Although police have been asked to investigate a complaint of shoplifting at a local store, the case isn’t typical.
Instead of simply taking merchandise and heading out the door without paying for it, Elizabethton police are looking into an incident in which a store employee said a man used fraudulent coupons to rack up nearly $500 in free merchandise.
According to a police report, Elizabethton Police Department Officer Justin Pearce was dispatched to Wal-Mart Monday evening on a report of a shoplifting incident.
He spoke with a Wal-Mart Loss Prevention employee Henry Flesher, who told the officer shortly before midnight on Sept. 7, a man went to one of the store’s self-checkout lanes, scanned two items of merchandise and then scanned two coupons. As a result, the man received the merchandise for free except for paying sales tax on the items. Pearce said Flesher said the man did insert the coupons into the checkout coupon slot, but that they were fraudulent and unredeemable by Wal-Mart.
According to the report, the man repeated the process 11 more times, totaling $487.60 worth of fraudulent coupons.