When you say no to scammers (longish as my posts tend to be)

[The cat whisperer]

Today I was in the office minding my own business (playing solitaire) when my Box cashier calls in. She tells me that there is a guest in her line who said that Micky (the only male manager) told her she could come pick up passes because she had to leave early a month before. I tell the cashier there is no note, email and/or sticky note. There is however an email from another theatre in our market warning of a scammer using this story.

I get called to booth to fix a focus problem. Standing right by the booth door is this lady. Literally, if I had swung the door open more than the foot I did to squeeze out I would have nailed her.

She launches into this sad story about how she had to leave the theatre three or four weeks ago, she came in on a random weekday, because she had just had surgery and had gotten sick (this will all be important in a few minutes). She said that the male manager, Micky, had told her when she felt better she could come in and pick up tickets from either him or (and she actually leaned in to read my laynard style name tag) Cat Whisperer for her and her daughter. I tell her there was no note on any of our logs or the dry erase boards. I also tell her that SOP is to give them the passes when they leave. Not have them come in at some random day and hope one of two specific managers (we have four total) would be in.

Just to humor her, and to amuse myself, I say I'll go call Mick and see if he forgot to leave a note. Of course, when I get ahold of him he is like WTF? Never happened. I thank him and go out the office door. Once again she is thisclose to the door. Which, that is a big security no-no. I tell her Mick has no recollection of talking to her. She demands corporate's #. I tell her I will be glad to get it for her and pop right back into the office and get the comment line number and hand it to her before walking off. I am no longer amused by the scammer.

I email all the theatres in the market and our Quality Control liason at H.O. to give them the heads up. One theatre emailed me back saying a woman of that description had tried the same thing just a few weeks ago.

Meanwhile, there is a knock on the office door again!!! It is the same lady. This time I swing the door open just hard enough to make her jump back (I was careful to maintain control of the door so I could bring it to a dead stop if she showed no inclination to move). The following conversation takes place (edited to save brain cells)

CW=me
SC=well you know

SC: You're home office is showing a record of my having to leave. They don't know why you don't have one. (Yeah, right. You called a phone center lady. There is no way they could know that). Who's your GM? They want to know! (They do know. How do you think the complaints are routed? They have all of the theatre details).

CW: Sarah is our GM.

SC: When does she come in tonight?

CW: Unfortunatly, she will not be back until Thursday.

SC: Why?

CW: (some people like to go on vacations) She's on vacation until then.

SC: I can't talk to her until then?!?

CW: (You can call every hotel in San Francisco and hope for a match) Nope, sorry.

SC: Fine! Whatever!

And the SC exits our little drama

Sure enough, we get one of those automated reports saying a complaint had been logged. This time she says she had to leave due to the noise and crowd ( uh, thought you were sick) and she was at the 3 pm show about a month ago. A. We are never open at 3 pm on the weekdays, and B. she didn't even know what movie she had tried to watch. She was there with five other people (then why did she just bring her daughter back). I was rude and unhelpful to her and she did not like the way she was treated. Mick is a liar blah, blah, blah. They did have a movie pass scheduled to be sent to her.

Oh, no she did not! I forwarded the email I sent to the other theatres (accusing her of scamming), the logged report from the call center, and our sister theatre's response to the head of Quality Control. Maybe they will stop the fulfillment. If not then there is truly no justice. Trying to scam is one thing. Lying to get two people in trouble is quite a different animal. Hopefully, by Monday I will be able to post that she got smacked down. If not, I can get written up.

[Crow The Robot]

erm.. why did she go to the movies after she had surgery? Why can't she keep her story straight? Why does corp. reward these scammers ? Why God Why?

[Phone Jockey]

Why is she trying to scam a movie theater ticket??? WTF??

[heather124]

I've had people try that with me where they will say the guy I work told them they could get so and so price on something, the funny thing is the guy I work with is actually my husband so I can easily get him on the phone anytime of the day or night, either on his mobile or at home. And when I say I have to ring him to confirm it's always "but he told me that..you don't need to confirm!". I did this once and found out the guy was lying and my husband asked to speak to him and asked the customer why he had told me what he had and the customer is there on the phone in front of me saying "i never said that! she didn't understand what i was saying! she's lying!"

[Becks]

Wow...scammers can think of things that I'd never even DREAM of.

This starts a new -a-thon for me.

[Rapscallion]

Any chance you could report her to the local police for fraud? Looks to me like you have enough evidence for that.

Rapscallion

[The cat whisperer]

I wish we could call the police. However, my company is lawsuit leary and would frown upon that since a movie ticket is not worth a lot in the grand scheme of things. I have threatened to call the police in the past with a repeat scammer and they have not been seen since. They didn't need to know I'd have to call about ten people at head quarters before I called the police. Only violent and/or serious crimes don't have to get the okay before we call the locals.

I don't know why people would try to scam movie tickets. It makes me wonder if these people ever actually pay for anything anywhere. On a positive note I don't think anyone remembered to validate their parking. Up to 1 hour = $4. 1 hour+ = $8

[friendofjimmyk]

Reading all this stuff about scammers on this board reminds me of this one time I was with an old friend who tried to pull some crap. He MAY have been telling the truth, but, well, here's the story...

...we go to eat lunch at a Mexican food restaurant that was about two years old. When they were building the place, my friend had worked at the marble & granite shop the restaurant contracted to put in their fireplace. It was a nice fireplace, but that's besides the point. My friend merely worked with a CREW (important - at least 4 guys) of guys that installed the fireplace two years prior to our eating lunch there.

He called the manager over and told him that he worked on the CREW that installed the fireplace. He said that when they were installing it (before the restaurant was open for business) the soon-to-be manager told the CREW that they could come in for a free pitcher of margaritas. Yup, my friend was trying to cash in on a two-year "promise" made to a CREW for the two of us!

I was so freakin' embarrassed. Still being in the industry at that time, I knew that the manager that made that "promise" two years ago was probably not there anymore. He wasn't. In fact, management had changed hands three or four times, the manager we were talking to told him this. I was grateful that he didn't push the issue. But I wanted to crawl under the table regardless.

[The cat whisperer]

Justice is served

Yay!! The head of Quality Control emailed me earlier and said that not only did she stop fulfillment of the pass but she called the lady and told her in that nice corporate way that due to scammers being less than honest(accusing her but not if you know what I mean) unless she could produce a movie stub from the day she was actually there there would be nothing we could do. I love it whe corporate actually listens.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

Why is she trying to scam a movie theater ticket??? WTF??

Why I have no idea.

However, if one is going to attempt a scam, at least make it worth the while and scam someone who can afford it.

Either that, or I really need to stop watching Hustle

[Lehk]

if you get in any trouble at all, or anything gets added to your file over this, sue the B*tch for slander.

[Boulder_Bear]

Who knows why?

I don't know why anyone would try and scam tickets like that. First of all they aren't all that expensive. It really doesn't make it worth wasting time to scam that sort of thing.

(ducks under his desk before continuing.) Second of all it is so easy to just sneak into theaters and once you are in to theater hop. Instead of wasting her time scamming tickets she could have just snuck in and seen a movie or two, or three. Movie theaters try to have some form of security but it is never very good at all.
(decides to stay under his desk for a while.)

[Banrion]

(ducks under his desk before continuing.) Second of all it is so easy to just sneak into theaters and once you are in to theater hop. Instead of wasting her time scamming tickets she could have just snuck in and seen a movie or two, or three. Movie theaters try to have some form of security but it is never very good at all.
(decides to stay under his desk for a while.)

It's a good thing you don't come to my theatre. I have people arrested at least once a week for that. It's theft of services. I have a system, I catch you once, you get a warning, I catch you twice you get booted out of the theatre no refund, I catch you a third time and you are arrested and charges are pressed. I don't care who you are or what you do. Frequently we have the "Red Hat Society" people that get caught and arrested. Obviously they can't figure out that 20 people in red hats and purple coats are really noticible. I appreciate the fact that corporate backs my 3 strikes policy, too.

[Auto]

It's a good thing you don't come to my theatre. I have people arrested at least once a week for that. It's theft of services. I have a system, I catch you once, you get a warning, I catch you twice you get booted out of the theatre no refund, I catch you a third time and you are arrested and charges are pressed. I don't care who you are or what you do. Frequently we have the "Red Hat Society" people that get caught and arrested. Obviously they can't figure out that 20 people in red hats and purple coats are really noticible. I appreciate the fact that corporate backs my 3 strikes policy, too.

So the Red Hat Society ladies are scammers? Well, it stands to reason. They're among the lousiest dining patrons I've ever seen. They bitch and moan about everything and then almost never tip.

I wouldn't give them three strikes before calling the cops. Catch 'em once and call 911. Serves those bitches right.

[friendofjimmyk]

Ahh, Red Hat Ladies!

At my folks' kiosk, they had a lot of business with those types. They usually wanted everything available and a lot of it - however, NOT enough to get the wholesaler discount offered by my stepfather to, well, wholesalers. These ladies would come in and buy maybe 6 of one kind of beaded Red Hat bracelets and want the wholesaler discount! Then, being a small, privately owned kiosk, they had the gall to try the "I know the owner/manager" or the "I shop here all the time"...Ladies, you are speaking to the owner/manager and he is there EVERYDAY slaving away trying to make his little retail dreams come true and you want a discount on already discounted items because you gather with other women and flock out in public in your little red hats and entitlement whore attitudes.

sheesh.