Various coupon stories!

[Jay 2K Winger]

This reminds me. Recently at the wholesale club, TWICE in one day (a couple hours apart) I had customers asking, with utter seriousness, if they could use the same coupon for multiple items.

Both times I told them, "Unless the coupon states otherwise, it's Limit One." And one of those times, the SM was there and confirmed what I was saying.

[Digitalpotato]

I've had all of those troubles as well, minus the french one and the written down one.

Our policy is also one coupon per customer and then they tried getting smart and wanting us to ring up each order seperately so they could use more than one coupon. Luckily our manager/store owner put a stop to that little loophole and told us to tell them "One coupon per customer per visit."

we've not had this yet, surprisingly.

[taxguykarl]

SC: You racists....
Me: (The SC is white)

What is it with people immediately pulling the racist card.

This is simply a manipulation technique. The concept is to put the target on the defensive. Here's a video on that.

I must say, that last guy has got some BALLS!

Or like the dumb criminals we hear so much about, he honestly believed he could get away with it.

We all have coupon stories and discounts, but; your faker takes the cake.

[Dragon_Dreamer]

I had something similar today, actually.

Guy came up to my register at the pharmacy, with a cutout from one of our circulars. Buy a Gillette razor or 4 pack of blades at $9.99, get an $8 coupon. The cutout consisted of the ad itself (which apparently had been located at the bottom of the page), plus, for some reason, the entire bottom strip from the page it had been a part of, with all the disclaimers and random numbers.

... Except the 4 pack of blades were ringing up at $10.99, the ad was showing packaging last used a year ago, and I could not find the deal in the current circular *anywhere.*

SC: "But it doesn't have a date on it!"
Me: "Sir, I cannot honor a deal I can't verify. Is there a sign where you got this from?"
SC: "Why should there be, you'll take this right now!"
Me: "... Because all our *current* sales should have a tag in front of the item?"

I ended up getting a manager, who backed me completely in refusing to honor the "deal." The guy stomped out, less than happy to have had his little scam figured out.

[vloglady]

I agree with all of them, SC, except for the one in French. I get coupons frequently in Spanish. I don't read spanish, but if the coupon is published in your area, and in NY we get spanish coupons, the store really needs to accept it.

[MadMike]

Many of these coupons actually said "(c) 2002" when she tried to use them in 2004.

Someone tried to pass me some coupons once, that had expired years ago. This was in 1988, and one of the coupons had expired in 1986, and another in 1985. They were mixed in with a few that were valid, so I'm guessing she figured I wouldn't notice.

I didn't even say anything. I pretended to ring them in, but then just put them aside. After she left, I showed them to the other cashiers, and we all had a good laugh.

Maybe it was an attempt at the Jedi Mind Trick?

These aren't the subs you're looking for.

[RetailSlave]

Our Catalinas at our store have been printing out coupons for various amounts, such as $2.50 off a $25 purchase, $3.50 off a $35 purchase...some are as good as $5 off a $25 purchase. The coupons clearly state in large letters above the amount "Save on your next purchase of General Merchandise and Apparel" and below it it states all the exclusions (grocery, alcohol, tobacco, lottery, theme park and entertainment tickets, gift cards, gas station and C stops, Pet Food).
Well, people will load their cart up with groceries and then complain when the coupon doesn't come off.
One of our regular customers who comes in late in my 3rd shift on his way to work came in a couple of weeks ago. First, he had picked up a Monster energy drink. We had gotten about a dozen green Monsters with Spanish labels instead of English...the Spanish ones were not in the system, so we had to scan one of the regular cans. I went and got an English one from the cooler and explained to him that the others were in Spanish so I had to scan an English one to ring it up. He asked, "Is that other one cold?" I told him that it was and he said, "Well, then why don't you give me that one and send that other one back to Mexico where it belongs!" I took care of that (although the Spanish one was already in his bag so that was the one he got), then I cashed him out and a coupon printed out for the $3.50 off a $35 purchase. I commented that he got a good coupon and started to hand it to him. He said, "You can just throw that thing in the trash. I made a special trip in Saturday and picked up about $70 worth of stuff and brought it up to the register. The cashier told me I couldn't use it because most of what I had was grocery...she said, 'this is grocery, that is grocery' and by the time she was done I only had about $10 worth of general Merchandise so the coupon didn't apply. I told her to just forget it and give me back the rest of my coupons, but she went ahead and scanned them and threw them in her drawer, so I just walked out." I commented that you need to read the fine print, and he said rather snippily, "I don't have to do anything except tell you to throw that damn thing in the trash...and let me tell you, I have really cut down on what I buy from here since then"
We also have Epanels where the customer can call in and rate the store on several elements, plus leave comments. One gal called in last week and said, "I received a $5 off a $20 purchase coupon on a previous visit and I came in and picked out $40, no $43 worth of merchandise and went to the checkout. It was a lot of money but I figured, hey I am going to get $5 back. So I rang up my items and then the cashier told me that I couldn't use my coupon because I had mostly gotten groceries...then she pointed out in the itty bitty teeny tiny print that nobody looks at where it said that grocery was excluded. I was very upset..I feel like this is very deceptive and wrong. It is just bad, very very bad." The last bit sounded like she was scolding a misbehaving puppy.
I'm sorry, but you had that coupon in hand and had plenty of time to read it before you came to the store and plan accordingly. If you are too lazy or stupid to read the conditions of the offer before you come to the store, then it is your own damn fault...we can't be giving you the value of the coupon when it doesn't apply to your purchase and it is clearly stated on said coupon.
I told the cashier that was working with me that night, "From now on, all Meijer coupons will be 2 foot by 3 foot, so the 'fine print' will be big enough for everyone to read without squinting"

[Ironclad Alibi]

then she pointed out in the itty bitty teeny tiny print that nobody looks at where it said that grocery was excluded

The real suck here is with the coupon designer (or other corporate person) that put the limitations in fine print. While SCs may not read the coupon, at least make the limitations big enough to read along with the offer itself.

[RetailSlave]

As I said, the only way the coupon could have all the exclusions in large enough print is to have it be much bigger, and with a catalina coupon there are limitations on height and I don't think a customer would want a coupon that was 18 inches long to make the font the same size on the exclusions. They had the coupon in their possession, and it did state General Merchandise and Apparel in the larger letters. They had plenty of time to read it before they came in, they just don't want to be be bothered or they figure that if they plead ignorance we will go ahead and give it to them.