Gas-coupon abuses helped spur new plan By Nancy Montgomery, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Thursday, November 29, 2007
HEIDELBERG, Germany — Last week’s late-night robbery of the Campbell Barracks shoppette is one more reason why U.S. troops and military civilians in Germany will be using a gas ration card instead of coupons in the near future.
The robbery netted some $10,000 in cash and about $325,000 in gas coupons, said sources who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak about the matter.
Although particularly blatant, the coupon heist is the latest example of an ongoing problem with the coupons, which for years have been an easy target for abuse.
Last year, for example, Esso paid fines totaling some 800,000 euros — more than $1 million at today’s exchange rate — to the German government for accepting coupons from unauthorized users, according to Lt. Col. David Konop, a spokesman for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service.
As a result, “Esso was going to drop out” of the tax-free program, Konop said. If that had happened, he said, Americans would likely have had to pay the same price for gas that Germans pay.
“Because of how
have been handled in the past is one of the primary reasons USAREUR (U.S. Army Europe) and IMCOM (Installation Management Command) have been implementing the gas ration card,” Konop said.
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