Store’s Criminal Profile Catches a Bargain Hunter

It was with considerable surprise, but not nearly the displeasure one might imagine, that I recently learned that my wife had fallen into a pattern of behavior signaling her probable involvement in a criminal enterprise.

Such is my wife’s naivete in matters of law enforcement. She never sensed that a shadow of suspicion had fallen upon her, insisting that she must have been the victim of some insidious computer glitch or other inexplicable corporate dysfunction.

But from years of reporting on the wiles of crooks and cops, I immediately recognized the signs of a criminal profile when, full of outrage and anguish, she related the following story one evening:

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That afternoon, she had stopped to pick up a few items at our local Pic ‘N’ Save, the quirky merchandise clearance chain that for years has given her as much pleasure as Nordstrom gives to those of more exacting taste.

At the checkout stand, she wrote a check for about $80, not an unusual amount on such an outing.

Her justification for this unrestrained buying, the merits of which I do not denigrate, is that it procures necessary items such as bric-a-brac to hand out on social calls, Christmas gifts for nieces and nephews, diverse household products, and occasionally treasures of quality food or clothing at prices that turn an $80 purchase into hundreds of dollars of savings.

But to catch these ephemeral windfalls, one must case the store on a more than casual basis, meaning in my wife Jacqueline’s case, at least once a week, and sometimes more.

Being so loyal a patron, she was naturally quite dumbstruck when the checkout clerk refused to accept her check.

After a brief interrogation by my wife, the shy young cashier explained that she was merely following the instructions appearing on the display of a small machine through which she had slid the check for verification.

“My credit is good! I’m not a deadbeat!” my wife railed in what can only have been a pitiable scene in which a person of, in fact, spotless propriety and adequate means stood accused by implication before the knowing glances of everyone in line.

Despite all my wife’s protests, the young clerk stuck to her orders. She handed my wife a small piece of paper full of fine print with the general message that any questions should be directed to an organization called SCAN, whose 800 number was provided.

My wife’s mortification turned to hysterical disbelief when a SCAN representative told her the rejection was not about her credit. The problem was that she had written too many checks in too short a time.

Although she makes no claim to being a logician, my wife put two and two together, and concluded that Pic ‘N’ Save had formulated a policy of stabbing its best customers in the back.

“I spend so much money there, they should be giving me an award!” she said, unable to comprehend the perverseness of it.

The intensity of her argument, along with her implicit admission to a charge that I had lightheartedly made a few times myself, almost persuaded me to entertain an alternate explanation to the one I truly believed.

In this spurious line of reasoning, I considered first that shopping at Pic ‘N’ Save is a kind of addiction.

How serious it can be is illustrated by what I observed a few years ago when my wife’s sister, her sister’s fiance and the fiance’s sister came to visit from France.

Along with Universal City and Disneyland, my wife took them to Pic ‘N’ Save, presenting it as a distinctive American cultural expression. Her in-laws were so overwhelmed by the abundance of merchandise they could have for practically nothing that they bought a carload, only to realize later that they could fit but a tenth of it into their luggage to take home on the airplane. We inherited the remainder.

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I have indulged this weakness in my wife as a relatively harmless fault that might even yield a fraction of the fabulous economies she claimed, as long as she was able to find recipients for most of the tchotchkes so they wouldn’t clutter my bookshelves.

Conceivably, though, there are other Pic ‘N’ Save husbands who don’t share my magnanimity. Maybe there were complaints or threats of legal action, or even worse.

Wouldn’t it be a noble gesture, I asked my wife, for Pic ‘N’ Save to put a brake on the excesses of its most helpless victims, and possibly prevent some violent eruption of family discord?

She didn’t buy it any more than I did. The truth, confirmed by a SCAN official, is that a scam is afoot--as one always is--and my wife’s shopping habit fit the profile of some devious con artist who scratches out a living by writing lots of bad checks to places like Pic ‘N’ Save.

SCAN President Tim Birk said the computer cuts off people who write a lot of checks quickly because that’s what bad check writers do when they are trying to spend as much as possible before the checks bounce.

The rub is that good check writers--if that isn’t too generous a term--do the same when they go on a shopping binge. The computer catches them all in the same snare.

“It’s not a perfect science,” Birk said. “It’s designed to provide the retailers with a tool in a matter of seconds to systematically determine the risk associated with a certain transaction.”

Birk said it is up to the retailer to set the thresholds for the number of checks and the time period.

Pic ‘N’ Save won’t disclose its limits.

“If we told you, the criminal would know too,” said Ramon Franco, Pic ‘N’ Save’s financial operations manager.

To my surprise, the idea that an impersonal computer singled her out as a criminal doesn’t distress my wife nearly as much as the idea of all those orphan purchases left behind in her basket that day.

She’s not, as it turns out, overly absorbed in image. But she is a dedicated bargain-hunter who keeps her eye on the ball. Having fully recovered from the embarrassment of the unfortunate incident, she has just one question for Pic ‘N’ Save:

How long before they will take her checks again?

Real soon, according to Brig. And there’s even a silver lining. Once the bank clears the checks that triggered the rejection, the computer will memorize her individual pattern of bingeing and not interfere if she does it again.

Darn!