Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

My 25 year old girlfriend might have committed return fraud (price arbitrage) totalling ~$100-200 in cash/store credit over the course of a year spread out at several (6-7) locations of a major dept store chain. She has never been confronted by loss prevention/customer service or received anything about an investigation for return behavior. Is it likely that a store would look back at their tapes if they suspected petty return fraud (like $15-25) and attempt to match the person returning items to the parking lot camera to obtain their license plate for prosecution? And if so, would they try to look for past instances at their own store or even at other nearby locations of their chain, and would each episode be counted as a separate offense or would they all be prosecuted together since it is the same store chain?

Thank you very much for your response.


Asked on 11/06/10, 5:35 am

1 Answer from Attorneys
Robert Marshall Law Office of Robert L, Marshall

It's probably unlikely a store would try to review thousands of hours of surveillance tapes unless they had some specific reason to suspect your girlfriend was involved in this ongoing scam.

However, if she gets caught, they might go back to see if they could find other incidents.

She could be charged with a separate offense for each incident. If the DA wanted to be really nasty, she could be prosecuted for commercial burglary -- entering the store with the intent to commit a theft -- which can be charged as a felony.

Your girlfriend needs to stop doing this before her luck runs out... or you need to find a new girlfriend.

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Answered on 11/13/10, 1:31 pm


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