Extreme couponers were sent to prison in $31.8 million fraud scheme

Authored by edition.cnn.com and submitted by i_love_anachronisms

New York (CNN Business) The FBI is revealing new details about a $31.8 million counterfeit coupon scheme that landed a Virginia Beach couple in prison for nearly 20 years, combined.

In a press release last week, the agency said that investigators found fake coupons in "every crevice" of the house belonging to Lori Ann Talens and her husband, Pacifico Talens, Jr.. The falsified savings were worth more than $1 million. They also found designs for coupons for more than 13,000 products on Lori Ann Talens' computer.

"She trained herself in the different techniques she needed to manipulate barcodes to make these coupons work," said Special Agent Shannon Brill in the FBI release. Talens, who is considered the mastermind of the scheme, would create fake coupons with discounts "near or even over" an item's retail value.

During a search of Lori Ann Talens' home, agents found thousands of counterfeit coupons, rolls of coupon paper, and coupon designs for more than 13,000 products on her computer.

Talens didn't use the fraudulent coupons for herself. The FBI said she sold them to subscribers that found her on social media and communicated with them using an encrypted messaging app. Talens was paid more than $400,000 in digital currencies such as bitcoin and sometimes "exchanged coupons for stolen rolls of the special paper stores use to print out coupons," the agency said.

The three-year scheme was discovered by the Coupon Information Corporation, which received a tip that someone was making and mailing fraudulent coupons. One group of manufacturers said it lost $125,000 from fake coupons linked to Talens.

RVelts on October 26th, 2021 at 02:47 UTC »

Anybody else remember in the late 2000's/early 2010's when 4chan was making tons and tons of fake coupons for grocery items? It was right before the move to a more advanced barcode system and it was very easy for people to manipulate the barcodes. Since they legitimately scanned in most stores (ex: Walmart) and "printing out internet coupons" was a more recent concept, basically everybody took them.

There was even research done, like how a Walmart self checkout would let you do any "Save $X.XX on <this product>" as long as the savings was <$10, and did not require a manager or cashier to verify it. Anything that was Buy X get 1 free, outright "get X free", or savings >$10 required human intervention. They made tons of $9.99 off "some item barely over $10" coupons.

Estoye on October 26th, 2021 at 01:14 UTC »

That's not "extreme couponing". That's outright fraud.

rainyday_redditor on October 25th, 2021 at 22:19 UTC »

Maybe they can make a fake "get out of jail free" coupon and give it to the judge.