(WSVN) - An 84-year-old grandmother in Texas says she was fired from her job at Walmart over a $1 bill.
Franke Ruffino was initially hired as a greeter at the Burton, Texas store, then became a telephone operator after her health declined, KHOU reports.
“I wanted to work real bad,” she told the station. “I gave it my all, that’s all I can say, never came late.”
Ruffino says she needed to work to pay for her medication and oxygen tanks. She says she had a spotless record during her time at the retail giant, with no issues in her nearly 10 years of working there.
That is, until she spotted a single dollar bill in the aisle during the store’s closing time.
Ruffino said it was late, so she picked it up, put it on her walker, and drove home. The next day, a manager called her in to speak with her.
“She said, ‘Did you find some money yesterday?’ I said, ‘Yes, I picked up a dollar bill, here it is right there,'” she recalled.
Ruffino finished her shift, but upon reporting for work the following day, she was asked to turn in her badge and vest, according to KHOU.
“You have been let go because of your integrity,” she says she was told. “If they had told me, ‘Ms. Frankie, you’ve got to where you don’t get around, you’re on oxygen, and you’re old and we just don’t have a place for you,’ I would rather they tell me that then to tell me I don’t have any integrity.”
The station reached out to Walmart about Ruffino’s firing, but the company said they do not comment on personnel matters.
Copyright 2025 Sunbeam Television Corp. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.