Warning to extreme coupon "tearpad takers"

[rapchef2]

My husband is a vendor that serves Giant Eagles (for his protection, I will not say which one). Anyway, he was serving a GE store yesterday and put up some tearpads for an item when a manager told him that they just arrested a woman who was taking all the tearpad coupons in the store. Yes, arrested for theft. Apparently, they had her on video surveillance numerous times taking whole pads of coupons that were up in the store.

I know that I rarely find any at my stores because there are always just empty cards, and I'm not intending to start a debate on the ethics of how many to take. I'm just giving a heads up to those who take large quantities of coupons. GE is watching, and they have already arrested someone for doing exactly that.
This is not one of those "changing policy rumors". It's an actual event that happened this week, and it wouldn't surprise me if other stores did the same thing.

[aprilpgh]

Good. I wish that GE would arrest more of the people that take all of the tearpads and leave none for the rest of us normal couponers. I rarely see any tearpads for good coupons at my GEs anymore because someone takes all of the tearpads and sells the coupons on ebay.

I also wish that GE would start arresting and prosecuting people who take the coupons out of the Sunday papers and leave the Sunday paper on the rack without coupons in it as well. I have gone through my Sunday paper wherever I buy it to make sure that the coupons that are supposed to be there are there and there has been a few times where the coupons were not there.

[originalsixx]

Wow! My store rarely ever has any coupons..Recently they put up the keebler display with the booklets..I was there in the afternoon and they had tons, they even had packages of the booklets sitting there still in the shrinkwrap, when I stopped in the very next morning -ALL of them were gone!!! I took 3 the day I seen them, when I got home I noticed that the booklets said something to the effect of one per customer - Even if I would have seen this at the store, I still would have taken 3..3 doesn't seem to be out of line for as many as they had but to imagine that I could be arrested cause I took 3 instead of 1 is just crazy...These are crazy times for us couponers...Things seems so much better before 'that show!!'

[Gnorga]

While it isn't right for people to take entire tearpads, I've never seen signs that say "ONE PER PERSON","Limit of 1" or "Don't take a coupons unless you are purchasing this item TODAY"

If people want to make this big of deal over some tearpads, they should hire someone to hand them out.

[ScrappyDoo]

Target has people that do that. They set up a little booth with samples of whatever the item is and you get a sample and a coupon from the rep.

[marrelam]

I heard about a person who got banned from some GE's around me because her and her brood would come in all the time and take all peelies, hang-tags, and tearpads from the entire store. Had to laugh at her foolishness but felt sad for her kids and the other family members kids who got busted....

[1LadyD]

they can't do that as it's not illegal to take a whole stack of tearpads. It is illegal to remove them from papers but tearpads do not come in an item that has to be immediately purchased nor can people be arrested for removing peelies.

[Gnorga]

Target has people that do that. They set up a little booth with samples of whatever the item is and you get a sample and a coupon from the rep.

It was quite a while ago, there was some lady at Wal*Mart giving out that newi-ish campbell soup...she had coupons and I asked if I could have a couple and she gave me like 8 of them or so.

[Gnorga]

I heard about a person who got banned from some GE's around me because her and her brood would come in all the time and take all peelies, hang-tags, and tearpads from the entire store. Had to laugh at her foolishness but felt sad for her kids and the other family members kids who got busted....

I can understand banning, but not arresting

[atcwag]

Hmm...I can't see the "reasoning" behind the arrest. Annoying? Yes. Criminal act? ??? I don't see how this could hold up in any sort of court of law. No where on (most) displays does it say "One per customer" or anything like that.