Con man at Walgreen's

In the ever-expanding sitcom that is my life, I just got conned at Walgreen's.

Not exactly successfully. Here's how it all went down.

A guy approached us in the aisle at Walgreen's and explained to us that he (a retired 26-year veteran of the Air Force) was on his way to Portland, Oregon from Bangor, Maine and his car developed a radiator leak in North Carolina.

Now, I'm not particularly fooled by this line of bull, for a couple of reasons.

First, he's wearing bits and pieces of military uniform... but none of it is Air Force issue. He's wearing an Army field jacket (complete with "U.S. ARMY" over one pocket, but no name over the other), a Navy beret, and an improperly-affixed insignia on the beret.

Second, WTF is he doing in North Carolina on the way to Oregon from Maine?! There's no rational reason you'd go farther south than Ohio, and you're probably better off detouring north through Canada.

Third, the story is too damn long. Bad con men always do that. They tell a long, long story where nothing is their fault and all their intentions are pure and terrible luck has befallen them at every turn. You learn to spot that.

So I'm already pretty much aware that this is a scam. But being a charitable kind of guy, I think "hey, maybe he's a section 8" and hear him out. Seems he bought a Walgreen's gift card, and now he can't get a refund on it. So he'll buy us some stuff at the register, and then he'd like us to get cash back on our debit card to pay for the stuff so he has cash. But he'd also like us to buy out the gift card balance in cash. And he'll check the balance right there at the register, so we can see for sure what it is.

So I say hey, sure, we'll help you out. I grab two cans of ice coffee, and hand them over to him. So off we go toward the register.

One of the store employees pulls us aside on the way there, and informs me that this guy's a con man who's been kicked out of the store several times. He asks what the man asked us to do, and we tell him. He comes out and informs the man that we're not going to cash out his gift card, and that he needs to leave once he's paid for his merchandise.

So the con man checks his gift card balance at the register, which is $17 and change. He gives me a look and a nod. I nod back. I think "well, I'll owe him for the coffee, and it's only another $20 to cash out the card" - but then he wraps the card up in his receipt, and walks outside.

Sorry, Charlie. Here's how that works. You wrap up the card in the receipt. The receipt holds the shape of the card when you take the card OUT. Outside, you collect the money for the card, and you hand over the receipt... with a fully depleted gift card inside.

Or nothing at all, if you can make your getaway quickly enough. So you hand over the receipt, collect the money, and run before the mark catches on that he doesn't have the card.

Now, being the kind of twisted person I am, I was tempted to con the con man. I considered getting a twenty and three ones, showing them to him, and palming the twenty as I folded the cash over with the ones on the outside. Then we'd trade three dollars for $4 in coffee and a depleted gift card, leaving us a dollar to the good. Fair play, right? I'd say so.

Instead, I fell back on my generous nature, got $10 cash at the register as we bought a roll of paper towels... and traded him the ten for the two coffees. No, I won't cash out your gift card, but you can have a few bucks for your effort.

Hey, you can't knock another man's hustle. It was somewhat entertaining. And the next time I head over to Walgreen's, I'll laugh about it with the cashier. It was worth the six bucks.