Tamara Thomas may want to consider becoming a store detective — she certainly has an eye for the job.
On Saturday, she prevented a fraud which should be a cautionary tale for anyone who relies on their bank debit card.
The Stone Mountain woman went to the Super Save grocery on Redan Road for chicken because she had a hankering for a sandwich in a style that she had loved since her childhood in Darien — fried chicken thigh with bone included.
When she tried to pay, she was missing her debit card.
She quickly deduced the card must have fallen from her pocket when she pulled out her phone to make call in the store. She couldn’t find it, so she used a credit card to pay for the food.
A headache had replaced the chicken craving, so she headed across the parking lot to the Family Dollar to buy Goody’s Powder to cure it.
It was at the Family Dollar that Thomas, a 41-year-old administrative assistant for an engineering organization, showed her detecting prowess.
“I saw a family — man, woman and young son — shopping like it was Christmas,” she said in a Facebook post that she shared with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I looked at them grabbing toys and thought, ‘Someone hit the lottery.’ ”
She was a bit suspicious. According to a DeKalb County police report, Thomas noticed the family hadn’t even checked prices. At the cash register, she got in line behind the man as his wife left the store.
Sure enough, when it came time to pay for the nearly $200 in toys, the man whipped out a debit card and swiped it. Thomas could see that it was her customized card from Wells Fargo.
“I said, ‘Dude, that’s my card. Give me my card please,’” she said. “He says, ‘This is my wife’s card.’ I said, ‘No the hell it isn’t. Not with a picture of me, my daughter and puppy on the front. Give me my card.’”
By this time, the man’s son — whom Thomas described as about 11 or 12 — was looking at dad, who was still claiming the card belonged to him, in growing confusion, Thomas said. The man put his thumb over her picture, she said.
The clerk then asked for the card. Thomas said she was calling 911. The man told the boy, “let’s go,” and both headed out the door, without the toys and with Thomas trailing.
“He tells his son and the woman that’s waiting outside on the Christmas gifts, ‘Come on and run,’ ” Thomas said. “As they take off running, I’m on the phone with DeKalb County 911. I get in my car to see where they are going. They run behind a church.”
A DeKalb police officer quickly apprehended Kahlif Aleem Buggs, 32, after a foot chase. Officer A.M. Cadieu found Thomas’ debit card in Buggs’ coat pocket, according to the police report.
“He stated he found a bank card on the ground at the Super Save and used it at the family dollar … he was sorry and could he just pay the lady for the stuff he bought and drop the whole thing,” Cadieu wrote in the report.
Cadieu arrested Buggs, who he noted had also purchased a case of Corona beer at a nearby Texaco. Thomas said that another person’s card was also found on Buggs and in about 20 minutes he had run up about $80 in purchases.
The beer and toys were handed over to a detective. The card was returned to Thomas.
Attempts to reach Buggs for comment were unsuccessful. A woman who described herself as his wife when The AJC called said he wasn’t available and she didn’t want to discuss the episode.
Thomas said she went home much more elated. One of the first things she did was make her chicken sandwich.
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