Florida woman’s phone vanishes at Sam’s Club. Her watch connects to a call, and the employee next to her panics: ‘the nerve of some people’

A woman from Florida says her phone disappeared while she was shopping at a Sam’s Club, and that she later found it hidden under plastic lid cups in the cart of an employee doing product sampling nearby.

The woman, identified on TikTok as Bre Carolan Sheffield, shared the story in a video posted to her account, @bresheffield. She said she had placed her phone on top of her purse in the child seat of her shopping cart before the item went missing.

Sheffield said she knew she had not simply misplaced the phone, since she had texted her mother from the coffee aisle asking if she needed anything, then noticed it missing only a short time later in a nearby aisle.

She retraced her steps through the store before going to member services

Sheffield said she went back through the aisles she had shopped, including the coffee aisle and the aisle with floss and mouthwash, but could not find her phone. She also checked under pallets in the store. Sam’s Club has made headlines for employee conduct before, like when a woman noticed something odd when an employee handed her a receipt. 

Sheffield then went to member services to ask if anyone had turned in a phone. An employee apparently told her a phone had been turned in about an hour earlier, but Sheffield said her phone had only gone missing in the past 15 to 20 minutes. She said she asked to use the employee’s phone to call her own number.

When she called, she said the phone rang twice and then went to voicemail. She called again with the same result. She said she then called her mother and asked her to keep calling the phone, telling her she would explain later.

As she retraced her steps again, Sheffield said she began hearing a pinging sound, similar to the sound her husband’s phone makes when locating hers. She said her Garmin watch, which she had taken off earlier, started picking up her mother’s calls, but she could not hear anything through it.

Sheffield said she noticed an employee doing taste testing nearby who kept reaching down and silencing something. She said this happened several times as her mother continued calling.

Sheffield then approached the employee and asked, “Excuse me, ma’am, did somebody turn in a phone by chance, um, around this area?” She described the employee’s reaction as a “deer in the headlights look” before the employee uncovered the phone, which had been hidden under plastic lid cups on a box.

According to Sheffield, the employee said, “This one I’ve been waiting for my manager to walk around so I could give it to her.” Sheffield responded by pointing out that the manager was already walking around the store looking for her. For Sam’s Club, employee conduct has drawn scrutiny beyond theft allegations, as one employee allegedly stopped a disabled girl and demanded she leave her scooter. 

Sheffield said she noticed the phone had been silenced during an active call with her mother, which she had picked up on her watch after it synced to the phone. She said the sound from the call had synced through her watch even though she could not hear it directly.

She said she then returned to member services and asked staff to thank the employee for “helping” her find the phone, and asked that the manager review security footage from the time the employee first had it. In her video, Sheffield questioned what the employee planned to do with the phone, noting that it was password-protected and could only be unlocked using facial recognition. She said in the video, “the nerve of some people.”

Sheffield said the entire search left her rattled, saying she searched the store on her hands and knees and joked that she needed a drink, despite not normally drinking, and a cigarette, despite not smoking.

The video, captioned “STORYTIME: Employee steals my phone edition!!” on TikTok, included the hashtags #storytime, #thief, #wtf, #fyp and #samsclub, and tagged Sam’s Club directly.

Sheffield did not say in the video whether Sam’s Club had responded to her directly following the incident. The video drew a number of comments from viewers. One person wrote, “That is crazy!!!” Another commenter offered advice, writing, “Lesson to learn – do not put your phone down and make sure it is secure.” A third viewer shared a detail about their own local store, writing, “Ours Sam’s Club the people that do the taste testing does not work for Sam’s Club! If that makes sense.”