{"id":5443,"date":"2015-07-09T15:29:42","date_gmt":"2015-07-09T19:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=5443"},"modified":"2015-07-09T15:32:06","modified_gmt":"2015-07-09T19:32:06","slug":"brick-pd-coupon-scammers-swindled-1475-in-merchandise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2015\/07\/brick-pd-coupon-scammers-swindled-1475-in-merchandise\/","title":{"rendered":"Brick PD: Coupon Scammers Swindled $1,475 in Merchandise"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_4886\" style=\"width: 410px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/couple2.png\" data-rel=\"lightbox-image-0\" data-rl_title=\"\" data-rl_caption=\"\" title=\"\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4886\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-4886\" src=\"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/couple2-400x254.png\" alt=\"A couple accused of using fraudulent coupons at Stop and Shop. (Photo: Brick Twp. Police)\" width=\"400\" height=\"254\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/couple2-400x254.png 400w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/couple2-600x381.png 600w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/couple2.png 1020w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4886\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A couple accused of using fraudulent coupons at Stop and Shop. (Photo: Brick Twp. Police)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>A woman and man have been formally charged in a scam in which they used phony UPC codes to obtain $1,475 in merchandise from local Stop & Shop stores.<\/p>\n<p>Sgt. Neal Pedersen said the suspects have been identified as Melissa Scheller, 32, and Ben Lugo, 29, both of South Toms River.<\/p>\n<p>The pair have been charged for their involvement in thefts totaling $1, 475. The thefts, Pedersen said, were related to fraudulent UPC codes that allowed them to repeatedly deduct from their total purchase price.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe suspects were able to scan the fraudulent UPC code repeatedly to significantly reduce the total sum of their purchase,\u201d Pedersen said.<\/p>\n<p>Each transaction resulted in thefts ranging from between $50 and $200 per incident.<\/p>\n<p>Brick Police Detective Robert Shepherd arrested and charged Scheller with theft by deception; bail was set by Judge Robert Lepore in the amount of $20,000 cash.<\/p>\n<p>Lugo faces the same charges, and is the subject of an active warrant, Pedersen said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fb-share-button fcbkbttn_large_button \" data-href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2015\/07\/brick-pd-coupon-scammers-swindled-1475-in-merchandise\/\" data-type=\"button_count\" data-size=\"large\"><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A woman and man have been formally charged in a scam in which they used phony UPC codes to obtain $1,475 in merchandise from local Stop &#038; Shop stores. Sgt. Neal Pedersen said the suspects have been identified as Melissa Scheller, 32, and Ben Lugo, 29, both of South Toms River. The pair have been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4886,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[24,18],"class_list":["post-5443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-police-fire-courts","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-theft"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/couple2.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-1pN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}