HEMPFIELD, Pa. — A local man is warning consumers to check their receipt twice when purchasing gift cards this holiday season after an incident at the Giant Eagle in Hempfield Township.
Patrick DiCesare old Channel 11’s Joe Holden that he went to the grocery store Monday to purchase three gift cards. The first two processed without any problems.
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“She wrote the amount on the gift card and I saw the checkout screen populate with the amount she was charging me,” he said.
However, the third one failed to activate.
DiCesare said the cashier told him to grab another gift card and bring it back to the register. The new one rang up, and he and his child left the store.
DiCesare said that upon reviewing his receipt, he noticed that the new card he went back to get didn’t match the one the cashier rang up.
“She gave me a gift card that she wrote $300 on that had a $0 balance and kept a card that had $300 on it,” he said.
He said he went back to the store and confronted the cashier. DiCesare said at that point, she produced a blank gift card, the one that supposedly wouldn’t activate, which actually had $300 on it.
“I paid for a $300 gift card that she kept, and I think it's important for people to not lose sight of gift cards when they're purchasing them,” DiCesare said.
After approaching management at the Giant Eagle, DiCesare then took to Facebook, writing a post that has been shared more than 1,000 times.
Do you ever buy gift cards? I’d like to warn my friends about a scam that I was almost the victim of today. I went to...
Posted by Patrick DiCesare on Monday, November 16, 2015
In a statement to Channel 11 News, a Giant Eagle spokesman said they’re aware of the situation and completed a thorough investigation, which led to the determination that no fraudulent activity occurred.
“Well in the end, because I caught this, I didn't lose anything,” DiCesare said.
WPXI
