Wal-Mart Hit By Scam

It’s not just individuals who get scammed, large businesses do as well. For instance, what happened to Wal-Mart in Newport on Saturday. An employee received a text from who he believed was the store manager. That person told the employee he needed to wait for a corporate member named “David” to call him and follow his instructions or the store would be fined $195,000 in penalty fees. The person identifying themselves as David gave the employee various instructions including sending pictures of multiple things in the Wal-Mart store including fire extinguishers.

Then “David” gave the employee instructions to empty all the registers of all the cash and that he would be sent an address to take the money to. That address happened to be Kenjo Market just up Cosby Highway. The employee was the given instructions by “David” to put the money into the Bit Stop bitcoin machine and send it to two specific account numbers.

After sending the money, the employee contacted store management who informed him he had been scammed and to call police. While Newport police were speaking with the Wal-Mart employee, the scammers called him again and Newport police answered. Officer Paul Weber advised the suspect that he was aware of the scam and the suspect then began cursing him in spanish. No arrests have been made in this case. Wal-Mart lost $5,890 in that scam.