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  • Fake coupons

    Several cigarette companies make "digital coupon" offers on folk's phones. recognizing these would be super easy to fake, they put a lot of effort into making them hard to fake.
    A legit coupon will:
    Be part of an app
    Show the address and store number of the store where it is about to be used
    Have a timer counting down
    Have the barcode as part of a flashing image, alternating between the barcode and something else. (This makes it hard to take a screenshot that shows the barcode)

    So I recently had a few folks present fake coupons. Points to the guy who put in some reasonable effort: his screen showed a well-designed color image that included the cigarette brand logo and a timer.
    "That timer isn't counting."
    "Oh" (fiddles with phone, gives up) "Whatever. How much?"

    No points for the folks where it is a barcode in a white square on a black screen, so ... fairly obviously something stored as a picture on your phone.

    But special negative points to the one slightly drunk young lady with one of those, who wanted to check on the status of her application, and who said that she had this "thing on my phone for a discount" "because I work for (company name)", and offered to let another customer in line use it too before I saw what it was and denied it.
    Evidently she works for another location (and another franchisee) but would like to work closer to home, so she made sure to leave me her full name and phone number. I told her I would pass that along to the Manager, which I did. I also passed along that she had presented an obviously bogus coupon.
    (She should have received the same training I did, so she should have known that coupon is obviously bogus. Therefore, presenting it was fraud.)

    We are kind of desperate for qualified help right now, but that application went in the trash. Our customers provide all the thieves we need.

    (For the record, that bogus coupon almost certainly rings up as a regular coupon, but when we then fail to send that coupon to the clearinghouse, the franchisee is charged for that amount.)

  • #2
    American Spirit used to mail people coupons, now they have an app. I've never found a tobacconist who would accept those coupons to begin with.

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    • #3
      I wasn't a fan of the American Spirit coupons because they never scanned on our registers. We have instructions to not scan anyone's phone for a coupon but I haven't come across anyone trying to use an app and coupon.
      I would have a nice day, but I have other things to do.

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