Casey’s Is Coming to Lawton; Will We Be Safe From Fraud?

Since the news of Casey's EZGO acquisition is officially confirmed, the question popping up around social media seems to be, "Will Casey's be safe to shop at?"

Considering the wild credit card issues the Midwest brand has had in recent years, it's a fair question... but there seems to be quite a bit of misdirected ire towards the pizza retailer.

Reports in Oklahoma first popped up in late 2021 and throughout 2022 about random credit and debit card charges of almost always an even $150 at Casey's locations weeks and months after people had last visited a store.

As more reports of credit card fraud at the retailer continued into 2023, Casey's soon found themselves in the middle of a rural Oklahoma legend... "Don't use your card at Casey's," but there's more to the story.

The rumor mill of Facebook did what it always does. It helped spread a rumor that Casey's was illegally tapping customers' accounts for random charges of $150, but that's not at all what was happening.

Here's what actually happened.

Casey's just happened to land at the center of someone else's card skimmer scheme. Since they most often have stores in small and rural towns across America's heartland, the skimmers made easy targets of unsuspecting consumers who have never had such worries.

Even worse, it was happening to plenty of people who swore they had never been to Casey's before... So Casey's wasn't even responsible for the skimming, but apparently made it easy for criminals to cash in with the stolen data.

The good news.

Customers have noticed that Casey's has taken steps to limit their customer's exposure to such schemes, primarily by upgrading payment points to Tap-To-Pay, allowing you to pay for your goods without the risk of your physical card being skimmed.

The bad news.

It has taken nearly a decade for Casey's to find a fix around this specific issue that has plagued them since as early as 2015.

The ugly.

Time will tell how the relationship between Casey's and Lawtonians goes. Given Lawton's recent history of revolt when Love's swept in and acquired the local EZGO company and all of its assets, hopefully, the pivot to a beloved corn-belt chain will be smoother.

The hilarious.

Locals on Facebook are currently swirling another rumor that the old guard from EZGO is upset with Love's over this whole thing.

The posts I read about it say something along the lines that Love's wanted to purchase just the interstate EZGO locations, and EZGO played hardball with that "buy them all or have nothing" ultimatum so Love's bought them all.

Months later, Love's got what they initially wanted by selling off the properties they weren't interested to Casey's, and apparently, those who were involved with EZGO are a little upset about it, calling it unfair.

It's important to note, this is just a rumor from social media, and the smartest people involved would never admit to it... but even if it is true, Love's did nothing wrong here. They just came out of this whole situation as the better, smarter company.

Despite all this, Casey's does have delicious pizza though.

On a lighter note, I can't wait till you have the chance to try Casey's pizza. It's really good for gas station pizza.