Have you ever gone into a store, swiped your card, and it's declined? It can be embarrassing, but for crooks, it's the new way to scam a business.
Wagoner County Sheriff's Office Deputy William Sieg said that's how a scam began this week in Broken Arrow.
"We had a victim that had two suspects come into his business, attempt to buy two trailers worth about $13,000," Sieg said.
When suspect number one paid for the trailers, Sieg said his card was declined.
"The individual, first suspect, stated, 'Not a big deal, I have my credit card setup that way,'" Sieg said.
Sieg said the suspect told the business all he needed to do was get a code from his bank to do what's called a "forced transaction".
"So, within a few minutes, the code pops up on suspect number one's phone," he said.
Sieg said suspect number two was nearby sending it.
"Victim looks at it, it's got all the bank information, legitimate, bank name, logos, access code, approval," he said. "And so, he's like, 'Huh, I've never seen this.' So, he types in the access code into his point of sale machine and it basically bypasses the decline."
According to the sheriff's office, it doesn't matter what code is used. It could be as simple as 123.
Sieg said the employee knew something wasn't right and told the suspects the bank needed to approve the transaction, and that they would need to come back to pick up the trailers.
"So they leave in a rented U-Haul pickup truck," Sieg said. "So he gets the tag number, the state that it's registered to, and all of that for us. Given the history that I found on these individuals, more than likely, this wasn't going to be their only stop that day."
Soon after, the business owner went to the address the suspects gave and realized the property was abandoned. That's when the business contacted the WCSO to investigate.
The sheriff's office confirmed this week with the bank that the account was fraudulent.
Now, WCSO is telling business owners that's what they should do to avoid this scam.
"If they don't do it and they allow the customer to do it, there's a high risk that they're going to be victimized," Sieg said.
Sieg said their next step is obtaining warrants to go after the suspects.