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A Virginia woman 'perfected the art' of making fake coupons. She's now going to prison for it.
Coupon Connie lives!
COUPON CONNIE, CLIPPED IN THE BUD
By Art Harris May 2, 1990
BOCA RATON, FLA. -- Why is "Coupon Connie" Arvidson, 34, giggling like a schoolgirl on her last trip to the Winn-Dixie here mere days before surrendering yesterday at a federal women's prison to begin serving 27 months for dealing counterfeit rebate coupons?
{snip}
By Art Harris May 2, 1990
BOCA RATON, FLA. -- Why is "Coupon Connie" Arvidson, 34, giggling like a schoolgirl on her last trip to the Winn-Dixie here mere days before surrendering yesterday at a federal women's prison to begin serving 27 months for dealing counterfeit rebate coupons?
{snip}
Morning Mix
A Virginia woman ‘perfected the art’ of making fake coupons. She’s now going to prison for it.
By Jonathan Edwards
Today at 7:29 a.m. EDT
Beethoven had music. Picasso had painting. Lori Ann Talens’s genius manifested itself in a more peculiar way.
“Talens perfected the art of counterfeiting coupons,” federal prosecutor Joseph Kosky wrote in court documents. “Her skill was such that the coupons she created were virtually indistinguishable from genuine [ones].”
Talens’s tools were glossy paper, corporate logos and a computer she used to stitch together disparate text, pictures and bar codes to make what are known as “Frankenstein” counterfeits, all while keeping track of everything on a spreadsheet. Over a little more than three years, federal investigators said Talens, 41, and her husband, Pacifico, cheated manufacturers and merchants of more than $31 million by producing bogus coupons that gave customers merchandise at steep discounts — or for free.
But they weren’t quite good enough. On Tuesday, a judge sentenced Lori Ann Talens to 12 years in prison for running what prosecutors called one of the largest coupon scams in history after she pleaded guilty earlier this year to multiple counts of fraud.
The Talenses made nearly $400,000 selling the fakes to more than 2,000 customers across the country. About 100 companies — including Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and Ziploc — were their victims. The hardest hit was Kimberly-Clark, the paper products company, which lost nearly $9 million.
“The scale of the [Talenses] counterfeit coupon scheme was truly massive,” Kosky wrote.
{snip}
By Jonathan Edwards
Jonathan Edwards is a reporter on The Washington Post's Morning Mix team. Before joining The Post, he covered public safety for The Virginian-Pilot and Lincoln Journal Star. Twitter https://twitter.com/jonathanreports
A Virginia woman ‘perfected the art’ of making fake coupons. She’s now going to prison for it.
By Jonathan Edwards
Today at 7:29 a.m. EDT
Beethoven had music. Picasso had painting. Lori Ann Talens’s genius manifested itself in a more peculiar way.
“Talens perfected the art of counterfeiting coupons,” federal prosecutor Joseph Kosky wrote in court documents. “Her skill was such that the coupons she created were virtually indistinguishable from genuine [ones].”
Talens’s tools were glossy paper, corporate logos and a computer she used to stitch together disparate text, pictures and bar codes to make what are known as “Frankenstein” counterfeits, all while keeping track of everything on a spreadsheet. Over a little more than three years, federal investigators said Talens, 41, and her husband, Pacifico, cheated manufacturers and merchants of more than $31 million by producing bogus coupons that gave customers merchandise at steep discounts — or for free.
But they weren’t quite good enough. On Tuesday, a judge sentenced Lori Ann Talens to 12 years in prison for running what prosecutors called one of the largest coupon scams in history after she pleaded guilty earlier this year to multiple counts of fraud.
The Talenses made nearly $400,000 selling the fakes to more than 2,000 customers across the country. About 100 companies — including Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and Ziploc — were their victims. The hardest hit was Kimberly-Clark, the paper products company, which lost nearly $9 million.
“The scale of the [Talenses] counterfeit coupon scheme was truly massive,” Kosky wrote.
{snip}
By Jonathan Edwards
Jonathan Edwards is a reporter on The Washington Post's Morning Mix team. Before joining The Post, he covered public safety for The Virginian-Pilot and Lincoln Journal Star. Twitter https://twitter.com/jonathanreports