Retail is Hell continues.
As I was going into work this week, the manager of our Starbucks stopped me.
His son, M, is what we call a GSA. Basically M has the position of watching over
the front end. He supervises the cashiers, guest service and cart attendants. M, in
my opinion, is far too young for this job. He is just out of his teens and still more
about playing than working. His dad told me M had been arrested during my days off.
Seems M, a cashier and a guest had been involved in coupon fraud. Dad said M
called a manager to the check out, but manager was too busy. M claims manager
told him to handle it. That's one story. Others said M knew the guest and had approved
use of coupons for her before this time.
Majority of sites online only allow you to print two coupons of each one. It will refuse to
print more after you print the allowed number. People use different computers, make
copies of coupons and even alter the coupons. Some of them look very real so it's
not easy to tell it's a copy. Some are so glaring, you laugh at them.
Our AP told me that on Monday (yesterday), the local police would be bringing in the
merchandise to be run up for a total. They had a cashier ring the merchandise up in
training mode so they could see the amount. The police brought in two half pallets of
merchandise. It was almost $3,000 from that one shopping trip. No telling how much
had been done before that one trip. The guest had made copies of coupons, changed
the details of the coupons and other things. She would end up not paying for any of the
merchandise when they ran all the coupons.
In the last year, we had people using manufactures coupons and then returning the merchandise.
Our system would return what they paid plus the amount of the coupon. There were several problems
with this. The shelves were stripped one day and then restocked from back stock. That takes time
and salary to do. Then the people would return all the merchandise so then we had cart after cart of
returned merchandise to restock. Some of the merchandise could not be resold. Food, formula, and
over the counter meds can not be resold. They have to be defected out. We got money for the coupons,
but the time and effort of restocking was a problem. Some of the merchandise we could not resell was
not reimbursed fully by the supplier.
Our company changed it's coupon policy. If you bought four shampoos, you could use four coupons.
No more than four individual items unless the coupon stated you need to buy two or more to use the
coupon. You can use one company coupon and one manufacture coupon for each item if you had them.
If you have seen the extreme coupon shows, you see them buying huge amounts of the same merchandise
and stripping the shelves. We no longer allowed that. Our company decided a family of four would need to
only buy four of any one item a shopping trip. So coupon people began to bring things back with just the card
used to pay for the items. We can scan the card and search for the sale of the item and do a return. Now if we
think they used coupons to during the sale, we call a manager or AP. They decide if we will allow the return or not.
People are so dumb. They try to return eight or more of the same toothpaste, shavers, or whatever at one time.
So of course we question it. Nobody buys multiples of things and then return them unless they are scamming.
M knew all these things. Now he is sitting in jail and awaiting trial. His life hasn't really started and he screwed
himself. He will have a record and it will follow him for the rest of his life. Makes me sick. I really liked him even
if I didn't think he was adult enough to preform the job he was given.
His son, M, is what we call a GSA. Basically M has the position of watching over
the front end. He supervises the cashiers, guest service and cart attendants. M, in
my opinion, is far too young for this job. He is just out of his teens and still more
about playing than working. His dad told me M had been arrested during my days off.
Seems M, a cashier and a guest had been involved in coupon fraud. Dad said M
called a manager to the check out, but manager was too busy. M claims manager
told him to handle it. That's one story. Others said M knew the guest and had approved
use of coupons for her before this time.
Majority of sites online only allow you to print two coupons of each one. It will refuse to
print more after you print the allowed number. People use different computers, make
copies of coupons and even alter the coupons. Some of them look very real so it's
not easy to tell it's a copy. Some are so glaring, you laugh at them.
Our AP told me that on Monday (yesterday), the local police would be bringing in the
merchandise to be run up for a total. They had a cashier ring the merchandise up in
training mode so they could see the amount. The police brought in two half pallets of
merchandise. It was almost $3,000 from that one shopping trip. No telling how much
had been done before that one trip. The guest had made copies of coupons, changed
the details of the coupons and other things. She would end up not paying for any of the
merchandise when they ran all the coupons.
In the last year, we had people using manufactures coupons and then returning the merchandise.
Our system would return what they paid plus the amount of the coupon. There were several problems
with this. The shelves were stripped one day and then restocked from back stock. That takes time
and salary to do. Then the people would return all the merchandise so then we had cart after cart of
returned merchandise to restock. Some of the merchandise could not be resold. Food, formula, and
over the counter meds can not be resold. They have to be defected out. We got money for the coupons,
but the time and effort of restocking was a problem. Some of the merchandise we could not resell was
not reimbursed fully by the supplier.
Our company changed it's coupon policy. If you bought four shampoos, you could use four coupons.
No more than four individual items unless the coupon stated you need to buy two or more to use the
coupon. You can use one company coupon and one manufacture coupon for each item if you had them.
If you have seen the extreme coupon shows, you see them buying huge amounts of the same merchandise
and stripping the shelves. We no longer allowed that. Our company decided a family of four would need to
only buy four of any one item a shopping trip. So coupon people began to bring things back with just the card
used to pay for the items. We can scan the card and search for the sale of the item and do a return. Now if we
think they used coupons to during the sale, we call a manager or AP. They decide if we will allow the return or not.
People are so dumb. They try to return eight or more of the same toothpaste, shavers, or whatever at one time.
So of course we question it. Nobody buys multiples of things and then return them unless they are scamming.
M knew all these things. Now he is sitting in jail and awaiting trial. His life hasn't really started and he screwed
himself. He will have a record and it will follow him for the rest of his life. Makes me sick. I really liked him even
if I didn't think he was adult enough to preform the job he was given.