Mother and daughter caught in alleged store return scam

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- A New Caney mother and daughter duo is accused of altering their state-issued IDs as part of a scheme to return items to big box stores for cash.

Sharon Hickson, 50, and her daughter, Courtney Rosas, 25, are accused of tampering with the IDs so they could continue to return possibly stolen items for cash.

The alleged scheme was uncovered Sunday, when Montgomery County Precinct 4 Deputy Constable Jesse Bullinger pulled over Rosas for minor traffic violations. Her mother was sitting in the passenger seat. Deputy Bullinger asked for the pair's licenses, and then things began getting odd.

"While we're talking to them, they seemed kind of nervous, trying to figure out what's going on," said Bullinger, adding the pair gave them IDs, not driver's licenses. "So I run the ID numbers and they come back different names than what I had."

Bullinger soon realized the IDs had been altered.

"They changed a 3 to an 8, they did a good job, you could barely tell. You had to really look at it," he said.

After Bullinger and his partner got permission to search the car, they found piles of receipts and a detailed notebook. The receipts were from Walmart, Ross, Home Depot and other big box stores. The pair was arrested and charged with tampering with the IDs. However, any charge of theft will take additional investigating.

Mother and daughter had already bonded out when Eyewitness News went looking for them. We found the pair inside their small trailer home in New Caney, just a short distance away from where most of the Porter Walmart location in many of the receipts.

"Did you guys get arrested for changing your IDs and stealing?" Eyewitness News asked.

"No," was the resounding answer from Hickson, who added, "I don't know who it was, but it wasn't us."

Deputies, however, say they believe the two had a scheme of using old receipts from big box stores to make returns on stuff they never bought.

"People get receipts that people see in the parking lot or whatever, they go in, they will go in steal those items and then try to return them using that receipt," said Bullinger.