Retail workers know the strangest things happen right before closing.

One such employee didn’t expect to spend his final minutes at work outsmarting an entire family running a credit card scam.

But that’s exactly what happened — and it was awesome.

Keep reading for the full story.

Can you manually punch in my card.

This happened a couple of months ago. It wasn’t my first credit card fraud attempt, but it was my first time dealing with a whole family.

20 minutes before closing, I was changing the trash bags outside in our parking lot. When I was almost done, a car approached the curb.

Male: “Are you guys still open?”

Immediately, the retail worker was suspicious.

I kinda knew where this was going since multiple people had tried this fraud attempt at night.

Me: “Yes, but you only have 15 minutes before closing.”
(I lied because I wanted them to rush.)

Male: “Good, I’ll just park.”

So the worker alerted their manager to keep an eye on the situation.

I entered the store and alerted my SM, since she was in the stockroom. She came out and stayed by the rear exit.

The man and his companion came in. Then two teens came in and grabbed three carts while the male grabbed another.

This family was definitely behaving suspiciously.

They started filling their carts with items such as dog food, sodas, ice, cat food, and more.

At first, they were heading to our high-theft aisles, but they noticed I was watching them.

I texted my SM and told her to block the entrance to the back room and that I was keeping an eye on them.

The next thing I knew, my SM locked the front doors — since hey, it was two minutes before closing. She stayed at the front.

The family was starting to get nervous, but regardless, their ring leader proceeded with their “purchase.”

I guess the group realized their gig was up and went to the register when they saw the back had a cart of boxes blocking the doors. The male was sweating at that point.

Male: “You can ring this cart first.”

I did, and the total ended up being $344 or more. I then told the guy he had to pay before I could bag.

He proceeded to swipe his card.

The employee prompts him to try another way, which makes him swear even more.

Me: “It looks like you’re using a chip card. Please insert the chip.”

Male: “I don’t have a chip. Can you manually enter it?”

Me: “No. Under our new policy, if a card doesn’t work, you’ll have to use another form of payment.”

Male: “But I just used this at another store. See?”
He hands me a receipt.

So they call their manager over again.

I looked at my SM and told her to come assist me.

SM: “Can I see the card?”

Things weren’t adding up.

He hands her the card and the receipt. Both have different account numbers.

SM: “It looks like you used a different card. Can I see that one?”

The man looks at his female companion, then at the teens.

Finally, the thieves decide to cut their losses.

Male: “No. Let’s go, guys. We’ll buy our supplies somewhere else.”

SM lets them out and watches them rush to the car and drive out of the lot as fast as they can.

We stayed an extra 20 minutes putting the stuff away.

I mean — at least they tried.

If this cashier hadn’t been paying attention, these criminals might have gotten away with it.

What did Reddit think?

Customers often don’t have near as much leverage as they think they do.

This bank employee salutes this retail worker for their diligence.

Apparently many other stores don’t manually enter cards either.

This retail worker had to give this family points for their effort. They almost got away with it.

If nothing else, their antics made the shift a little less boring.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.