JCPenney Employee Checks Store Surveillance Footage To Return Lost $300 To Christmas Shopper

A grandmother shopping for her family’s Christmas presents was given the gift of the holiday spirit, in the form of a JCPenney employee who did a little detective work to return $300 she’d dropped at the store.

Carrie of Billings, Mont., was at JCPenney on Black Friday with an envelope full of cash, receipts, and a list of her grandchildren’s first names and sizes in her back pocket, reports the The Billings Gazette. She did some shopping and headed home — until she realized she’d dropped the envelope (she doesn’t carry a purse), still containing $300 after shopping, somewhere along the way.

She went back to the store, asked around and searched the parking lot for hours, but came up with nothing.

“You lose your Christmas money, no matter how much it is, and you’re just sick to your stomach,” she said. “I was just so down about it.”

Shortly after, an employee happened upon the envelope and turned it over to the loss prevention supervisor, Reggie. He checked the surveillance footage until he found where Carrie had dropped the envelope.

Although there was no identifying information in the envelope, he went ahead and did a little digging. The sticky note with kids’ sizes and first names had a Billings company logo at the top, so he first called there and read the names out to the person on the other end. When that failed, he emailed a photo of Carrie from the tapes — and the woman on the phone instantly recognized her and gave her contact info.

Carrie says she was shocked when Reggie called her to tell her he had her money.

“It just touches me, that they would pick one thing out of everything like that, a lost envelope, and take the time to track me down,” she said. “It’s not even about the money. It’s the fact that it happened the way it happened. Sometimes you just run into people that still have a heart and still have compassion. Call it the Christmas spirit or call it karma.”

*Thanks to Tracy for the tip!

Return of $300 helps restore Christmas spirit for Billings woman [The Billings Gazette]

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