Goodyear Walgreens employee saves customer from falling victim to phone scammers

GOODYEAR, Ariz. (KSAZ) - According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), thousands of Americans lose money to telephone scammers ever.

In the West Valley, one vigilant clerk at a Goodyear Walgreens store is being credited with saving an elderly customer from falling victim to one such scam.

An off-duty Peoria Police officer just so happened to overhear the employee telling the elderly man that she thought he was being scammed. That's when Officer Brandon Sheffert snapped a photo and posted it to social media, because he was so impressed that the employee saved the man from a potentially very expensive scam.

The photo shows the employee sitting down with the customer, after she stopped him from being scammed out of money.

"I hear the employee say, I'm kind of concerned, I think that might be a scam," said Officer Sheffert. He says the man was trying to buy gift cards, and was telling the store employee he needed the cards to pay for access to his Google account.

The employee quickly recognized this as a potential scam, and took the time to try and rectify the situation for the man, even talking on the phone to the scammers.

"This employee was super aware, which was amazing to me," said Officer Sheffert. "Obviously, we deal with those calls all the time where people are getting taken advantage of."

Officer Sheffert's photo has since been shared over 200 times.

"In this line of work, we see so many times that people get taken advantage of for thousands of dollars, the whole life savings could go away, and this employee stopped him from being a victim," said Officer Sheffert.

FOX 10's Ty Brennan was able to briefly speak to the store employee over the phone on Monday morning. The employee said she was simply doing her job, and says the store actually train employees to look out for situations just like this one.