College Student Charged In Counterfeit Coupon Scam

Think all those coupons for cents off here and cents off there are insignificant? Think again. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Preet Bharara, says that Lucas Townsend Henderson created, disseminated and used counterfeit online coupons for consumer and electronic goods ranging from Tide laundry detergent to PlayStations. As a result, Bharara contends, retailers and manufacturers paid out on the coupons and lost hundreds of thousands of dollars through the scheme. 

According to the complaint:
 
Since July 2010, Henderson allegedly created fraudulent coupons designed to look like legitimate online print-at-home coupons available to consumers on the Internet at www.SmartSource.com. These counterfeit coupons, which ranged from lower-priced consumer items such as energy drinks, beer, and cigarettes, to more expensive consumer products such as X-Box and PlayStation, all made unauthorized use of the “Powered by SmartSource” logo, as well as a distinctive border, both of which are registered trademarks belonging to News America Marketing, a subsidiary of Manhattan-based News Corporation. Between July 2010 and March 2011, Henderson made a number of the counterfeit coupons he had created available on the Internet by anonymously posting on two message boards devoted to the discussion of online coupons—using the nicknames “Anonymous 123,” “Anonymous234,” and “Anonymous345.” In addition to creating and disseminating fake coupons himself, Henderson also wrote tutorials, which he posted online, providing instructions to others for creating counterfeit coupons using their own computers.
 
Henderson’s actions have resulted in substantial losses not only to the manufacturers of various affected products but also to retailers and consumers themselves. For example, in or about December 2010, $200,000 worth of counterfeit coupons for Tide laundry detergent were redeemed by consumers over a two- to three-week period. Proctor & Gamble, which manufactures Tide and is the single largest coupon issuer in the United States, has never issued a single online print-at-home coupon. The costs associated with the redemption of those counterfeit coupons were subsequently borne by Proctor & Gamble and the various retailers victimized by the fraud.
 
Henderson, 22, of Lubbock, Texas, is charged with one count of wire fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and one count of trafficking in counterfeit goods, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.