Batesburg

  Belk Columbia had a small store in Batesburg, SC.  The buyers in Columbia would put in small amounts of merchandise for that store.  Much of what they brought into the store was used as a test market to see what would sell.  It was primarily a clothing store for men, women and children.  They had very little Home goods.  What they did have consisted of was a little bit of Housewares items.

 I was working in Accounts Payable, and we got an invoice from Samsonite for 23 pieces of Luggage that was bought for the Batesburg store.  We had no paperwork from Batesburg that they had received the Samsonite.  I checked with the buyer to see if she had bought luggage for Batesburg.  She said she had to test if the customers would purchase the luggage.  I then called the store and asked the manager if they had gotten any luggage.  He told me that they hadn't.  I read off the invoice to him and said that the luggage had supposedly been sent to East Main Street in Batesburg.  He told me that his store was on West Main Street.  The manager drove out to the address on East Main and found that it was a house owned by a man.  He found the man in his garage with a bunch of boxes of Samsonite Luggage.  The manager told the man that those boxes belonged to Belk and had the store's name on them.  The man said that they had his address on them, and he was keeping them.

 The manager called back to our office to report on what had happened.  I called the Lexington County Sheriff's Department and reported that a man had stolen a lot of luggage from Belk, and that he had it in his garage.  They sent a car out to the man's house to confirm that the boxes were in his garage.  The deputy explained to the man that he had essentially stolen the luggage from Belk, and that he was to return it to the store.  The man told the deputy that he thought he had won a sweepstakes that he hadn't entered and got the luggage for free.  He also told the deputy that he had given one piece away to his neighbor.  Upon urging from the deputy, the man returned the luggage, minus one piece, to the store.  

 We paid the invoice in full, despite not getting it all in the store. I hope the woman who got the free Beauty Case enjoyed it.