Coupon fraud is crime, even if it feels harmless: Coupon Counselor
Updated Posted
Coupon crime is a multi-billion dollar business. Did you laugh a little at "coupon" and "crime" used together? I did too when I first heard it.
Losses vary per store, but a realistic estimate puts the cost between $300 million and $600 million per year. If there is money to be made, crime syndicates want in. Across the country, schemers and scammers are stealing inserts and selling them, altering coupon values, creating forgeries, buying items with fake coupons and returning the items for cash or reselling the stolen goods.
At a lower level, people are decoding coupons to buy an item it was never intended for, shoplifting newspapers or printing coupons in illegitimate ways.
The consequences to the criminal aren't funny: years of jail time, thousands of dollars in fines and restitution, not to mention attorney fees.
Just last month, a man in Michigan was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison and $65 million restitution for his coupon fraud scheme. He ran a coupon redemption house, collecting the coupons from the stores and sorting them to get paid by the coupon issuer. He added unused coupons to the pile for years before he was caught.
Pa. coupon crimes
Last August, a man in Allentown was charged with theft after being accused of stealing $1,000 worth of newspapers and selling the inserts to an online dealer.
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