This segment of Tails from Retail: World's Dumbest Criminals edition is much shorter than the previous chapter, but no less mind-boggling.
It was an average day at work- taking care of animals, helping customers, the usual stuff. My shift was ending and I had just finished balancing my cash drawer in the office. I walked out of the office back onto the sales floor to find two of my coworkers dying with laughter.
"You will not BELIEVE the phone call we just got," one of the girls said. "This guy called and said he has a coupon from Petsmart that says 'buy one bag of Science Diet, get two cans free' and he asked if we would accept it here. I told him yeah, we take competitor coupons. Then he asked if we would take five hundred of them!" At that she burst into laughter. I joined in.
"What did you tell him?" I asked.
"I just gave the phone to Mike (our GM), I let him deal with it," she answered. We made a few jokes about how dumb people could be, and then I finished up my remaining work and headed home.
The next morning I came in to work and walked into the back storeroom to begin cleaning out the kitten and dog cages.
"Were you here yesterday when that guy called about all the coupons?" my GM asked.
"Oh, yeah! I wasn't the one who answered the phone though. I can't believe he would ask that!" I said, laughing.
"Well, he came in last night," he said. "He brought seven hundred and fifty coupons."
I just stared. Seven hundred and fifty coupons?!
"So, let me get this straight," I said, remembering the offer the coupons made. "He wanted 750 bags of Science Diet and 1,500 cans of food?!" Mike nodded. "Does he realize that we don't even have that much food in our store, even if you included every brand? How many dogs does he even have? How did he plan on getting it all home?!"
"I know," he said. "It was really weird. The guy wasn't even mad when I told him no. He just kept insisting that on the phone we had told him that we would take the coupons. I told him I would maybe do 2 or 3, and he just kept saying 'On the phone you said you would take them!' So he left with nothing." We both laughed and shook our heads, then continued on with our work.
A few hours later, Mike came up to me at the cash register.
"So, I called Petsmart just to let them know that some crazy guy was going around trying to use hundreds of their coupons. Get this. He already hit them last night. Totally filled up his car with food. And guess what? After it happened, their general manager called corporate. The coupon he was using doesn't exist."
"What do you mean it doesn't exist?" I asked.
"I mean Petsmart does not have a coupon for 'buy a bag of Science Diet, get 2 cans free'. The guy made it up himself. And Petsmart took it."
In spite of how weird the whole situation is, you kind of have to applaud this guy. It would be easy to get away with using one or two fake coupons- after all, the cashier who would have accepted it was most likely a 20 year-old college student making minimum wage who couldn't care less about how much money their store makes or loses. But to make off with an entire carload of stolen food? That takes skill. Especially when you consider that he pulled it off right under the general manager's nose, using a coupon that was supposedly distributed by their own store.
Personally, I'm desperate to know why this guy felt a need to get his hands on so much dog food. Was he planning on donating the food to the various shelters in the area like some sort of canine Robin Hood? Does he have knowledge of a secret doggy society that has been plagued with sudden famine? Is he preparing for the inevitable zombie apocalypse? What does he know that the rest of us don't?
What really gets me though is the thought of this guy sitting in his house, waiting for 750 coupons to print off his computer one at a time. If patience is a virtue, this guy must be a saint. Either that, or there was nothing good on Netflix. We've all been there, man.
It was an average day at work- taking care of animals, helping customers, the usual stuff. My shift was ending and I had just finished balancing my cash drawer in the office. I walked out of the office back onto the sales floor to find two of my coworkers dying with laughter.
"You will not BELIEVE the phone call we just got," one of the girls said. "This guy called and said he has a coupon from Petsmart that says 'buy one bag of Science Diet, get two cans free' and he asked if we would accept it here. I told him yeah, we take competitor coupons. Then he asked if we would take five hundred of them!" At that she burst into laughter. I joined in.
"What did you tell him?" I asked.
"I just gave the phone to Mike (our GM), I let him deal with it," she answered. We made a few jokes about how dumb people could be, and then I finished up my remaining work and headed home.
The next morning I came in to work and walked into the back storeroom to begin cleaning out the kitten and dog cages.
"Were you here yesterday when that guy called about all the coupons?" my GM asked.
"Oh, yeah! I wasn't the one who answered the phone though. I can't believe he would ask that!" I said, laughing.
"Well, he came in last night," he said. "He brought seven hundred and fifty coupons."
I just stared. Seven hundred and fifty coupons?!
"So, let me get this straight," I said, remembering the offer the coupons made. "He wanted 750 bags of Science Diet and 1,500 cans of food?!" Mike nodded. "Does he realize that we don't even have that much food in our store, even if you included every brand? How many dogs does he even have? How did he plan on getting it all home?!"
"I know," he said. "It was really weird. The guy wasn't even mad when I told him no. He just kept insisting that on the phone we had told him that we would take the coupons. I told him I would maybe do 2 or 3, and he just kept saying 'On the phone you said you would take them!' So he left with nothing." We both laughed and shook our heads, then continued on with our work.
A few hours later, Mike came up to me at the cash register.
"So, I called Petsmart just to let them know that some crazy guy was going around trying to use hundreds of their coupons. Get this. He already hit them last night. Totally filled up his car with food. And guess what? After it happened, their general manager called corporate. The coupon he was using doesn't exist."
"What do you mean it doesn't exist?" I asked.
"I mean Petsmart does not have a coupon for 'buy a bag of Science Diet, get 2 cans free'. The guy made it up himself. And Petsmart took it."
In spite of how weird the whole situation is, you kind of have to applaud this guy. It would be easy to get away with using one or two fake coupons- after all, the cashier who would have accepted it was most likely a 20 year-old college student making minimum wage who couldn't care less about how much money their store makes or loses. But to make off with an entire carload of stolen food? That takes skill. Especially when you consider that he pulled it off right under the general manager's nose, using a coupon that was supposedly distributed by their own store.
Personally, I'm desperate to know why this guy felt a need to get his hands on so much dog food. Was he planning on donating the food to the various shelters in the area like some sort of canine Robin Hood? Does he have knowledge of a secret doggy society that has been plagued with sudden famine? Is he preparing for the inevitable zombie apocalypse? What does he know that the rest of us don't?
What really gets me though is the thought of this guy sitting in his house, waiting for 750 coupons to print off his computer one at a time. If patience is a virtue, this guy must be a saint. Either that, or there was nothing good on Netflix. We've all been there, man.