Sam’s Club shoppers buy $4k in gift cards and ask for a refund - but cops are called when a sneaky switch is discovered
Christopher Harper
Published Sep 02, 2026
NEBRASKA police have charged two people in a gift card scam that cost one big-ticket retailer thousands of dollars late last year.
New York residents Maria Calugaren, 40, and Marcu Anghel, 42, were charged in Hall County Court with theft by shoplifting at Sam's Club last week.
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The arrest affidavit says the two are wanted in the United Kingdom as well and are considered “prolific Romanian quick-change scammers," according to ABC-affiliated local news station NTV.
The criminal pair entered a Sam's Club store on 10 N. Diers Ave. in Grand Isle, Nebraska last November and headed towards the customer service desk, local reporters said.
They had a handful of gift cards with them that they asked to exchange over a simple misunderstanding — that turned out to be a total lie.
Calugaren and Anghel then requested to return eight gift cards worth $500 each, for a total of $4,000 worth of merchandise.
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They claimed to want the returns because they learned the cards could not be mailed by the store, the site manager told police.
The manager also said he was distracted during the exchange when he had to check the validity of a $100 bill that the pair had tried to use.
The manager completed the return, but only later realized he had exchanged active gift cards for inactive cards that had no value.
The manager called the police but the suspects fled the scene before officers could arrive.
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Investigators were able to find images of Calugaren and Anghel by combing through surveillance footage and sharing the images with a police database.
British police were able to help Nebraska police identify the accused, leading to their arrest warrants being issued last week.
The pair have been charged with theft by shoplifting between $1,500 to $4,999 worth of merchandise.
They have yet to be apprehended at the time of publication.
Gift card scams have run rampant at many big-name retailers in recent years.
Four people were accused of using gift cards to scam Walmart out of $15,000 in merchandise earlier this month.
And consumer protection experts are warning romantics to watch out for this gift card scam that has taken over $33,000 from victims.
