Well, 'he' is actually a 'she' for one."
Guy: "Or she'd help me. My friend just said to come see the manager."
Me: "What's your friend's name?"
Guy: "Uh...he's kinda tall? And he's with this girl with short hair? I dunno his name, but he said the manager could help. I have this food thing and I really need the money."
Me: "....let me just call her and see if I can track her down." *actually thinking "you shall not pass"*

Me: *calls an empty storage room, where surprisingly the phone answers itself after two rings. I can hear people walking by outside the room in the background. That's a talented phone.*

Me: "I'm sorry, she's not answering. Can I take a message?"
Guy: "Look, uh, I don't know how to say this..." *leans over my counter and produces an EBT card* *whispering* "...but I wanted to try and sell her my food stamps and I heard she could help me out."
Me: "Yeah...listen, I know her well enough to know she wouldn't do that. Sorry."
Guy: "Oh....okay." *starts to leave* "Hey, do you guys accept pets?"
Me: "Yeah."
Guy: "Okay. Thanks." *quickly leaves*

I went into the back office.

Me: "Um...Boss Lady? You aren't running some sort of black market food stamps scam I should know about, are you?"
BL: "What? Is that what that guy wanted?"
Me: "His anonymous friend apparently tipped him off that you'd buy his food stamps off him."
BL: "Oh my God. Seriously?"
Me:

Just when you think you've seen it all...

[PepperElf]

dang. i've heard of people selling the food *after* buying it (often to restaurants), but not blatantly trying to sell the stamps outright.

[EricKei]

Happened all the time back home -- and it would not surprise me if it happens in many other towns, as well. The whole reason the food stamp program changed over to cards is that people were fencing the physical stamps for a fraction of their face value in cash. Doing so with cards is (hopefully) a bit tougher, but people have figured out how to do it >_>

[taxguykarl]

My crack-loving ex-gf's real bf, made me that kind of offer several times. The scam was that he would fill my shopping list and I would pay him a quarter to half (depending on the time) of the receipt figure. I refused every time.

[Racket_Man]

Even the cards are not really all that immune to fraud these days.

Here in my town they busted a small grocery store for "allowing" purchaces of forbidden items such as alcohol, tobacco and then the card owners were to "spend" twice the purchase price of said items instore through the system with "legit" items.

THis one single store racked up a very high number of card uses tipping off authorities to possible fraud.