Two years after their counterfeit coupon scheme first came to light, the eighth and final participant in a scam that cost Meijer more than $800,000 has been sentenced for her role in the crime.
32-year-old Christine Day has been ordered to serve a minimum of 26 months and a maximum of 20 years behind bars, after pleading guilty to conducting a criminal enterprise and using a computer to commit a crime.
Day and seven others in Kent County, Michigan were arrested back in January 2023. That was shortly after Meijer discovered that shoppers had been using fraudulent coupon bar codes at several of its stores, as part of a scheme they later found had been going on since at least 2018.
Details about exactly how the fraud was carried out or what kind of bar codes were used were not revealed, though one defendant was described as scanning a fraudulent bar code dozens of times during just one store visit, in order to get thousands of dollars worth of gift cards for little or nothing out of pocket.
That was 31-year-old Travis Gale, who was sentenced for his role several months ago. Investigators who searched his home after viewing one of his fraudulent shopping trips on surveillance video reported finding numerous Visa and MasterCard gift cards that he collected as part of the scam.
All totaled, Meijer calculated that it suffered $805,000 in losses during the several years that the several fraudsters scanned their fake bar codes to rack up gift cards at Meijer locations throughout the region.
Day has now become the last of the group to be sentenced. Gale was ordered in September to serve three to 20 years in prison. Four others are already serving prison time – 31-year-old Travis Plotts was sentenced in August to four to 20 years in prison, while 40-year-old Efrain Tejada and 30-year-old Sara Tejada were each sentenced in June to three to 20 years in prison. And 41-year-old Thomas Ragen is not only serving 40 months to 20 years in prison, but he’s the only defendant so far whom court records show has been ordered to pay restitution to Meijer, in the amount of $24,955.39.
The two remaining co-defendants, 35-year-old Kristin Ragen and 36-year-old Elizabeth Tejada, avoided prison time and are each serving three years of probation.
There is no legitimate coupon out there that will allow you to scan it dozens of times in a row to get thousands of dollars worth of gift cards for free. Eight Michigan residents didn’t let that stop them – for a while, at least. Now, Day and her co-defendants have several years to think about the consequences of using counterfeit coupons, since it will be a very long time before any of them get the chance to go shopping or use coupons again.
Image source: Meijer/Kent County Sheriff’s Office
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