MSE News: Sainsbury's shopper arrested for coupon fraud

jamespir · 26 September 2011 at 11:54PM

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

Princess_Coupon · 26 September 2011 at 11:58PM

Next time I'm overcharged in Sainsbury's I wonder what the police will say when I ring them to report a theft?

jan1450 · 27 September 2011 at 12:01AM

i think it means that she used the same £17.50 clubcard voucher several times without putting it in the slot on the self service checkout. That's what it looks like from reading the story on the "this is money" website.:(

aimingforadebtfreelife · 27 September 2011 at 12:23AM

Greed is paramount here... for the tesco one if it was me and I tried it a second time and successful I would have stopped there. How many fraudsters have been caught because they kept on at their scam without calling it a day early?? The longer it goes on the longer they have to get you.

sasa7 · 27 September 2011 at 12:28AM

hi all am new to this so i hope i am alright putting my 2p in lol.
that was the way i read it to ..........not putting the voucher in the slot. i will stick with the happy people on the checkouts to keep me right with my coupons.

thanks:)

even a wee saving is better than nothing at all:T

jenniewb · 27 September 2011 at 3:26AM

I don't get why people are so confused wondering what she did- is it that you can't see what she did was wrong or because you have not read the full story (linked to the first post).

She printed out many vouchers, all with different names and used them all on her shopping. It totalled £150.

Now, my mind is in two places and neither are on the side of the women: Firstly, the choice she made to make up the emails and different names as mentioned, those would be lies. That would be fraud. Probably overlooked if done once or twice but to the value of £150 when those vouchers are likely to be about £1.50 at best?? Thats going too far! There appears to me no hard-and-fast-law, just common sense here! Probably going on the goodwill of the store to let it go once or twice but that many times is OTT. How could she not know this?

And then the amount, thats just beyond a joke and asking for consequences! I'm beginning to think this was some sort of 'cry for help' in terms of learning whats right and wrong- either that or some sort of a commercial statement!

It does annoy me though as its these same actions that have everyone else treated as thieves as soon as we hand over any sort of a coupon "...do you have the product? *raises eyebrowns*, show me the product, *applies glasses and looks at the product, slowly and in all its 3D form before proceeding to the till screen to double check it has actually been scanned*" before allowing me to leave the store after paying my bill.

Have I misused a coupon before? Not to my knowledge but it would appear we customers are all viewed the same way, as fraudulent shoppers because of people like this lady!

*Jelly_Tots* · 27 September 2011 at 8:15AM

Martin Lewis said: "While checking the terms and conditions is acceptable and pushing within the acceptable boundaries is fine, lying or misleading firms is fraud and we strongly caution against it."
But even in theory "pushing within the acceptable boundaries" could be fraud. There is a grey area with couponing/voucher code use, where it is difficult to know where the boundaries end. I'm not excusing fraud, but the problem with 'pushing boundaries' is that some newbies/gullible/easily-led people are swept along/encouraged with posts on this site, thinking it is acceptable to do fraudulant things, whereas the more savvy of us will be able to decide where to stop. Obviously this woman was OTT though.

rickbonar · 27 September 2011 at 8:16AM

Well this story I'm sure is another one of these minor frauds if you can call it that, to divert attention from the real heavy fraudsters in government and positions of privilege.

Truth is we've all been conditioned to accept this as normal behaviour over the last 25 years or so, and the reality is that nearly everybody in the country has done something that would qualify as fraud or deception at some time.

Just look at MP situation for example.... they tried everything they could to block the truth from being published. Even blocking the freedom of information act and went through the farce blacking out the guilty peoples names and addresses. Well done the the Daily Telegraph for publishing the truth!

After a laughable whitewash of a "major investigation" only a small handful of whipping boy retiring MPs or peers were convicted and ALL served or are serving a fraction of the term that the court set.

This woman could actually spend more time in prison than either David Chaytor or Elliot Morley.

24 carat fraud in both those cases ... (allegedly )

We all know this is the tip of the iceberg of course, many of the "within the rules" quotes.... right ... and who makes the rules eh!

Fifa bungs
Bankers golden handshakes for fraud and failure
Cricket match fixing
Remember Robbie Williams and Ant and Dec awards fiddle
Blue Peter and the cats name competition fraud
The whole of the late night premium rate number competitions scam
The Olympics committee (allegedly)
Cameron cycling through red lights with his briefcase being chauffeured in his executive Daimler following behind

Need I go on?

And we're worried about a woman printing out too many shopping vouchers..... Really ... is it any wonder why she thought it OK?

rose28454 · 27 September 2011 at 8:21AM

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?