MSE News: Sainsbury's shopper arrested for coupon fraud

princesslou_2

cocoloco wrote: »

I find this practise extremely disturbing!!!
I wonder if the supermarkets still do this, don't they have anything better to do?

to be honest i believe it to be worse now. You hear stories of the security guards having photos of people from security camera stills (in the DTD days) and keeping tallies of how many DTD vouchers people were spending (in regards to the £100 a week limit). Also someone recently asked to see what infomation mr t had on them (apparently its legal to do so) and when they got their clubcard account details, it had EVERYTHING on it, including notes on how many coupons and vouchers had been given. people were being pulled over and said "you came in tuesday and used till 6 at 2pm, then again on wednesday at....you spent x amount and used x amount of dtd vouchers.". luckily this never happened to me, but it WAS happening so they obviously do keep track of "suspicious" people *waves*.

I think, as well, we have to remember that mr t's is more than just a machine. yes they can log what your spending and what coupons are using (with your debit cards and clubcards in some cases) but also the staff are human. they speak to one another. if you go in using a high amount of coupons, they are likely to pass comment in the staff canteen about "the blonde *whatever* lady used £20 worth today". plus they do notice people coming in and using one till, then going out, coming back in and using another. they're not stupid. so i think you just have to play the game by their rules and manipulate the situation fairly. take what you can but do it by their rules.

im not, by the way, claiming i only ever take 1 of everything and am innocent. i have abused deals and glitches (however im not a fake-name coupon user) but after reading all this i will certainly be more careful what im doing!


OH, and in regards to the "don't they have anything better to do?" question....NO. they are bored lol. a little bit of excitement or biatching about the "coupon lady" that bought 50 dove deoderants and paid 2p for it passes the day quicker. plus, if its a "fake" copied coupon, unilever (or whoever its for) wont pay tesco for it. so lets assume the sainsburys ladys coupons were worth £5 each. thats £145 of rubbish coupons. the manager won't want that going on his record as a loss. and if one is doing it to such a large scale, you can be sure more are doing it on a smaller scale. So if he can weed some of those vouchers out and keep and eye on people, his profits go up, his store looks better, he gets better bonus's and better prospects in the long run. hes protecting himself. i suppose its just like how the corner shop would check your £20 is real before accepting it.

Googlies_2

myrtleturtle wrote: »

exactly why the rest of us genuine users are now having problems using coupons in stores

What is a genuine user?

princesslou_2

Googlies wrote: »

What is a genuine user?

a perfect user. only prints one-coupon, only takes one-item-per-glitch, follows the rules (while carefully bending them to suit glitches) in all situations. Also known to carry a mary poppins bag, complete with tape measure that measures them at "practically perfect in every way". in my opinion, obviously

Googlies_2

jamespir wrote: »

good hopefully this will be a lesson to those who clearly take the p

The lesson being not to accept a caution.

Old_Gold

I just wonder what has happened to the responsibility on the party offering the rewards in the first place. When hoover made their marketing mistake they had to honour it. Those issuing the vouchers should think ahead instead of trying lazy marketing tricks. If you encourage fraud to happen dont be surprised when it does.
however as stated this case is not about someone trying to get an extra 20p off their shopping but £150 at the minimum. Thats a different ball game.
It would have to be a stupid judge who would criminalise the normal voucher off junkie...........but unfortunately there are still too many stupid judges.

henlans

rose28454 wrote: »

Just wanted to add my opinion. When Tesco Dtd was going oN there was a Poster on here (henlans) who royally abused that promotion to an extreme degree and even posted pics if the haul he/she got. Funny how that persons locality is wrexham?

That is not me or anyone i know but if it was me i would not gave taken the caution and took it all the way to crown court but then again she did make up names but that talk is all over money saving about emails.

To this day with the dtd and jtd i did nothing wrong in law and would be more than happy to let a crown court jury decide. Some people on here rabbit on about stuff they dont know. Its also my beleave that the press openly make up stories or only tell half of the story and making a new facebook account to get a new voucher in my opinion is a misredemption and not breaking the law and would have been better to take to court to test it.

holly_hobby

I had a thought about the matter this AM - the offender used the self serve tills in Sainsbury's - from what I read on here - they only accept 3 vouchers before the SS assistant is called.

So that begs the question, either she used 3 vouchers with a value of £50 a piece - or something in this story is a little off (unless of course she said "oh here's the rest of my vouchers to be taken off" , handed the assistant a big wedge and hoped for the best).

Which means that she didn't actually get £150 off her bill at all, becuase the asssitant wouldn't have accepted the additional vouchers, which were apparently all duplicates/tampered originals would they ??

So, ever thought this story may just be a little bit not true - but aimed to put the fear of God into those who may currently abuse vouches & SS tills (as in this case Sainsubury's are fed up with absorbing the loss - rightly so but doesn't change the purpose of the story).

Just a thought as I say .... (unless they had been monitoring her over period of time, and let re-visit enough times using the same vouchers to hang herself !)

H

recovering_spendaholic

I have read this thread with interest. I have recently started using some MOC, however I only use the coupon for the item intended, and don't copy coupons or use loads at the same time. However I do sometimes combine conditional spend vouchers - for example: at the moment I have a Mr T till spit voucher for £6 off £40+ spend and I also have a Daily Mail £5 off £40 spend. It does not say that you can't combine the vouchers on either voucher so I was intending to go to Mr T at the weekend and buy a big shop (say £100) and then use both vouchers. Is this fraud? sorry if I am being a bit thick here!

jellyhead

maybe she used 3 vouchers each time but made 50 transactions?

madmuppet5

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

I have read this thread with interest. I have recently started using some MOC, however I only use the coupon for the item intended, and don't copy coupons or use loads at the same time. However I do sometimes combine conditional spend vouchers - for example: at the moment I have a Mr T till spit voucher for £6 off £40+ spend and I also have a Daily Mail £5 off £40 spend. It does not say that you can't combine the vouchers on either voucher so I was intending to go to Mr T at the weekend and buy a big shop (say £100) and then use both vouchers. Is this fraud? sorry if I am being a bit thick here!

Perfectly OK :beer:
Don't forget Mr. T's also take Sainsbury's conditional spends:D