A Kroger cashier in West Virginia has been arrested for allegedly double-dipping on coupons, by giving her coupon-bearing customers a discount, then using the same coupons to give herself a discount – in the form of cash.
36-year-old Danielle Catron of Beckley, West Virginia was charged with embezzlement last Wednesday. Over a two-month period beginning in September, police say she reused hundreds of coupons that she had accepted from customers, rescanned them, removed the equivalent amount of cash from her register, and pocketed it.
The investigation began after the corporate office notified the store that something suspicious was going on. According to the criminal complaint, an asset protection agent observed Catron on surveillance video and saw her in the act of accepting customers’ coupons and later rescanning them. The agent then watched surveillance video taken on ten other occasions, and said he witnessed the same behavior.
In all, from the end of September through the day before Thanksgiving, the store said Catron rescanned her customers’ coupons on 88 separate occasions and collected a total of $1,329 in cash.
Police got involved and interviewed Catron at the store. During questioning, they say she admitted stealing the money, and later provided a written statement reading in part, “I scanned coupons and took the cash amount of the coupons.”
While misusing coupons or using counterfeits is often the scam of choice for shoppers, scanning coupons and pocketing the cash is one of the more common forms of coupon fraud among cashiers. But it’s also among the easiest to detect – if the system shows that more coupons have been scanned than are being turned in, that’s a big red flag that something shady is going on. Then it’s just a matter of finding out which cashier is responsible.
Catron is charged with one felony count of embezzlement. If convicted, she faces a possible fine of up to $2,500 and a prison sentence of anywhere from one to ten years. She’s currently behind bars in lieu of $5,000 bond.
And whenever she gets out, if she wants to save some money, she’ll have to get some coupons of her own. And if she wants to make some money – she’ll have to find herself another job.
Image sources: Beckley Police Department / MikeKalasnik 
Don’t try no poupon the coupon,you will be tagged!
This is stupid what a dumb waste of money to investigate her…bless her and family for trying to help her family with money. Krogers has plenty of money.
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