While the man in the earlier story who mentioned that he might get a machine gun and use it against the employees of a customer service call center was improperly venting his frustration, the person who called in a bomb threat to a New Jersey Kmart was just trying to scam the store out of some money.

According to the Newark Star-Ledger, someone called a Kmart in Cape May County, NJ, on Tuesday, threatening to set off an explosive device in the store if it failed to add money to a Green Dot prepaid debit card.

Funds were not added to card, but police were called and K-9 units gave the Kmart a thorough sniffing to make sure it was a hoax.

Authorities say this incident is just a variation of the prepaid debit card sweepstakes scam, in which an unwitting victim is told he won a cash prize but will need to go purchase a prepaid debit card in order to pay some sort of “fee” to receive the funds (yes, people actually fall for this… all the time). The victim then gives the scammer the card info and the scammer takes whatever money is on that account. Except in this case, the scammer decided that rather than charming the victim into falling for the scam, he would try to scare the money out of them.

Caller threatens to blow up N.J. Kmart if funds aren’t added to prepaid money card [NJ.com]
UPDATE: Fraud Scam to Blame for Bomb Threat at Rio Grande Department Store [Cape May County Herald]

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