Best Buy employee charged in felony thefts www.privateofficer.com
VINELAND NJ Feb 28 2011 — Police arrested a 24-year-old Best Buy employee who allegedly stole at least $3,500 after months of making fraudulent returns and pocketing the cash, authorities said.
Tiffany S. Holmes, of the first block of South Ladow Avenue in Millville, told police she created duplicate receipts of mobile phones and entered them as customer returns starting in August 2010, according to police reports made available Friday.
She kept the cash refunds — some of which she used to help her mother with a surgery — from those returns, police said.
On Tuesday, police charged Holmes with theft by deception and two counts of forgery. Vineland Municipal Court issued her a warrant with bail set at $5,000. She was released on recognizance.
A store manager discovered the incidents Feb. 9 after a standard product count revealed several mobile phones were missing, police said.
That manager couldn’t tell police how much Holmes had pocketed since August because he could only provide documentation showing she took $3,509.26 since Dec. 12. He told police he would provide more documentation as he compiled it.
When the store manager noticed the phones were missing, he checked the store’s computer database, police said, and found the missing phones were listed as returned items, but couldn’t find them in the store.
The manager found Holmes’ employee number and the employee numbers of two other women accounted for several more phones labeled as returned, but not in stock.
Holmes later admitted she used the other employees when she was unable to make returns in her own department and told those employees it was for a customer.
“I only went to them when I couldn’t make the returns in my department and asked them to do it because I knew they wouldn’t question me if I told them it was for a customer,” she told police.
A store manager wouldn’t say Friday if Holmes was still an employee at the Vineland store.
Source:TheDailyJournal
