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Molino Man Charged With Pumping $7,100 In Gas On Employer’s Credit Card
March 22, 2011
The 69th time a Molino man allegedly fraudulently used a company fuel credit card at a Lucky 68 gas station proved to be unlucky for him.
Willie Clarence Sapp, 48, of Barth Lane, Molino, was charged with felony fraud/swindle and booked into the Escambia County Jail on $10,000 bond for allegedly using a company credit card to fraudulently pump over $7,000 in gas for his personal vehicle during a 13 month period.
According to Pensacola Police, Sapp used a McAleer Furniture company fuel card 69 times as the Lucky 68 store on Davis Highway in Pensacola to purchase unleaded fuel for his personal vehicle. Even though the card specified it was for diesel fuel only, Sapp told police he was able to use the Fuelman card to purchase unleaded for his personal vehicle because the clerk would charge it as diesel.
From January 6, 2010, to February 16, 2011, Sapp charged $7,168.56 to the McAleer’s card, according to police. Sapp was employed as a delivery driver for the company during the period.
Calling it a “systematic scheme to defraud”, police said Sapp admitted to the fraudulent credit card purchases.
Comments
21 Responses to “Molino Man Charged With Pumping $7,100 In Gas On Employer’s Credit Card”
A slow economy has a tendency to bring out the “creativity” of some folks as they scramble in attempts to stay afloat with bills and so forth. While some employers may have simply terminated the employee for the rest of us to later hire and work with. My hat is off to this employer and his staff for taking more appropriate legal action as this must have been a tough decision.
The above calculated average of $538.00 assumes the first fraudulent transaction equaled those at the end of this marathon. Assuming $538 was taken in the first transaction would be ludicrous as it would most likely have raised the flag initially. More realistically, one can assume this theft started off quite mildly in the beginning. Then, the amounts increased over time in attempts to “fly under the radar” so to speak.
An attempt to divert blame towards the employer (victim in this case) for taking time to properly evaluate the rising expenses does not put him/her at fault in the situation. In actuality, it may show that the employer was performing due diligence to be certain any alleged accusations against an employee are correct before jumping the gun.
There’s definitely a trust relationship all employers share with each employee. Upon initial suspicion of fraudulent activity is taking place, an employer must weigh in the fact that if he/she acts too fast by pulling a suspect employee aside to further discuss, there is a possibility the employee would be innocent and then jeopardize that shared trust relationship they previously shared.
Let us not forget the combined efforts of the convenience store employees as they tag-teamed the employer. These individuals also committed fraud by intentionally charging the credit card with goods that were not purchased in efforts to cover up and allow the transaction to take place. Who knows how many other businesses are being scammed at this facility today? After reading this article, I’m not sure I’d trust them with cash let alone my credit card.
Someone from the company must have tipped them off. Most furniture delivery trucks have a 50-80 gallon tank on them. They get 8-10 miles to the gallon. They have several trucks in their fleet. They do alot of delivery business so it probably just looked like regular expenses to the accounting department. All of the fuel costs are a tax deduction at the end of the year anyway.
This doesn’t excuse this guy from doing this. He’s probably not the only one. Let’s not do anything to him because he’s socially and economically disadvantaged. Of course the cashier is as pure as the driven snow. What is scary is how many county and state employee are out there gassing up their private vehicles in county and state in-house garages or use county or state credit cards to do so.
If this man was ripping off the company he works for and an employee
was of the gas station was involved, then it would seem to me that probably
there could be many victims of this type of crime and that even the gas station had better be checking it’s till and doing an inventory.
Sounds to me like none of them had any moral code
what do this have to do with obama? Why all the hate?
There you go. Hit a lick, did you? Good going. I hope you had fun with it. We need to go back to the work camps, prison is a joke for some of these hard-heads. You are there to REPAY your debt to society …. they wouldn’t be laying around eating lil Debbie’s all day if I were the authority over it. Nonchalantly STEALING … I am truly fed-up with all the pure greed that is around me. I don’t think this is what my Great-Great-Grandfather had in mind when they came here. What a disappointment.
this is no different than in the old days when places would take food stamps for beer. this was when they were real stamps (coupons) and not some debit card!
Maybe his boss told him to use the card and then the Corporate office did a sting on him. His supervisor should have picked this up the first month this happened. Sometimes there is alot more to these things than meets the eye. Maybe he is a crook like the people on Wall Street & Bernie Madoff.
What is wrong with people!? I would never ever be able to do something like this!! You know your going to eventually get caught, It’s just a matter of time, So why not just do what you have to do to use your own money for things that you need and use your employers credit cards for what they were supposed to be used for! Sad, just plain sad! I hope he gets more than just a year on probation or something. I know there are people going out doing way more than this but at the same time, his employer trusted him with that credit card and he just completely blew it out of the water, And used it excessively! $7,000.00/13=$538.00 and some pocket change! That’s insane, was he also filling up for friends and family!? $538.00/4wks=$134.50. geeze, I wonder if he thinks it was worth it now?
There are a lot of things here that should be looked at. Including managment for the gas station. But most of all the management of the employer who should have caught this a long time ago. Tells me the employer better be looking at his or her internal accounting and management. This should not have happened or at least gotten this far before being discovered.
As a business owner I am constantly looking for problems. Although I know most of my employees are honest and would like to think they are all honest. But, all it takes is one and it makes it hard on all. You have to generate about 3and one half times the amount stolen to net the amount need to pay for this expenditure.
I agree with some of you on here the station better be looking at their employees as well. If they are in on this then they are probably stealing from their employer as well. Even if it is little amounts it adds up quickly over the long haul.
Employees forget sometimes it takes a team to generate this amount of money to pay them for their work. So, when they are stealing from the “company” they are stealing from their co-worker as well. And possibly their community because if the employer can not afford to do business in the area he or she will have to close or move the businees else where there goes the jobs and tax revenue that helps the city, county, and state.
” Sapp told police he was able to use the Fuelman card to purchase unleaded for his personal vehicle because the clerk would charge it as diesel.”
Shouldn’t the clerk be charged with complicity?
Can someone please tell me what working for Obama has to do with this story?
THERE’S MORE TO THIS STORY. $7,000.00 DOLLARS IN FUEL IS A LOT FOR A PRIVATE OWN VEHICLE OVER A 11 MONTH PERIOD OF TIME. WE QUESTION THE CLERK AT THE STATION. WHERE WAS THE ACCOUNTANT’S HEAD? IN THE SAND. GIVE US THE BREAK DOWN OF THE PURCHASES. HE PROBABLY FUELED THE TRUCK & CAR.
I HAVE A PICK UP AND MY FUEL CAN COST ME NOW ABOUT 250.00 A MONTH.
I wonder since the fuel was charged as diesel, if the
unsuspecting employer was charged even more?
Who is the real Sapp in this crime?
I can’t believe the store manager didn’t notice the difference in the fuel sold monthly totals..Store records would have shown that there was more diesel left and less unleaded..Or maybe it was the manager doing the switch out..Must have been a good scam if he did it for a year..Lock all involved up for theft and fraud.
He needs to work for Obama..
You can do anything you want to with a credit card if the person at the station is in on it are will turn a blind eye to it. She is a crook to.
is the clerk going to be charged too? He said that they assisted him in his fraud!
doofus, good observation. The clerks were probably in on the scheme and were over-charging, and then putting the overage as cash in their pockets.
Probably paid the clerk to change the purchase to Diesel.
They had better check out the employees at the “Lucky 68″. More than $500/month in fraudulent gasoline purchases by one man – I am willing to bet there are a lot more questionable credit card transactions handled at this location,
What kind of vehicle did he have? That’s $103 a fill up… Did he gets cigarettes and beer too?