walgreens 玩 RR 砸了--被起诉了 zz# PennySaver - 省钱一族
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walgreens 玩 RR 砸了--被起诉了 zz
imagenetix (the makers of Celadrin) are claiming in a federal lawsuit that
walgreens fraudulently submitted rr's for reimbursement. the week of 3/20/11
, celadrin was on sale for $10 and free after rr. walgreens billed
Imagenetix $533,000 for celadrin rr's redeemed plus $188,000 in processing
fees.
unlike some vendors, imagenetix didn’t use a clearinghouse to process the
coupons so they actually saw the rr's and had an opportunity to inspect them
. imagenetix found the rr's submitted suspicious because they were in
perfect condition and some were in consecutive order. they also found
duplicates and triplicates, even though each coupon should have been unique.
the lawsuit also said Walgreens claimed an "implausibly high redemption
rate" - over 95% of the coupons issued were redeemed.
an audit showed that more than 1,000 wags stores claimed to have issued more
coupons than the number of bottles they had in stock! each store location
had an average of 8-10 bottles in stock, but seven stores had issued more
than 100 celadrin rr's each. one store issued 1,306 celadrin rr's!
walgreens spokeswoman Vivika Panagiotakakos stated “At this time, we have
no reason to believe these allegations are true.” she declined to answer
any further questions.
as far as the rr's being in perfect condition, the argument could be made
that this was due to overzealous couponers earning and redeeming the rr's
immediately. i'm sure there were couponers using rr's from celadrin on other
items (perhaps the tena for $9.99, also free after rr that week) and then
using the new rr's to buy more celadrin, and so on. doing multiple
transactions like this would mean many rr's weren't stuffed into pockets or
purses between being earned and being redeemed. this could also explain the
consecutive order of many of the rr's, as well as the high redemption rate.
i don't believe this is a very popular product, and i would not find it hard
to believe that 95-99% of the sales of celadrin at wags that week were by
couponers who were buying it strictly for the rr. and not many couponers are
going to let a $10 rr expire without using it.
but then we come to the audit. if it is true that stores were giving out so
many more celadrin rr's than they actually had product to sell... well that
looks really bad. how could they possibly issue rr's for product that they
didn't have? to give the store employees the benefit of the doubt, i imagine
they may have rung up celadrin for some customers to pay for in advance,
receive the rr, and then pick up the product at a later date when it was
back in stock. this is sometimes done because the catalina system does not
print rr's for rainchecks. but for this to be done on such a large scale
seems unlikely.
what seems more likely, unfortunately, is that employees at some stores were
gaming the system by ringing up celadrin to get the rr to print and then
returning it or voiding the sale afterwards while keeping and using the rr.
i'm sure most employees would not do this, but out of walgreen's 7,000 +
locations i could believe this type of thing was going on at the seven
stores singled out by the audit. perhaps the other stores had only issued
one or two rr's more than they supposedly had product in stock, which could
be explained by incorrect inventory numbers or "raincheck" situations. the
store that issued 1,306 celadrin rr's certainly has some explaining to do!
it will be interesting to see how this plays out!
imagenetix (the makers of Celadrin) are claiming in a federal lawsuit that
walgreens fraudulently submitted rr's for reimbursement. the week of 3/20/11
, celadrin was on sale for $10 and free after rr. walgreens billed
Imagenetix $533,000 for celadrin rr's redeemed plus $188,000 in processing
fees.
unlike some vendors, imagenetix didn’t use a clearinghouse to process the
coupons so they actually saw the rr's and had an opportunity to inspect them
. imagenetix found the rr's submitted suspicious because they were in
perfect condition and some were in consecutive order. they also found
duplicates and triplicates, even though each coupon should have been unique.
the lawsuit also said Walgreens claimed an "implausibly high redemption
rate" - over 95% of the coupons issued were redeemed.
an audit showed that more than 1,000 wags stores claimed to have issued more
coupons than the number of bottles they had in stock! each store location
had an average of 8-10 bottles in stock, but seven stores had issued more
than 100 celadrin rr's each. one store issued 1,306 celadrin rr's!
walgreens spokeswoman Vivika Panagiotakakos stated “At this time, we have
no reason to believe these allegations are true.” she declined to answer
any further questions.
as far as the rr's being in perfect condition, the argument could be made
that this was due to overzealous couponers earning and redeeming the rr's
immediately. i'm sure there were couponers using rr's from celadrin on other
items (perhaps the tena for $9.99, also free after rr that week) and then
using the new rr's to buy more celadrin, and so on. doing multiple
transactions like this would mean many rr's weren't stuffed into pockets or
purses between being earned and being redeemed. this could also explain the
consecutive order of many of the rr's, as well as the high redemption rate.
i don't believe this is a very popular product, and i would not find it hard
to believe that 95-99% of the sales of celadrin at wags that week were by
couponers who were buying it strictly for the rr. and not many couponers are
going to let a $10 rr expire without using it.
but then we come to the audit. if it is true that stores were giving out so
many more celadrin rr's than they actually had product to sell... well that
looks really bad. how could they possibly issue rr's for product that they
didn't have? to give the store employees the benefit of the doubt, i imagine
they may have rung up celadrin for some customers to pay for in advance,
receive the rr, and then pick up the product at a later date when it was
back in stock. this is sometimes done because the catalina system does not
print rr's for rainchecks. but for this to be done on such a large scale
seems unlikely.
what seems more likely, unfortunately, is that employees at some stores were
gaming the system by ringing up celadrin to get the rr to print and then
returning it or voiding the sale afterwards while keeping and using the rr.
i'm sure most employees would not do this, but out of walgreen's 7,000 +
locations i could believe this type of thing was going on at the seven
stores singled out by the audit. perhaps the other stores had only issued
one or two rr's more than they supposedly had product in stock, which could
be explained by incorrect inventory numbers or "raincheck" situations. the
store that issued 1,306 celadrin rr's certainly has some explaining to do!
it will be interesting to see how this plays out!
