Shaq's 2 AM Walmart Spree

When Shaquille O'Neal was traded to the Phoenix Suns, he needed to furnish an empty apartment fast. His solution: a 2 AM Walmart run.

Shaq loaded up cart after cart with flat-screen TVs, laptops, stereo equipment, and every appliance he could find. The total came to approximately $70,000. When he swiped his card, the transaction was declined.

The bank's fraud detection system had flagged the purchase. Not because the amount was too large for Shaq's account — the man was earning tens of millions a year — but because no one in the bank's fraud algorithm had accounted for someone spending $70,000 at Walmart at two in the morning.

Shaq has told the story multiple times on podcasts and talk shows, always with the same punchline: the richest person in the store couldn't buy anything because the bank thought his identity had been compromised by "a crazy person at Walmart." The crazy person was a seven-foot-one NBA champion.