A MAN was convicted of abusing Kohl’s Cash over 100 times, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses for the stores.
Jurors spent only seven minutes deliberating before they found the St. Louis resident guilty last week.
The man was convicted on five counts of mail fraud[/caption]
He would use the Kohl’s cash discounts multiple times, according to investigators[/caption]
Officials said that Marshall Lampkin, 35, had devised a way to use Kohl’s Cash – the discount coupons offered by retail store Kohl’s – multiple times.
Lampkin would first use the coupons in store, purchasing typically over $1,000 in merchandise each time he went, investigators said.
He had visited over 40 different stores across 13 states.
He ran the scheme over 100 times between 2021 and 2022, the Missouri District Attorney’s Office wrote.
He would then use the same discounts to buy items online, as it had not yet loaded in the store’s system that he spent the Kohl’s Cash, according to evidence.
Lampkin was then said to have returned the store-bought items for more Kohl’s Cash, repeating the cycle.
The items he purchased ranged from small appliances and furniture to flooring.
Documents said that he would ship the items to St. Louis storage units and a family member’s house in Illinois.
He would then go on to sell the items on Facebook marketplace, according to evidence.
Photos of the hauls show a storage unit filled with items and a pile of packages sitting on the front porch of a house.
Police took in hundreds of thousands of dollars in merchandise during the investigation.
Lampkin was found guilty of all five counts of mail fraud, and will be sentenced in December.
One count of mail fraud has a maximum sentence of 20 years.
In 2019, an Army recruiter had pleaded guilty to charges for hacking Kohl’s databases and giving out the coupon codes for much lower than their value.
Kohl’s Cash
Kohl’s Cash is the retail store’s way of offering discounts to their customers depending on how much they spend.
- Customers must first shop during a period when the company is offering Kohl’s Cash on purchases
- When you spend more, you receive more
- Shoppers will receive $10 for every $50 spent
- There are specific dates for when the coupons can be used, and the store does not accept expired Kohl’s Cash
- If Kohl’s Cash is lost or stolen, the company says they may be able to track it down if the receipt is kept via the coupon’s ID number
Investigators said Robert Gordon acquired the cash by “credential stuffing” – a term used when someone runs a large database of log-in credentials.
The Wisconsin man had used his Twitter username “@OfficialJigLord” to sell the Kohl’s Cash, records say.
“Specialize in Steals, Deals, and Jigs,” his bio reads on the account, which is still up.
Multiple people who actually owned the Kohl’s Cash reached out to the company after they no longer had the discounts in their accounts, according to WISN.
Court documents said that he and his wife had made almost $100,000 in four months, the outlet reported at the time.
He had traveled to 13 states to go to different stores, officials say[/caption]
The jury took just seven minutes to find him guilty[/caption]
