Rochester store employee scammed out of $1,100

(ABC 6 News) — Police said someone called the business and told the employee they were from the “counterfeit unit” at the “police department in Olmsted County.”

It happened Thursday evening, July 21, at a business in southeast Rochester. The scammer told the teenage girl working at the store that they were with the police department, and they were sitting with the owners of the business. The scammer gave the teen the correct names of the owners, and told her the store had been receiving a lot of counterfeit money.

The scammer told the girl that her bosses trusted her to help out with this case, and asked her to count the money in the register and in the safe. The scammer also asked her if she had a marker that could detect counterfeit bills, and told her the store owners were worried that they wouldn’t be able to pay the employees if this didn’t get resolved.

Rochester Police Captain Casey Moilanen said the scammer had done some homework in finding the owners’ information, and also used the paycheck line as a fear tactic to make the employee worried.

The scammer then asked the girl for her cell phone number and told her to go to a particular location to purchase gift cards. She bought the gift cards, and when she got back to the store decided that it all seemed suspicous, so she called law enforcement.

The teen is out about $1,100 total.