New ‘sophisticated’ employee impersonation scam hits Colorado Springs

The Garcia family thought an offer to receive an employee discount was too good to be true…and it turns out, it was.

The Garcias called KRDO Newschannel 13, hoping to warn other people against falling victim to this scam.

Billy Garcia said his wife was first approached by a man in Kirklands on Friday night.

This man called himself “Roy” and said the Garcia’s seven-year-old son tugged at his heart strings and he wanted to do something for him.

He told the couple he was an employee at Best Buy and offered them his “employee discount” to buy their son gifts.

“He seemed so sincere and used our son to his advantage,” Garcia said. “He made it seem like he cared about him and we thought we could use the opportunity to buy early Christmas gifts.”

They met Roy at Best Buy on Saturday. They told Roy what they wanted to purchase and he put the gifts up by the cash register.

Then he told them to go pick out five free Play Station 4 games to go along with their new Play Station.

He asked them for the money before they went to pick out the games “so he could speed the transaction up”.

“He had a Best Buy lanyard on and was talking to another employee so we didn’t suspect anything,” Garcia said.

But when the family came back up to complete the purchase, Roy was gone.

Colorado Springs Police spokeswoman Lt. Catherine Buckley said this is a new, sophisticated scam.

“To impersonate an employee and fool the store and customer is pretty conniving,” she said.

Springs police expect they will see the scam again, although the scammer may vary which store they try to target.

“We haven’t seen this before, but since it worked so well, he will likely try to do the same thing again, maybe at another store,” she said.

She said if anything seems too good to be true, it probably is.

A spokesperson for Best Buy confirmed Roy was not an employee there.

Best Buy released this statement about the incident:

“We very much appreciate the work of the Colorado Springs Police in working to apprehend the criminal impersonating our employees and stealing from our customers. We are disappointed to see criminals try to take advantage of unsuspecting individuals. In addition, as we head into the busy holiday season, it’s a good reminder for customers to trust only the transactions that take place at the register in a Best Buy store or through BestBuy.com .”

Police are looking for the man in this picture.