Galesburg Police last week responded to Hy-Vee on National Boulevard for a report of an ongoing theft. Police met with the Assistant Vice President for Loss Prevention for Hy-Vee who said that after an ongoing investigation into an employee vendor coupon scam. The vendor coupon at the store is used to override a price when the price needs to be manually entered. Since early January, a 19-year-old male employee had been purchasing items at the store but then doing a vendor coupon override drastically reducing the price. There were more than 15 incidents since the scam began. In several such incidents, the employee would ring up a Visa gift card worth $450 plus the 5-95 activation fee and after doing the coupon override, would only pay 2 cents for the gift card. The male suspect reported to the Public Safety Building on Thursday and turned himself in. The man admitted to stealing the items saying he knew he would eventually get caught. He also admitted that he was never able to get any of the Visa gift cards to work. He was placed under arrest, taken to the Knox County Jail, and charged with Retail Theft over $500.
