A Best Buy employee told a strange story about a customer who filled his shopping cart with items just minutes before closing time, raising enough suspicion that the store manager called the police. And although the customer paid for the items, he did so in a way that caught the employee’s attention: “Something didn’t seem right about that.”
The story comes from TikTok creator Dallas (@dallas_ponzo), whose Instagram account touts him as the “Best Buy Story Time Guy.” The video is just the beginning, with more than 158,000 views as of Saturday morning for a video posted on Friday, although he has several videos recently that have cracked the million mark.
He begins: “My manager called the police tonight on this customer who came into the building 23 minutes before closing time and filled his shopping cart with thousands of dollars worth of smart home items, health and wearable technology.”
Specifically: “He had four electric toothbrushes, one of the new Phillips cameras, three Blink cameras, two Amazon Echoes, two Google Nest video doorbells, and a ton of other items. He had so much stuff in his shopping cart that it was falling off the top.”
The manager asked if the customer needed help. When the customer said no, the manager went to the front and “preemptively called the police” to prepare the customer to leave the store with the items. Dallas says police then dispatched three squad cars to the store.
The customer has paid, but …
The customer did indeed pay for the items, but in a way that raised further suspicion. He said, “I’ll use a few different cards, but I don’t know their limits.”
Dallas explained, “So my colleague said, ‘OK, let’s see what payment method you want.’ So he tried the first card, which was flatly declined.” The customer used several other cards and eventually paid for about $3,700 worth of items.
“He printed out the longest receipt I’ve ever seen,” Dallas said. “It was longer than me. And the customer left the building and the police drove away because he paid for it.”
However, he noted, “There was something I didn’t like about it. He paid for it, but how could he not know the limit of his credit card?”
Best Buy takes action against theft
Best Buy has been more aware of crime in its stores lately. A November 2023 CNN report stated, “The electronics retailer with nearly 1,000 stores says it is preventing shoplifting by adding more staff in stores, full-service checkouts, security guards at entrances and other strategies.”
The article continues: “Retailers report that shrinkage rose 19% to $112 billion in 2022, nearly doubling from pre-pandemic levels. They blame shoplifting and organized groups stealing goods from stores to resell online for the increase in shrink. (Shrinkage also includes employee theft, damaged products, administrative errors, online fraud and other factors.)”
John Eck, a criminologist at the University of Cincinnati, said stores that employ fewer employees increase the risk of shoplifting. “The more retailers reduce their labor costs and spend more time with customers, the higher the number of shoplifting incidents.”
Should they have checked his ID?
Commentators made some suggestions as to how staff could have handled the situation.
“Stolen credit cards,” one commenter suggested, adding: “Here it makes a difference whether the customer’s ID is checked or not because he is swiping his own card. I think swiping an ID should be mandatory for card transactions.”
“Were all the names on the credit cards the same or did your colleague even check?” asked another. “Did they check the IDs? If there’s ever a reason to check the identity of a credit card, it’s now.”
The Daily Dot contacted the creator via Instagram direct message and TikTok comment, and Best Buy via email.
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