Walmart shopper was robbed of $3,600 by self-checkout scammer

• Self-checkout scammer at Walmart robbed an elderly woman in Canada.
• Will Walmart respond?
• The thief stole $3,600 from Dana Heddle.

An Ontario woman says she was conned out of nearly $3,600 after a man, who seemed to be helping her, approached her in a Walmart line and suggested she use the self-checkout line.

“He told me that I had to insert my card into the machine and use my PIN,” Dana Heddle of Burlington, Ontario, told CTV News Toronto. At the time she thought nothing of it.

Be alert for scammers in the self-checkout line!

Heddle later said that the same man approached her in the parking lot and told her that there seemed to be a problem with one of her rear tires. “While I was looking at the tire, someone else was in and out of my car in a matter of seconds and was in my purse and took my wallet,” she said.

Heddle noticed that her wallet was missing when she was running errands about an hour later. During that time, the thieves had drained her bank account, used a VISA card, and a credit card from a department store.

Thieves emptied her bank account

«Her bank account was emptied, they took her Hudson’s Bay card and spent over $3,000 at The Bay,» Dana’s daughter, Sue Heddle, told CTV News Toronto. Heddle contacted her financial institutions and filed a police report.

While she did most of her money back, Heddle said she received a letter from Neo Financial, which manages her Hudson’s Bay credit card, saying she would have to pay back the $3,597 they took. Does that seem fair to you?

Similar self-checkout scammers

“It really makes you nervous. What is sad to me is that my mother was so trusting and she thought that this person was helping her when he was actually stealing from her,” said Sue Heddle.

According to The Sun, Halton Regional Police (HRPS) said there have been other cases of people being robbed, sometimes by people working in pairs acting as good Samaritans in distraction robberies.

Police issue a warning

Steve Elms of the Halton Police Department said: “They may be telling the victim that their tire is low on air to get the victim out of their car. While the person is checking the tire, another person may be getting their wallet out of their car.»

Halton police said you should always be careful when a stranger tries to invade your personal space, adding that you should step back, keep an eye on your belongings and immediately report to authorities when your wallet is stolen.