Duo accused of stealing $6,400 in merchandise by duping Walmart employee

Police in Georgia are on the lookout for a man and a woman who allegedly walked out of a Walmart with thousands of dollars in unpaid merchandise by pulling a fast one on an unsuspecting employee.

On November 30, two suspects, a man and a woman, walked into a Walmart in Grovetown, Georgia, about two hours east of Atlanta. Police say the two loaded up their cart with expensive items, including several gift certificates, and then headed for the register.

While at the register, the suspects made several transactions with their credit cards and then asked an employee there to hit the "cash" button, reports say. The suspects allegedly lied and told the cashier that their credit card transactions wouldn't work unless the "cash" button were pressed.

The cashier then complied with their request, but in so doing, unwittingly rang the transaction up as though the items had been paid for in cash. The credit cards were never charged, and the two suspects supposedly walked out of the store with $3,400 in goods and about $3,000 in gift certificates.

The Columbia County Sheriff's Office have described the incident as a "theft by deception."

In the Facebook post, the CCSO claims that the suspects stole "in excess of $10,000.00" in cash, gift certificates, and store merchandise. However, most outlets have instead reported the total at $6,400. The reason for the significant discrepancy in reporting is unclear.

So far, police have identified the man they believe was involved in the incident. CCSO has identified Jaylan Griggs, 19, from Flint, Michigan, as one of their suspects. They are still attempting to identify the female accomplice in this case. Anyone with information is asked to contact investigators at 706-541-2800.

Though most Facebook users may not be able to help police solve this case, many of them assist in another way: by offering occasionally insightful and often entertaining commentary on the allegations.

"Which Walmart has cashiers??!! Haven’t seen that in years!" a post from one user read in part.

"I can’t imagine a transaction that large wouldn’t require a manager override…" claimed another popular response.

While many users piled on the naïve cashier — and some even claimed, without evidence, that the cashier was in on the scam — one poster attempted to defend the unnamed individual by explaining how confusing the scam can be: "Customer keeps changing their mind on how to pay, gives money and gets change, gives change back and gets their cash back, pays with card A to buy gift card B and then cancels it and pays using gift card B etc…. Do it over and over again to confuse the cashier."