KILLEEN, Texas — Andrew Butler was working his normal overnight shift at Mickey’s 14 in Killeen when he answered a call just before 2 a.m.
A scam call he thought was real.
”He knew that manager's name and everything about the manager,” said Butler. “He instructed me and basically told me step to scam the store.”
The caller, who called himself Morgan Wells, told Butler he was a CEO of a company and the store needed to pay for a FedEx delivery before it arrived later that morning.
The caller convinced him to take $180 out of the register and take it over to where walked him through loading into a Bitstop machine, but that’s not the only money he put into it.
The caller had him withdraw $220 of his own money from an ATM and add that to the money he already put in the Bitstop machine.
”I actually did it because it was for Miss Brenda and I thought I was doing the right thing for the company, but obviously, I wasn’t,” said Butler.
This is the third such call Mickey’s 14 has had and two of them were successful.
Something experts aren’t surprised to hear because imposter scams like this are actually more common than you would think.
”Imposter scams can be anything from somebody claiming to represent a specific business and asking for confidential information or for money,” said Dr. Rob Tennant, assistant professor of accounting Texas A&M University Central Texas.
Common or not, store managers like Brenda Hernandez want these thieves brought to justice and they are spreading the word.
”It’s got to get out to let them know,” said Hernandez. “I mean, it happened on a 2-10 shift here and now a 10-6 shift. So I mean, they’re out there and they’re trying to get money that’s not theirs.”
The lesson to learn here is that, if you or your employees get a strange call and it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.
