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"How
the Terrorists are defrauding the Manufacturers by
Submitting Coupons"
by
Jane Goldberg about
Every once in a while, dozens
of refunders receive scary letters from either the
post office or the Coupon Information Center, in
Alexandria, VA. These letters are usually signed by
Bud Miller of the CIC. I went to their site the
other day, to see if they were in the midst of any
investigations and I got the following information:
The CIC is an organization that is self supported
by these and other manufacturers: Bayer
Consumer Care; Bristol-Myers Squibb Company; Brown
& Williamson Tobacco Corporation;
Colgate-Palmolive Company; Commonwealth Brands,
Inc.; General Mills, Inc.; The Gillette Company;
Hershey Foods; Johnson & Johnson; Kellogg
Company; Kimberly-Clark Corporation; Kraft Foods;
Lorillard Tobacco Company; McCormick & Company,
Inc.; Nestle USA, Inc.; Pfizer; The Procter &
Gamble Company; Quaker Oats Company; R.J. Reynolds
Tobacco Company; S.C. Johnson & Son, Inc.;
Unilever Bestfoods; Unilever HPC. © 2004
CIC
The member companies employ
Mr. Miller and anyone working for him in an effort
to protect themselves from the misredemption of
authentic coupons, the fraudulent use of
counterfeit coupons, the illegal redemption of
coupons both real and counterfeit (usually by
stores or people posing as store owners).
Oftentimes refunders look upon Bud Miller and the
CIC as the enemy, but honestly, they re not the
enemy when people use coupons the lawful way. This
is not to say the aggressive use of coupons is
wrong-it isn't wrong, nor is it illegal. the
following are examples of illegal misredemption of
coupons: The tendering of counterfeit coupons (very
obvious, I'd say), Using 2 MANUFACTURER coupons on
the same one item. You MAY use one mfr c/o and one
store c/o at the same time on the same item and not
violate any rule or law. HOWEVER quite often the
stores don't understand this and prohibit you from
using both.
When this occurs, you should
get the home office telephone address and write up
a complaint.
What is the illegal use of
coupons? This section probably won't come up in
your use of coupons, but it was interesting to
research: Robert MacDonald, who had a position in a
coupon clearinghouse and whose decisions regarding
a store or store chain's eligibility to redeem
coupons, used his position to accept for redemption
an amount greater than $50 million worth of coupons
for ABC Co. Inc. ABC represented itself as a small
chain of convenience stores (but that could not
sell the large amount of product for which it was
redeeming the coupons). Mr. MacDonald accepted
bribes from ABC for his compliance in this scheme,
including the purchase (for him) by ABC of a
retirement home in Florida. In addition, he
accepted bribes in an amount in the hundreds of
thousands of dollars.
Here is how he used his
position as a commission based coupon sales manager
for International Data. (This is the refund/coupon
clearinghouse that used to be in Riverton, NJ but
is now in El Paso, TX), to scam the manufacturers
and by extension, us, the consumers:
The nature of MacDonald's job
was such that he got a higher salary (based on
commission) for the successful processing of
coupons from small, independent stores. Thus, even
if he wasn't receiving bribes from ABC and it's
owners, one of whom is Abdel Rahim Jebara. And if
you think for a minute this money wasn't going to
fund the Muslim terrorists, THINK AGAIN! We paid
for their greed and thievery and we paid to have
our own people killed by simply buying groceries!
This is sickening! But for the efforts of Bud
Miller, the CIC and the manufacturers who comprise
the CIC, who knows how much more than $50 million
they would have stolen????? Anyway, sorry about my
soapbox, but I hate those animals; they're not
human, they're evil! If I've offended you, sorry
you're offended, but I believe they are baseless,
soulless animals!
Back to the story...There is
no reference to an inside informant, but from what
I've read at their website I believe the informant
was another Int'l Data employee who did not like
what was happening in regard to the ABC account. I
think this is how the CIC, the FBI and got the
evidence on MacDonald.
"The
evidence against defendant MacDonald includes: 1)
hundreds of monitored telephone calls between Abdel
Rahim
Jebara and other coconspirators, including several
such calls involving Mr. MacDonald and Jebara,
conducted over a 90 day period from October,
2002 to January 2003 during which they discussed
matters related to Jebara's coupon fraud scheme; 2)
coupon redemption checks and other documents
obtained by federal grand jury
subpoena;
3) documentary and other evidence seized at
defendant MacDonald's Memphis, Tennessee residence
and workplace, which was the International Data/IOS
office, and dozens of other locations during the
execution of search warrants on February 26, 2003;
and 4) interviews with other persons with
knowledge. This and other evidence shows that
defendant MacDonald facilitated Abdel Rahim
Jebara's coupon fraud conspiracy beginning in about
1999, and further facilitated John Doe
A's ABC, Inc.'s similar conspiracy beginning in
about 1998. ©CIC 2004
How much did MacDonald know
about what ABC Co. Inc. and it's owner(s)? From
MacDonald's sworn statement in his guilty plea he
finally admits he knew that ABC wasn't even a real
store, let alone a small chain of convenience
stores. Additionally, another ID employee
approached McD to tell him he was suspicious about
the nature of ABC in so far as whether they were an
actual store or a person(s) masquerading as a
store. By the time the ID employee voiced his
suspicious to McD, Mcd was already so far into
Jebara's (ABC's) pocket, he wasn't about to let
another employee take away his free ride. Over time
the employee continued to complain to McD about ABC
and his suspicions about the sheer volume of coupon
submissions and their status as a (real) store.
Time and again, McD blew him off, claiming he had
everything under control and was sure they were
legit. yeah, right!
In an effort to ward off
continued inquiries from his fellow employee, McD
began cautioning Jebara not to submit so many
coupons from any single 'store.'
Defendant MacDonald
discovered that "Jose" was submitting coupons for
processing using a fraudulent store, but
nonetheless continued to deal with him. Defendant
MacDonald would caution "Jose" about submitting too
many coupons, and would instruct him not to submit
more than a certain number of pounds from each
store, so that "Jose's" stores would not be
suspected of coupon fraud. © CIC
2004
By now he knew everything
about Jebara and ABC but was so consumed by greed
he let it go on and on till, I assume, the ID
employee finally called someone who could stop the
scheme. Law enforcement tapped the phone (see pg
12) to get all of the evidence on McD and Jebara.
And thank G-d! But why on earth did the ID employee
wait till they'd stolen so much money? That's what
I'd like to know!
What did MacDonald gain
through all of this? A small fortune from both the
terrorists and his own company who was paying him
on commission for the amount of coupons redeemed by
his 'legit' stores. He also received a free trip to
India-yum!-NOT! and that new house located in the
township of The Villages in central Florida. Oh,
yeah, he also got this: Five years in federal
prison, and, upon his release, three years of
supervised 'freedom' and a fine of $250.000. An
additional $100,000 is also levied against him-this
is a mandatory assessment (but on what grounds, I
don't know).
He will likely be ordered to
pay a portion of $50,000,000 back to the companies
from which he and Jebara stole the money. I assume
Jebara isn't in federal custody...but I don't know.
If and when he is caught he will be liable to make
up the difference between the amount of restitution
McD has paid and the actual amount of money stolen.
I doubt the US government will be able to get
Jebara into custody from India where he has
undoubtedly go to hide! COWARD!
Under what laws was McD
charged? The laws he broke are: Title 18 Sections
1001, 1341 and 1343 wire and mail fraud in
connection with the scheme. In exchange for his
guilty plea, and his cooperation, the government is
dropping the remaining charges against
him.
Done! Finally! This was a
long and complex article, but I hope you've enjoyed
it! I'm also glad I'm not in MacDonald's shoes,
that's for sure!
Note from me: I've heard of a
couple people getting the letters
again.
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