Thursday, December 21, 2006

Can you make this stolen phone work for me?

The Wal-Mart I work at is real ghetto. And when I say ghetto, I mean G-H-E-T-T-O!

We've had people run confidence games in the aisles of electronics, steal purses right out of carts, customers attack cashiers right at their registers and on at least four occasions weed has come wafting out of the front restrooms. Every morning we gather up all of the empty boxes from stolen items and it fills up a ten-gallon storage bin. That's ghetto.

The worst part about the stealing is that the people doing the stealing are sometimes not that educated about what they are stealing. For instance, the pre-paid cellular phones.

Even though there are labels all over the things that say "NOT ACTIVE UNTIL SOLD" and "SCAN AT REGISTER FOR ACTIVATION" people steal the things all the time. I guess you have to have a phone — even if it doesn't work — to look "street."

So these three toughs walk in with a kid in tow and they have the kid do the talking. The story is that "grandma" bought the kid the pre-paid cell phone "for Christmas" but that "someone" forgot to activate the phone at the register, so could we please activate the phone so the poor boy could use his Christmas present that grandma got him? And of course because it is a gift from the mysterious but oh-so-generous "grandma," they don't have a receipt.

Grandma doesn't exist. The phone was never legally sold in the first place. There is no way that phone ever got onto a receipt without being activated. No way, no how. You cannot scan the barcode and not scan the activation code. But still, can you call them liars? What can I do?

I have to return the phone as a return without a receipt, so I get a drivers license on at least one of the toughs, and then re-sell the phone, activating it.

I hope that phone give those guys brain cancer.

21 comments:

JJM said...

I still can't figure out which pisses me off more. People stealing stuff or people taking it out of the package before they steal it and leaving the trash all over the place. Hell, my store doesn't even have those security tags on anything, so just take the damn packge with you!

Melissa said...

Just found your blog and I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it!! You are too funny!

Anonymous said...

I apologize for putting this in the comments however I couldn't find an email address to contact you at.

I'm the general manager of PlanetFeedback.com and we have a debate raging over there regarding Walmart's return policies; particularly with regards to items purchased at other retailers. I thought you might like to provide some clarification...you're welcome to come over and join the fray.

http://www.planetfeedback.com/index.php?level2=blog_viewpost&topic_id=294444

By the way, the original letter was written to Target however the letter writter mentions that she took toys bought at Target and returned them at Walmart.

Anonymous said...

Merry Christmas,
I hope you can get some rest. I live in a Wal Mart free area, but still I am a big fan of your blog, have been reading for months.

Anonymous said...

LORD LORD LORD, can you imagine the stories after Christmas exchange is over and done. Have a Merry Christmas and don't let the wierdo punks ruin it for you. A

Anonymous said...

This is why the city of Detroit has very few major retailers left within the city limits. (I moved to the suburbs some 15 years ago.) The shoplifting losses were outstripping any profit margin. What's ridiculous is when the residents complain they have to drive out to the 'burbs to do their shoplifting, er, shopping. If they didn't destroy every store that made an effort to operate in the city, there'd be no problem.

bud said...

If i stole a phone and baught the same phone could i get away with retuning the stolen phone with a baught phones box and receipt

Unknown said...

No dummy. When you return the stolen phone it will be scanned the same a cashier scan when some buy something. When its scaned its gonna deactivate that phone. The activation code is on box stupid. It will deactivate that phone you bought and kept. Neither phone can get activated now because of you. Dummy.

Anonymous said...

what if one boight a stolen phone from walmart it couldnt be activated? What if it was unlocked/rooted/jailbroken

Anonymous said...

Love this topic I was just asking about the best data plan prepaid.

Anonymous said...

I got a Samsung Galaxy from a guy who said it needed to be flashed and it turns out the phone was stolen from Wal-Mart. Am I stuck with a phone I can never use cause I sure am pissed about gettin screwed on craigslist like this when I really needed the phone at the time and thought I was getting a good deal at the time.

Anonymous said...

Niggers gonna nig

Anonymous said...

ur all some pussy ass niggahs and im gonna take a shit in every single one of ur stores......anonomouys, ur a peice of shit.

Unknown said...

I work for Dollar General in a 'low theft' store(compared to others in the area I guess). Cell phones are always being stolen and i just can't figure out why someone would steal an unactivated phone. Since the phones are locked up these people remove scissors from their package and cut the phone off the hook. And since we are low theft we don't have that many cameras. Then they leave the package lying around the store. Are they finding a way to use the phone or the sim card inside?

Unknown said...

Pretty harsh bill

Unknown said...

One i got from offer up galaxy j7 is not bootable and like most all verizon phones the bootloader is locked restricting full root or recovery options.

Unknown said...

Me too j7 i want to shoot people

John nickerson said...

I have a LG Optimus zone 3 think u can help me unlock

Unknown said...

They just change the SIM card

Anonymous said...

Even though this is 11 years old....A WalMart I frequented that was open 24/7 decided, due to all the shoplifting, to start closing at midnight, then started closing at 11 PM. No warning at all to the legitimate customers. Apparently, it wasn't only "customers" doing the shoplifting, they don't even let employees stay to restock the store overnight because they were stealing as much if not more then the "customers". Now, the store used to be in a large city, with about the same demographics as Detroit but had moved to the suburbs as a Target store had done earlier] so they wouldn't be "shoplifted" out of business. Then the local Metro service started running buses out to the suburbs and the "problems" resumed. Guess Walmart didn't move far enough, where as Target moved to an entirely different county that the local Metro bus service wouldn't serve since it was "out of county".

Unknown said...

Fuck you and your fucking racist bullshit its people like you the need to be hung.