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Being Neighborly | A store manager who refused to make a sale

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As Taryn Thibaut scanned items at a self-checkout register at the Safeway on Point Fosdick Drive on June 4, she overheard a store employee trying to talk another customer out of a purchase.

The customer was trying to buy a large amount of gift cards. That was a red flag for Safeway manager TJ Faulkner.

Instead of ringing up the purchase and carrying on with his night, Faulkner patiently explained to the gentleman that scammers often ask their targets to buy thousands of dollars worth of gift cards, in exchange for the promise of an even larger payout later. The payout, of course, never happens.

That’s exactly what happened to this customer. A scammer told him that if he bought $100,000 worth of gift cards, $152 million would be deposited into his bank account.

TJ Faulkner, a manager at the Safeway on Point Fosdick Drive, recognized that a customer buying thousands of dollars of gift cards was being scammed. Photo courtesy of TJ Faulkner

“I heard TJ asking him questions, and I heard TJ say ‘Don’t you think this is probably too good to be true?’ But the man seemed like he felt that he should be doing it,” Thibaut said.

Thibaut joined the efforts to convince the customer, who appeared to be in his 70s, that he was being scammed. He had already purchased cards worth several thousand dollars from other stores.

“TJ kept peppering him with questions, and I finally heard him say, ‘I’m going to have to decline the transaction. Please don’t give these people any more money,’ ” Thibaut said.

Thibaut was impressed with Faulkner’s handling of the situation.

“Watching him, it looked like it felt natural to him, and he was being a genuinely good citizen” she said. “I stopped and told TJ, ‘Good job to stop this from happening.’ He may have had training, but there are lots of people who don’t care to do the right thing. TJ looks to be in his 20s, and we hear a lot about that generation not caring or contributing, and he definitely showed up when it mattered.”

Nobody knows if the customer bought more gift cards at another store. Thibaut said she wanted to acknowledge Faulkner for his efforts to prevent the man from becoming a fraud victim.

Thibaut said she “wanted TJ to get noticed by his manager and team,” she said. “This is something that could have significant impacts on another human being’s life from one small gesture like this. I feel like who knows what the impact could have been.”