Sportsman’s Warehouse is known for offering generous coupons that allow you to save $50 off a purchase. But you have to work for them, often by spending $200 or more before you can earn such a valuable discount.
Unless, that is, you have access to stacks of $50 coupons and decide to use them hundreds of times, to get tens of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise for free.
That’s what two former employees at a Sportsman’s Warehouse store in Alaska were accused of doing. And now, they’ve both pleaded guilty to theft and will have to pay back their former employer for the many, many times they gave a whole new meaning to “employee discount.”
Brittnie Clark and Tana Weckwerth, both 24 years old, worked at the outdoor sporting goods store in Fairbanks when they were charged back in November 2021. Earlier that year, police said the two decided to take advantage of their access to store coupons, by using a $50 Bounce Back Coupon for themselves – many times.
Sportman’s Warehouse offers Bounce Back Coupons throughout the year. Over the holidays, for example, shoppers could earn a $10 store coupon for purchasing $100 in gift cards. Earlier in the year, on certain occasions, the retailer offered a $50 coupon for shoppers spending at least $200.
Those are the coupons that caught Clark’s and Weckwerth’s eyes. Over a ten-day period, police said they applied a $50 coupon to their own purchases and purchases made by their relatives, a total of 216 times. Clark ended up obtaining $4,750 in free merchandise, while Weckwerth is said to have helped by scanning the coupon while ringing up nearly $6,000 worth of merchandise for Clark, and bagging an additional $2,000 without scanning any of it at all.
According to store policy, Bounce Back Coupons are only valid for a single use, they can’t be combined on a single order, and they’re supposed to be turned in after they’re used. Clark and Weckwerth didn’t follow those rules, in their enthusiastic use of the coupons that they hadn’t actually earned.
Clark pleaded guilty last June to felony second-degree theft, and received a four-year suspended sentence, which means she’ll stay out of jail if she successfully completes probation and works toward paying back her share of the $12,783.82 in restitution.
Weckwerth’s case went on for a while longer, but ended the same way – she also pleaded guilty to felony second-degree theft, and has also now received a four-year suspended sentence. And she, too, will have to pay back part of that $12,783.82.
Court records show that $5,500 of that restitution has already been paid. So the two former coworkers are already nearly halfway there in settling their debt. And Sportsman’s Warehouse shoppers hoping to earn another $50 coupon in the near future, can only hope that the retailer is feeling as generous with its coupons as two of its cashiers once were.
Image source: Sportsman’s Warehouse