Wal-Mart Tosses Student In Jail For Trying To Cash Real Money Orders, Then Sends Her A Bill
Nitra Gipson sold her car to pay for her last two semesters at Texas Southern University, where she is studying criminal justice (of all things), and was paid with Wal-Mart Money Orders. When she tried to cash these money orders at her local Wal-Mart she was arrested and charged with felony forgery -- even though the money orders were real.
“Humiliating is not the word for it,” Gipson told KHOU news. “I was horrified. I think they singled me out because of the amount of money that it was and (thought) I was trying to get over on them.”
Nothing she did convinced the Wal-Mart manager to drop the charges. Finally, after 48 hours behind bars, the District Attorney's office released her after she provided the purchase receipts. You might think that was the end of Ms. Gipson's ordeal. Nope.
From KHOU:
Gipson said Wal-Mart then added insult to injury when she got a letter in the mail.
“I started to read it and thought, ‘Oh my God.’ They are asking me to pay them when it was clearly their mistake,” said Gipson.
The letter demanded Gipson pay Wal-Mart $200 to settle a shoplifting charge. It is a charge that never existed, though.
KHOU says that they contacted Wal-Mart and were told that the decision to press charges was up to the law enforcement officer at the scene. KHOU also notes that the copy of criminal complaint they obtained shows that the store manager is the one who pressed charges.
TSU student jailed on bogus Wal-Mart forgery charge [KHOU](Thanks, nick!)
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Comments:
Ouch. I hope she'll go to a different walmart to cash them, then never go back again.
Stay classy you large-scale discount retailer!
Once again, Wal-Mart fails, epically. Wal-Mart is a company of fucking idiots that all deserve to die. I shop at Target because I simply CANNOT STAND Wal-Mart any longer.
Exactly - sue the hell out of them.
the real question is... why the hell would you accept payment for a car in WALMART money orders?
Sweet sue Wal-Mart for millions. Start going to a psychologist right away for the emotial distress. You need to play this up that Wal-Mart ruined your life.
Yeah, I'm thinking Wal-Mart's going to pay for your last two semesters at TSU.
Gotta love that they catch the manager in a lie. I guess the moral of the story is that people at Wal-Mart think all of their customers who have large sums of money are all criminals.
WTF?
Man, I'm so glad all of attempts to have a WalMart open within NYC has been blocked.
BTW, the best part of the article is:
"Wal-Mart should be held responsible and accountable for letting this child go to jail for two days. All because she was doing what any customer of Wal-Mart should do," said community activist Quannel X
Quannel X???? Awesome
I dream of being wronged to this extent by the owners of the deepest pockets in the world.
You're a winnah in the Lawsuit Lottery. Go collect your prize, babe.
WHOA! That particular Wal-Mart, especially the store manager definitely deserves to burn in hell for this one!
@laserjobs: agreed, they'll probably just settle and then you can pay for the last two semester AND get a car.
Cash money orders at Walmart?! Ever heard of a bank? Now that is off my chest...
SUE the hell out of Walmart for false imprisonment and emotional distress because they for had no right to detain you when you broke no law. SUE the city for false arrest!
I don't think you'll have to worry about coming up with tuition money after you finish with them.
Being a manager is cool. Being a manager at a Wal-Mart... not so much. Sounds like an ego boosting power trip or something of the sort. Come on manager, the MOs were real, you screwed up, drop it.
@laserjobs: I believe that in many states, emotional distress claims are only available as an add-on to one's own personal physical injury, or the physical injury of a family member. Hopefuly for her, that isn't the case in Texas.
I'm still laughing that there is such a thing as a Wal-mart money order..... HAHAHA
there is definitely something wrong in the world today and Wal-mart it may be.
Not to state the obvious, but I think that this manager's career is pretty much over. What a load of crap...I hope Wal-Mart ends up paying for the rest of her college.
sounds like Ms. Gipson isn't going to be having any more tuition issues, cause she'll be getting the equivalent of a full scholarship courtesy of Wal-Mart (after her lawyer gets done with them that is).
Wow, I would think a counter suit would be in order. I mean, she was using their product exactly as intended, and they *had her arrested* for it. That's just f-d up!
In a way, isn't this good luck for Ms. Gipson? She'll probably end up with a nice settlement check.
Normally, I would say wait and say the Consumerist should wait and try to post the other side of the story. But this time, I don't see how Walmart can explain their way out of this one. Lawyer up and go after them.
From the article: "Charges were dropped after the money orders were verified when Gipson provided the purchase receipts."
Why did she have to prove her innocence when there was no proof of any wrongdoing? This makes no sense to me at all.
the story leaves out a lot that I find confusing. One, what made walmart think the checks were forged? Two, the police are also somewhat culpable in this. Just because someone wants to press charges doesn't mean the police automatically take you off to jail for 2 days (no one bailed her out?). I mean I can press charges against anyone all day long but if there's no probable cause the police just can't throw you in the clink. So either the cops in this case are mindless lemmings or there was some small iota of suspicion that led to her being arrested. This is NOT a blame the victim post, but we don't know if this girl had previous run-ins with the police before.
Ya, I think money for college will not be a problem for her anymore.
I wish stuff like this happened to me, I want to get paid!
@Lambasted: I agree with you, but if she is selling her car to pay for school, she doesn't have the money to sue anyone. Let alone wal-mart. She is unfortunately going to remain a victim in this.
This is where instead of a retailer respecting the choice of the consumer to shop at their store the store figures they are doing the consumer a favor of letting them shop at their store and took it to the extreme and should be ashamed and the manager should be terminated.
False arrest, illegal detainment, wow, this list could go on and on but in this world, the corporation will prevail!
I don't like the idea that you can get arrested and held in jail just because a person who is in charge at the store makes an allegation that they can't prove. If he turned around and said "well this person sold me the money order, so if it's fake, it's this persons fault" would the manager have gone to jail? I don't think so. When they detain you illegally for refusing to see a receipt, do they get arrested and held in jail? Again, I don't think so. Why does a corporation automatically seem to get a free pass with law enforcement to the obvious detriment of everyone else?
I hate frivolous lawsuits as much as the next guy but using a companies product as intended and then getting arrested...take those fuckers to court.
@midwestkel: They could. But since it's wal-mart, and they have a whole team of lawyers, you would need one ballsy lawyer. I hope she finds one.
Lets not forget the fact that she was studying criminal justice. A felony arrest may make her ineligible for many of the jobs she might have been looking at.
Wow. One more reason to stay out of Wal-Mart AND Texas!
@ftrain:
>>Quannel X???? Awesome
I believe it's a new cell phone/midi/gps/defibrillator/mp3/mpeg all-in-one chip, right?
this manager should be fired, better yet he should have to stand outside the wal mart store with a sign around his neck w/ what he did.
hopefully no one ever hires him with any management power ever.. idiot..
How did she provide the receipts if she was in jail? Around the 27th hour in the cooler, she remembered they were in her back pocket?
This story doesn't make a lot of sense.
@Bladefist: No one needs any money to sue anyone. Lawyers almost always (as in, I've never heard of it being done differently) will take civil cases with payment being a percentage of the plaintiff's winnings (usually 1/3 I think). Not to mention that this sounds like a pretty easy case to win if we indeed have all the correct details.
Want money orders? Go to the post office. It's easier to forge a Wal-Mart money order, and that's why scammers love them. Or at least use Western Union.
@ftrain: @MyPetFly: Quannel X is actually a very very popular person down those parts. If anyone of some sort of non-white race gets into any kind of legal issue, he's there. More often than not, when the police can't find people they're looking for, it's most likely because they're with Q.X. working on their story before he gets them to turn themselves in.
I hear about his "magic" all the time.
@savvy9999:
Well, she probably called a family member or friend and had them retrieve the receipts. Or she was finally able to convince the police to retrieve them from her home or car.
Let them know your concerns:
Wal-Mart Store #2718
9555 So. Post Oak Road
Houston, TX 77096
(713) 551-9148
And btw, just because you are arrested doesn't mean you will be automatically denied jobs. Only if a felony conviction occurs or any conviction for that matter.
@savvy9999: FTA
No manner of effort by Gipson to show that the money orders were legit worked. The store manager insisted she be charged.The district attorney's office saw it differently. Charges were dropped after the money orders were verified when Gipson provided the purchase receipts.
It sounds to me as though she showed the receipts to the manager, and the manager refused to accept it.
Wal-Mart should've been able to verify those money orders almost instantly. The fact that they didn't means (a) they're lazy to the point of negligence or (b) Wal-Mart's handling of their money order business is a total joke. Possibly both.
As there are somehow, despite all human understanding, some blame-the-victim posts in here:
1) Accepting payment for a used car in money orders beats a rubber check any day. Wal-Mart money orders are apparently entirely valid, despite the fact that one Wal-Mart doesn't know it, so why should she not have done this?
2) Many Wal-Marts have banks, so it's not an odd place to cash a money order of any sort -- and you'd think it would be a great place to cash Wal-Mart's own money orders. Guess not.
Wow here come the lawyers. . . . Walmart screwed her twice, not only did they falsely accuse her of forgery (which is a felony) they also screwed her because she's a criminal justice major (it's going to be impossible to get a job in any level of law enforcement with a felony record).
Side note Walmart you may not want to screw people who are in criminal justice/law enforcement over chances are they know a few good lawyers or can have them recommended by others in the field. Especially when pressing charges on someone who has not committed any crimes. I understand she obviously didn't have a lot of money which is why she sold the car to pay for school, but if I were her I'd contact my Criminal Law teachers(who usually are lawyers or work for the states attorneys office) for advice trust me they will help her find someone to represent her in court.
Lawsuit = Free Graduate School, and a new car if you are lucky.
Libel ... :)
Lawsuit?