MSE News: Sainsbury's shopper arrested for coupon fraud

*Jelly_Tots*

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!

You are not thick. This is an example of the grey area I was talking about earlier. If the supermarkets had a proper system in place, the customer should be able to hand over coupons/vouchers and relax, knowing that the staff will only take what is valid, safeguarding the customer. It should never get to the point where people are able to make so many 'coupon mistakes' that it gets them arrested. It's ridiculous that the supermarkets do not have checks in place to safeguard themselves and the customer.

JimmyTheWig

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!

As I have said before in this thread, I would hand them to the checkout assistant and say something like "presumably I can use these".
I think the problems come when you start to be underhand about it.

trukdiver

Search wrote: »

I do the shopping for several family members (totally legitimately) and whilst I rarely use coupons I have had coupons in different names to use in the past - is that not allowed:eek:?
!

There was a Sun offer of a free tin of corned beef from Tesco. (this was the sort of coupon you cut out of the paper)

Unfortunately, Tesco had sold out by 09:30... The manager told me they would honour the coupon when they had stock. My dad had also got the paper and hadn't been able to use his coupon so I offered to get his tin as well. I went to Tesco a couple of days later but they would only let me use one coupon.

On the first day of the offer, there were people on MSE boasting about how many tins of corned beef they had managed to get by buying multiple copies of the paper. No wonder Tesco had run out early!

forgotmyname

Mum used to scour these boards before popping along to tesco, Saved quite over the months.

A supervisor was on the till and pointed out a woman that had been in 4 times already that morning and
used handfulls of vouchers. Saying some people take the P and spoil it for others.

Next week she was told they no longer accepted the coupons unless buying the items and some internet
coupons would not be accepted at all.

So a few greedy people spoilt it for the masses.

DelBoyPhil

Would you call this fraud

You visit the unilever facebook page and print a coupon and it then asks if it printed ok and if you say it didnt it allows you to print another one?

You could use this as the same example.

You go into a tesco store and get a £10 topup voucher for a mobile phone and then say it didnt work and they would give you another one to use.
(I know they would check but this is only a example)

DelBoyPhil

It has emerged that one woman was cautioned by police last week after she copied a money-off coupon and used it several times in a Sainsbury¿s store.

This has allowed customers to scan a voucher and then retain it to use again instead of giving it up.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2042102/Tesco-Sainsburys-shoppers-face-convictions-abusing-money-vouchers.html#ixzz1ZAAQ9YBK

So she used the same coupon more then once, and kept the same coupon??? its not that clear.

I also just found this on ANOTHER report from DM about Price check.. and MSE

This article has it all wrong, it was not done with the tesco coupons, weeks back Tesco was advertising on their website that you entered your receipt from your days shopping, if they found out that Asda was cheaper on the items, they refunded double the difference, by sending you a link to print out a coupon to the value of double the difference. Many people on MSE found that the coupon could be printed many times, the tesco till operator was soposed to ask for the original receipt with the coupon but didnt. There were hundreds of MSE members bragging about how much they have saved on there shopping by doing this. very rarely were the shoppers asked for the original receipts, this is how they were getting away with it. Because of these greedy scamming shoppers, Tesco lost millions of pounds so they stopped it, meaning that the honest shoppers suffered, MSE still have on there site ways of scamming the big supermarkets, don't tell me that Martin Lewis didn't know, its his site.
- IN THE KNOW, SWANSEA, 27/9/2011 13:47

Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/news/article-2042303/Supermarkets-crack-voucher-fraud.html#ixzz1ZABzYeol

blue_monkey_2

She could well have been using the coupons and when the tills are cashed up, they look at the vouchers and see that they have different names on them despite going through the till the same time, same the next day and the day after that. It could also be that Unilever have asked Sainsbury to investigate it too.

I do think she will not be the first, nor the last. Someone was saying the other day that a Tesco manager refused to give DTD to someone because they knew that person had only bought that product to benefit from DTD and so was abusing the policy.

In this case the lady knew that she was not entitled to the vouchers so she changed her name to get them, which is fraud. I am new to couponing and lookat the DV&C board and it is often encouraged over there as someone has already pointed out. I like glitches and coupons but I get an uneasy feeling about actively going out of your way to benefit from DTD or changing your name and email to get an endless supply of coupons.

missamoo

This is my local Sainsburys! My mum shops there (hope it wasn't her lol, or my granny!)

Anon

MrsBartolozzi wrote: »

It's not the same as making lots of say the Campbell's coupon which is the same for everyone and comes as a PDF with NO instructions saying please print only one coupon.

Although the voucher is not unique, it doesn't necessarily mean that you can print it more than once (only that it is possibly not traceable back to you). The Campbell's voucher does say only one voucher per item purchased and only one voucher per customer ... (Honey Shreddies only states one voucher per item purchased, so if you buy two, you could legitimately use two etc?).

Anon

macma

I've only recently discovered some of the coupons mentioned,having worked for mr Ts in a former life I play by the rules.Sadly it's people who don't who ruin it for genuine folk.
As for the cashier having to work out what's allowed and what's not some of these poor guys have enough to do ! I know people think they just wave stuff over the scanner and scowl, trust me having trained many of them ,even years ago they had so much to remember and took so much abuse I doubt they want any more responsibility.