Unfiltered Story #101662

I actually found this entire situation scary and honestly don’t think it was handled properly.

One busy day I am working customer service when an old lady (OL) comes up saying she found a wallet. Since I am serving a customer my coworker who is also a supervisor deals with her. The OL wants us to announce over our PA that a wallet was found. We tell her our policy is to lock it in our safe until someone comes to claim in. For the record if someone loses their wallet they will notice sooner or later the later is normally when they want to pay. If they realized while shopping they normally backtrack in the store but eventually they come to customer service. Announcing lost wallet is seriously a bad idea.
The OL refuses to let us do our job and argues with my coworker. Finally she threatened to call the police and report everything. My coworker tells her she is welcome to do so. The OL demands information from the wallet to report. My coworker assumed it was basic information names on cards and generally description of contents. Not seeing the harm in it my coworker offers her pen and paper to write it down.
Honestly at the this time since it’s so busy I’m only paying half attention. My coworker is standing right there as she goes through the wallet. She counts the cash writes it down then moves on to the card. It’s worth noting there is no driver license.
Since it’s busy other people are constantly coming up and since my coworker doesn’t look busy as her things so she is not paying 120% to the OL.
In between people asking her questions I hear her “I think you have enough information”
OL “I will be the judge of that! I found the wallet!” Hearing this catches my attention and I start paying more attention.
I realized she is writing down the credit card numbers which makes me uneasy. A moment later while my coworker is paging for something I realize the OL turned the card over and writing down the 3 digit cord on the back.
All alarms are going off in my head I step over to my coworker “the information she is writing down can be used for identity thief”
Coworker “I’ll handle it”
She indicates for me to return to the till since there is a young woman with her young son. As I scan her items my coworker again tries to tell the OL she has enough information.
Young woman “where’s my wallet?” Askes her son “where did you put it”
Son “I don’t know I put it down somewhere”
Coworker “what’s your name”
Woman “******”
My coworker takes the wallet from the OL checks a couple of cards and said “yup this is yours”
Woman “oh my god thank you”
Coworker to OL “would you like me to get rid of that” pointing to the paper with the information.
OL “no I will keep it”
Again alarms not wanting the OL to leave with that paper
Me “this is the woman who found your wallet she was wanting to report it to the police she she wrote down all information on that paper”
OL “yes I was going to give it to them so they knew it was here and that everything got back to you ”
Woman “thank you so much”
The OL gave her the paper though I got the opinion she didn’t want to and walks back into the store. As I finished up the transaction the woman looks closely at the information written.
Me “I recommend you rip that into tiny pieces if not burn it”
Woman “why did she write all this information down ” she is looking concerned
Me ” our policy is to look lost valuable up however she wanted to announce it when we said we couldn’t she demanded the information claimed it was for the police ”
Woman “oh ok thank you so much ”
The woman left the store and about 10 minutes later the OL comes the check out.
I honestly don’t remember what was said at first but she made the comment “how do I know that wallet belonged to that girl?”
Thinking are you f****** kidding.
Me “she gave her name and my coworker confirmed the name was on multiple cards”
OL “well I don’t remember that name but I remember seeing something like (another name)”
Thinking of course you don’t remember names you were too forced on card numbers.
Me”quite possibly ma’am if you check my wallet you will find multiple cards with other names on them example I carry my children’s health cards they share their fathers last name while I keep my maiden name. I also have other things that have their name and couple things with my husbands name on them. As you saw the woman had a child with her she might have more each with a different father hence multiple names”
The OL glared at me paid and left the store appearing to be angry at me. I’m sure if she had decided to report me I would have been in a lot of trouble.
The next person in line is another coworker who has the day off
“What was that about?”
So I explain including what information I saw her writing down.
Coworker 2 “she had enough info to steal her identity if not f*** up her credit score. If it was me I would have been pissed she wrote that down”
Me “me too! Name on cards, type of cards and yes amount of cash on hand but there was no reason for the card numbers or the security codes.”
I then took a break and spoke to my first coworker and learned she never realized the woman was writing the card numbers down or the security code. I requested that it be reported to our manager (he was off ) for how to handle a similar situation in the further.
The next day coworker 2 showed me a Facebook post on roses and raspberries the woman posted thanking the OL for finding her wallet.