Question: Does fishing receipts out of the trash and then picking the item on the receipt off the shelf, bringing it up for a refund work?
Yup. Or, at least, it use to work.
[ready for a story, kids?...]
My grandpa has two best friends: Kym (he's rich because he owns a ton of houses) and Ralph (he used to be rich by--you guessed it--shoplifting).
Ralph would dig in the trash, and find receipts for really expensive junk. He then would throw on his $1000 suit, get the same item off the shelf, and walk up to the returns desk all business-like and, effectively, social engineer the employee for a refund.
He would also use the same receipt over and over again, because back then there was no way they could tell if that item had already been returned or not. He even dabbled at making his own receipts from time to time.
He lived in different motels, he didn't even own a house, and constantly traveled all over the US in search of another walmart to scam.
Apparently he made a ton of money at it, though, because my grandpa claimed Ralph was rich, and this coming from a man who once had a business meeting with Bill Gates...
But be warned - Ralph was fucking crazy. He would do small illegal things just to see if he could get away with it (shoplifting, etc.). Also, he had a warrant in North Carolina for his arrest, but he would spend the majority of his time in North Carolina anyway. One time he got caught shoplifting in NC and had to run out of the store, hop into his car, and race past the border. He managed to pull it off, though.
Ralph now lives in a trailer near Kym (my grandpa's other rich friend) and pretty much mooches off of Kym. As far as anybody knows, he doesn't scam anymore: His reason being that they were getting too good at finding ways to foil his tricks.
So yeah, if it doesn't work anymore, blame people like Ralph. What a jerk!
